Beautiful Lijiang….aka What I thought China would look like before moving here

This is part of the out-of-order blog posts from the Stader's visit this past June.

13 June 2014 –

It's FRIDAY!!!  Woo hoooooo!!!  It's also, technically, the last day of school….however the girls will be missing school today because we're heading to LIJIANG with the Stader family.  

Lijiang is located in southern China and it has an Old Town that is absolutely charming and quaint.  In fact, the Old Town of Lijiang is listed as a World Heritage Center with UNESCO.  

We chose to visit Lijiang with our friends for several reasons: 1) we wanted to show them both northern AND southern China in a short amount of time and 2) we've had several friends rave about their trips to the area.  It was a natural choice for us!

Out of all the crazy things we've experience here….this is a new one for us: our flights were ON TIME….and even (gulp!) a little bit early in some cases.  Just when you think you know a place it changes on you! LOL!  I don't mind that kind of change though.  

The ride from the airport to our hotel…three cheerful travelers!:

And…just FYI- Mark will be joining us for the Lijiang leg of this trip.  He'll fly back to Tianjin on Sunday while the rest of us fly onwards to Xi'an.

 

 

 

Now entering the Dongba Hotel threshold…

Dongba Hotel in the Old Town..

Check out the gorgeous wood panelling!

A view from the second floor:

Here's our room:

We got four rooms total between our two families – that way everyone had a place to sleep (although some of the kids ended up sleeping on small sofas in the rooms.  Mark and I got two rooms downstairs and the Staders got two rooms upstairs.

 

 This looks like an open-air tea room. The hotel has an open, central courtyard with several open-air communal "rooms".

 

Eric and Dani:

Heading out to explore the Old Town:

Pretty flowers:

 

Hahaha!!!!  The minions are posing with a Minion!

That looks safe….not!:

In search of food and trying to stay dry we found this restaurant on one of the main street corners close to our hotel.  We found it in the knick of time too as the heavens opened up and it started to rain.  

The Kid Table:

A quick look at the menu.  Pork intestines, anyone?

Bamboo worms???  Say whaaaat????
I can't remember all the interesting dishes we ended up choosing but there were LOTS of yummy ones to choose from (we ended up ordering waaaaaay too much food, as it frequently happens when one orders when you're tummy is hungry!):

My sweetie:

Dani and Eric (they're quite the Chopstick Champions!):

Oh boy….

The table next to us filled up with these young Chinese ladies….and – this still seems really odd to me even after two plus years of living here – they wanted their photos taken with our girls.  We usually decline or refuse but since they did ask sweetly and kindly we allowed them to take photos with our girls.  Weird, huh?:

Rats!

We thought we could out-run the rain but – WE WERE WRONG!!!!  We found shelter under the eave of one of the near-by buildings:

So…when the weather says it *might* rain…PAY ATTENTION!  Bring rain jackets!  Bring umbrellas!  Bring appropriate clothing!  LOL!!!  

Mark, is it still raining?  Yes??? Well, at least we've got a roof over our heads!

I think our beds are calling us!  

So…

Here's a wee bit of a mix-up in the blog posts – Saturday morning we went on the Tiger Leaping Gorge mini-adventure which I've already posted.

Let's just proceed with Sunday, shall we?  The kids got up at 8am – which is a normal time to get up, right?  So it's a little infuriating that the hotel manager asked us to be quiet WHEN the evening before the other guests were LOUD and up until the wee hours of the morning.  What the heck????  We're up at a normal time…and the poster in the hotel even mentions that breakfast is served between 8am and 10am how can they ask us to be quiet?  We're not even being noisy!  We're just chatting and talking in a normal voice.  Crazy, right???  

After a breakfast provided at the hotel we went out for a quick stroll around the old town.  There are a few things listed in our guide book as places to see plus we got recommendations from our visits who visited here last year.  Let's see if we can go find one of these sights before Mark has to leave us.  He has to fly back to Tianjin today – and we'll fly to Xi'an this evening.  

 Walking around the Old Market Square…and seeing all the shops, restaurants, and….all the other TOURISTS!!!!

waiting ….for the internet….hello internet!  Where are you??? Having a wee bit of trouble posting photos today.

These are little pools – I think perhaps these may (or may NOT) be where locals used to wash their clothes and their veggies.

In the Lonely Planet guidebook it mentions that there are three pools: one for drinking, one for washing clothes and one for washing veggies.   Eric and I are trying to figure out which way to go – we'd like to make it to the top of Lion Hill for a view of the town. With all the winding, narrow roads and alleys it's a little tricky to find the straight path (ha!  That's a joke!) to the hill. 

Well, we made it to the top of Lion Hill.  Hmmm…I thought the lady at the hotel said that the entry fee we paid for the Old Town (we paid it along with our hotel fees) included entry into Lion Hill.  Hmmm…the gate guard says no.  Well, shoot.  I'm not up for paying more money and neither are the Staders.  It's a nice view for sure!  It's time to head back to the hotel…Mark has a plane to catch! (but shouldn't we eat some lunch beforehand???)

We spotted a coffee shop…We're having lattes made. 

And those lattes seem to be taking forever to make!  We're just hanging out in their cafe.

Pretty railing!

"Love wine and half"….????  

Are $10 lattes are done!  That's a VERY pricey coffee drink!!  (and in such a small cup too).  Naturally we had to take a photo of these expensive drinks!

Souvenir shopping:

Lunch!  Fried potatos on a stick:

And everything else fried on a stick….bugs, miscellaneous random small animals, whole birds, and a few actual edible food-like items on a stick:

Check out these interesting walls (I'm wondering …could these be some of the frescoes that are mentioned in the guide book?  Not sure but aren't they cool???):

Mark is off and heading to the airport.  Good luck!

We're back on the foot paths…this time in search of Black Dragon Pool.  Let's go!

We found Black Dragon Pool!  This park is quite picturesque:

 

What's the opposite of recycling?  Unrecycling of course!

Let the grass sleep!  Don't you know it partied too hard last night????

We wouldn't want careless drowning, would we?

"The seat of our position"???? Sooooo….what do you suppose that's referring to?  Oh wait, I know!  It's the "you are here" on the map, right???

The kids exercising at the park:

A water wheel in the middle of the old town:

Check out the lady weaving on her loom.  I think I'll buy a few beautiful woven scarves!

And…

it started to rain.  Like God had turned on a faucet – it started to rain.  And RAIN!!!  We ducked into this little tea shop.  While we waited out the rain storm the tea shop proprietors served up different kinds of tea for us to try!

Check out all the lovely tea varieties!

Thank you, tea shop!  We did buy several kinds of tea and after the rain we were on our way.
Time to head back to the hotel, gather our belongings, and head to the airport. We're flying to Xi'an!

Yeah….and you remember me mentioning that Mark was heading back to Tianjin several hours before our flight???  Well, due to the recent rain storms his flight is delayed.  And delayed.  And delayed some more.  We even got to eat dinner with him at the airport.  In fact, we left BEFORE he did!  Our flight was on time.  Isn't that nuts???  He finally made it home…at around 2am.  Poor Mark!!!