Now having read in the Lonely Planet Tibet I had an idea of what would be cool places to visit in Tibet, it was time to see what the travel agent had answered about permits and give her more detailed information about my itinerary. The mail had bounced, not so good. I instead called her and she texted me her mail, apparently there was typo in the mail from Mathias. I sent her a new mail with two example itineraries stolen from tibet-travels.com (thanks for the tip Lotta). It seems like I could have prepared this quite some time ago to be on the safe side, but where would the challenge and uncertainty be then?

We had brunch at Hatsume, a japanese restaurant that Alex had recommended for their excellent maki rolls. It was yet another nice japanese restaurant and we tried some of the different rolls. They were really nice, not necessary to the quality of the ingredients but rather the compositions. In addition one just have to try a roll named ninja if able.

Laura then wanted to visit, *drumroll* a market *cymbal* near the Beijing Zoo, Ulf and I figured they might have some parks nearby so we joined her. We thought of the Zoo but I’m kind of against the idea of caging animals in the first place and after reading that the Beijing Zoo was worse than most (except for pandas who got a decent treatment) we ditched that idea. Instead a short market-visit and some old school lounging in a park with the elders and enjoying the Beijing sun. This was another beautiful day and I think that we might been a bit too harsh on previous judgements regarding Beijing.

It seemed that my travel agent had managed to do some bookings for me now, I made some minor changes (who needs a soft sleeper for a 48 hours trip when there is a cheaper hard one?) and will get news tomorrow if she manages to book me the train ticket. If so, I leave for Lhasa via the newly built railway above the permafrost on saturday night.

We had a snack at a fast food chain previously neglected by me, KFC. I got myself a mexican twister and an ice cream, this was about 1.5 € and didn’t taste that bad at all. Ulf got some nuggets though which I could tell from the taste was pure unhealthiness and probably never originated from a living animal, least not chicken.

The last market for the day was a tour back to the black market, Ulf and I needed new bags for our cameras now when we had our sexy 18-200 OS lenses. Said and done, at least that’s what we thought. The driver dropped us at another market, Laura stayed while Ulf and I scouted for the familiar foul stench and entryway to the black market. We found it quite quick and managed to snag two bags about 3 € each, awesome.

Back at the hostel, it was time for some blogging before dinner which we had at Pink Loft. It’s a shame to eat somewhere twice but it was really nice and rather cheap so we figured it would be ok. The night was finished by cozily watching a film. Uffe having the laptop on his belly, Laura and me on each side. Not exactly my projector, surround system and lovely sofa but at least I’m still on vacation in China.