Emei Shan

After our few days in Lijiang we returned to home to spend a semi-relaxing week-end in the 'Du. We spent most of our time at the Shamrock having a few drinks and introducing Brian to our friends. On Sunday Jonny and Brian left me and the kids to take an overnight trip to Emei Shan. They left for Emei Shan in the afternoon and took the cable car to the top. There is a hotel at the top and they stayed the night there.

When the woke up the next morning they hiked all the way to the bottom. Since I wasn't with them, not too much commentary, just lots of beautiful pictures!



Sunrise



Early morning at Emei Shan


















Jonny with a big gold Buddha statue in the background.



Brian with the same background. They both look very cold!









People giving incense offerings.

Here are some photos of their hike down the mountain.







There were monkeys everywhere!



And very lazy people!



There were also mules hauling huge loads of steel bars and construction materials to the top of the mountain. Poor things!

Zen Garden

I have to give our hotel a bit of a plug. I checked out the hotel reviews for Lijiang on Trip Advisor, my bible of travel and found a little gem called Zen Garden. We paid a whole whopping $50 per night for this great little place right in the heart of Old Town Lijiang. It was decorated nicely with gorgeous Chinese antiques.



Here is the entrance. They had lots of great plants all around the hotel too!



They had a nice tea room.



Some of the great antiques.



More furniture.



Gemma and Angus on an opium bed.



The back courtyard.



Our room was up here and we had a great view of the entire Old Town.

If you ever get a chance to make it to Lijiang I highly recommend this great place with a fantastic location.

Yulong Xue Shan

After incredible performance of Impressions Lijiang we headed up to the top of Yulong Xue Shan. We took a ski lift to the top and we were up in the clouds with the snow in the mountains.



Unfortunately their were tons of clouds, so we couldn't see the top peak.

The kids were excited to see snow and this was actually Angus first time to see snow! He was quite excited as you can see.

Here we are going on our first family sled ride!



Here is a picture of us 4,506 meters high!

I am happy to report that none of us had altitude sickness and I am looking forward to taking the kids a little higher on our next trip exploring China.

Impressions Lijiang

On the previous day as we were walking around the old town we found a guide for our trip to Yulong Xue Shan (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain). We did a bit of touring around a temple with frescoes. Frescoes were mural paintings which reflect different religious cultures and artistic forms of Buddhism, Lamaism, and Daoism and the Naxi Dongba religion. I have to say that the temple with frescoes we visited was a disappointment. They had been pretty much been defaced during the Cultural Revaluation, so there wasn't too much to see.

Our guide was another story. I don't think we did a very good job in that department, as we just hired a guy off the street. Everything seemed to be fine until he suggested we go to lunch at this place on the way to the Snow Mountain. It was a little hole in the wall place, we order about 4 bottles of water, some steamed rice, and 5 different dishes. Usually in a Chinese restaurant this will cost you a merely 60 rmb, but they charged us 140 rmb! I know it isn't much money in US dollars, but I really get upset when Westerners are charged Western prices. I am sure our guide got a cut for bringing us to the restaurant too!

After our lunch we headed to see Zhang Yimou's production called Impressions Lijiang. Zhang Yimou is a famous Chinese director known in the US for the movies House of Flying Daggers and Hero. If you haven't seen either of these movies and if your feeling up to subtitles these are beautiful movies filled with passion and action! Impressions Lijiang is performed in an outdoor theater with Yulong Xue Shan as the backdrop for the play. I have to say that the performance was the highlight of Lijiang for me! There were 500 actors and 300 horses in this performance and it was just perfect! If you have ever seen any of Zhang Yimou's movies than you could imagine how incredibly choreographed the show was. Unfortunately I am not entirely sure of what the show was about. I know it had to with 10 of the minority and ethnic races in and around Lijiang including Yi, Musou, Naxi, Tibetan, etc. We had a program printed in English but in true Chinese translation fashion it didn't exactly make that much sense to me. It really didn't matter to me though as too me it was an incredible work of art! Here are a few pictures and video clips of the performance.

The actors in their native dress.





After the performance we had our photos taken with some of the cast in their beautiful dresses.

Back to Blogging...

After a bit of a hiatus and hectic travel schedule I decided to sit down in front of my computer and pick up where I left off. Unfortunately I noticed I wasn't able to view my photos from my Flickr site. When I asked the website for help I found out that since June 7th most of the users in China were unable to see their photos. The other thing that put me off blogging was that I once again am unable to read my own blog without going through a proxy server. This is very frustrating to me! Anyway, I have found another site to host my pictures called Drop Shots until China decides to let everyone see the Flickr photos again. I should be up and running by tomorrow!!!

Old Town Lijiang and Black Dragon Pool

Here is the Old Town view from our room in the daylight.

We decided not to have a plan on our first day. We wondered around the Old Town checking out all of the shops and people and making plans for the rest of our time in Lijiang.



We were just leaving the hotel and Brian insisted on having a group photo on this rickshaw!

We had breakfast at the little Belgian Cafe Brian and I discovered the night before and then decided we would hit the local wet market. Here are some pictures from our lovely shopping experience.



Large bags of spices!



I have actually never seen this in China. It is an actual pig’s leg!



Stacks of pigs legs!



The fish part of the market. It was very smelly!



The vegetable part of the market! My favorite!



Gemma was fed up after the market and just wanted to rest. Gemma squatting Chinese-style!

After the market we just strolled around old town taking in the beautifully restored old architecture. (There was an earthquake 1996.) Here are some of the snap shots of the Old Town.

The winner for the best name for an Irish Pub, "Sexy Tractor"! Didn't you know that was my pet name for Jonny!

One of the minority people in Lijiang are the Naxi and one of the branches of the Naxi are the Mosou Ethnic People. This is a Mosou girl with her loom weaving scarves and shawls. They are absolutely beautiful and I am the proud owner of a turquoise and brown scarf!

There was a stream that went through the Old Town and it was incredibly clean. Most rivers and streams I have seen in China are extremely dirty.

Naxi women dancing in the square.

At one end of the Old Town there the popular tourist destination of Black Dragon Pool or Heilongtan. It was quite a beautiful park with a lovely view of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain or Yulong Xue Shan. Here are some pictures from our visit.



Here we are just as you walk into the park.

Black Dragon Pool with a view of Jade Dragon Mountain in the background. Unfortunately you cannot see the top due to cloud cover.

Any touristy place in China they have some type of gimmick where you can have your photo taken. It was quite funny there were two peacocks sitting on a chair and Gemma didn't realize they were real. She went up and touched one of their tail feathers and was so frightened when the peacock moved. I think peacocks are one of the most gorgeous birds in the world and I love to stop and look at them when they are about. For 10 rmb I could have my photo with one.

The kids were very curious!

Another funny story, Brian didn't realize that if he paid the 10 rmb that he would have to hold the monkey and have his photo taken. I am not sure what he was thinking, but he went with it.

I just loved this picture of the bridge. I believe it was Brian's photography.

Angus and Gemma sitting on a couple of lions.



My favorite picture of the bridge.

After our day of sightseeing and a little shopping we had a nice dinner at the Belgian Cafe and went back to the hotel and put the kids to bed. There were chairs and table outside our room, so we sat outside, drank a few beers and caught up more with Brian.