Lijiang Day 1-2
Trip Start
Jan 05, 2009
1
11
12
Trip End
Jan 26, 2009
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Lijiang,
Yunnan,
China
Monday, January 19, 2009
here in Lijiang. Lijiang is like the Williamsburg of China. It is really unique
and quaint, and I am so excited that we get to spend so much time here. We had
a day of traveling from Lhasa to Chengdu then to Lijiang, and we didn't get in
until late Saturday night. Sunday morning we had a free morning, so Christie
and I woke up to take pictures and venture a little bit in town. Lijiang is
much more traditional than Beijing, or Xian. Lijiang is in the Yunnan Province,
and it looks like old China. The streets are cobblestone, there is a waterway
that runs throughout the town. No cars can drive in the old part of town, so
upon arriving on Saturday night we actually had to walk about 10 minutes to our
hotel, which by the way is adorable. On our morning free, Christie and I took
some time to get some good pictures of the town, we shopped a little bit too -
we found these wooden ornaments with Naxi (a minority group in Lijiang) symbols
on it. I bought three, one means "I love you", another means "Happiness
throughout life" and another one means "I will always be by your side". They
are pink and green and so cute! The Naxi written language is pictograms, so the
ornaments are really interesting. Definitely one of my favorite buys so far.
After that we found a coffee shop. Coffee in China is nothing like American
coffee. This coffee needed about 5 sugar cubes and half a gallon of milk to
taste remotely like normal coffee. It is so strong here. It was a lot of fun
walking around the city by ourselves. After our adventure we came back to the
hotel, got our things together and met the group for lunch. I love sitting at
Honglins (Dr. Xiao) table at meals, especially when there is fish. Chinese
people love to eat the fish brains and other things in the fish's head. Honglin
is a champion at chopsticks, since he is from China, but there is nothing like
his picking apart of a fish head. After lunch we went to the Black Dragon Pool.
It was absolutely beautiful. We walked around and enjoyed the view of the Jade
Dragon Snow Mountain. We visited the Dongba museum, which focuses on the Dongba
culture of the Naxi people. Dongba means "wise man" and we were able to meet
one of these prominent figures in Naxi culture at the museum. After leaving the
museum, we went back to the old part of Lijiang and climbed to the top of a
temple to get a bird's eye view of the city, and toured the residential section
of the city. It was a great first day in Lijiang, the history and culture of this
region is endless. This morning we got up VERY early. We left the hotel at 7:30
to travel to the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain Park. The first thing we did was
take a lift up to the top of the mountain to the Glacier Park (For those of you
familiar with my extreme fear of heights, let me just say, this was one of the
most difficult and scary things I've ever done). The top of the mountain is
about 17,000 feet above sea-level and there is snow and glaciers all year long.
It was incredible to climb to the top of the glacier park. The view was
amazing, all you could see were mountains and mountains, and more mountains. After
coming back down the chair lift (which it was enclosed, which made it better,
but I'm telling you, it was high.....really high and really steep!) we had lunch
at a little restaurant in the park, and then took a little drive to the Black
Dragon River to get a good view of the mountain and a few people in the group
dressed up in costumes and road yaks. Not going to lie, it was a pretty
exciting. We went to a local village where Naxi people live and saw a historic
temple with murals from centuries ago. While a lot of the religious images
where destroyed in the cultural revolution, the murals were protected because
local villagers posted newspapers with Mao's picture over top of it, and the
army was unable to destroy the images, despite the fact that they knew the
murals were behind the newspaper. After the Naxi village, we went to a tea
house in the old part of Lijiang. It is a very famous tea house in this city.
We sampled a bunch of different teas, and learned a lot about tea culture in
this region of China. Christie and I had lunch in a cute little pizza place
with Dr. Crowe. We shopped around a little bit, and just enjoyed the atmosphere
in Lijiang. Enjoy the pictures, there are some beautiful ones!
Love
Anna
