Good golly – down at 5:12, but come to find out everyone else is actually already in the bus! A quiet, dark ride to the airport, which is nonetheless a beehive of activity. Checked in, we retire to a coffee shop for a cup and a bowl of noodles. Movie time on the plane (because of the holiday, they use the PA system to have a holiday quiz and then select a random (un)lucky person to sing a holiday song).
Another van, another local guide, and we’re off to Old Lijiang. We learn a bit about the city: most popular city for tourists in China; 2,000 tourists in 1996 and now 15,000,000; 5 cars in 1996 and now 1,500,000; economy purely agricultural then and 80% from tourism now; 300,000 peasants moving from the countryside every year; and, like many cities so far, you can see more than 6 cranes working on high-rises that are being built to prepare for demand in the next 20 years (and they say the national bird of China is the construction crane).
The old area is very charming, and completely rebuilt (for tourists) after the big earthquake in 1996. Lots of the same stores with touristy kaka. Past all the neat stalls we enter a food market – and Valerie, I did you proud! What’s that? I’ll take one!
Ooh, that looks good; wrap it up!
and – what’s in that soup?
I did exercise what Delia Ephron’s husband has aptly named “discardia”. A bite and toss it away (unless really incredible). Some salads and things that look so damn nasty spicy/funky, that I totally know better. Just a fantasy for me of what all those sauces and chopped veggies might taste like.
We hike up through the passageways to a lookout point and easy to see the building boom and a sea of rooftops. Then back down the hill to lunch, some time to walk around and shop, then off to our hotel, which is a bit out of town. It’s a lovely resort and we are now free for the rest of the day! we are lucky to have a brief, not-quite-clear view of the breathtaking Jade Dragon Snow Mountain right out the back of a lovely hotel courtyard:
yay! A rain storm immediately breaks out, but who cares? I’m catching up on a couple days of the blog, washing some things in the sink and just chilling.
Stomachs are growling, so a ten minute walk up the road to the old town of Shuhe. We walk out of our resort, turn right, and head down the road as instructed. Easy, right? We get into town and don’t really see any restaurants. Lance tries asking about the Nomad Cafe, but the women try to get us to come and eat at their place. We wander up the road and through the local neighborhood. Each home seems to have a decorated set of entrance doors which open into a lovely courtyard filled with some variety of potted trees and bushes, etc. When it’s obvious we’re leaving out the other side, we turn back around to try again. I’m feeling a bit frustrated and tired (it’s been a long day!) and we decide, oh what the hell, let’s head down the dirt road, past the road work, and see what we see. We go about another block, and don’tcha know, but there are cute cobblestone streets, coffeehouses, inns, restaurants, etc etc. We start laughing as the street breaks open into more streets and more crowds and then are amazed at how much is back there that we couldn’t discern at all just minutes earlier. Getting dark, but we push on to see if we can find a restaurant we’d read about, and just checking options out. The further in we walk, the noisier and more neon we encounter. As we walk by one spot, I hear lots of dishes being cleared and turn abruptly into an alley to check out what’s going on. A restaurant with rooms on all sides of me, and even a second level, that is filled with Chinese young people, as well as those waiting for tables. But after watching for a few minutes, I realize that the menu is entirely in chinese, and the sanitary conditions don’t seem good. We continue on and see some nice, hipper spots with outdoor seating. In we go!
Seated upstairs on a balcony, with a view into the street scene. After a while, this doesn’t seem to be as much of an advantage as I originally thought, as several of the restaurants around us have live music and at times the cacophony sounds like a battle of the bands gone bad. In any event, we get quite a laugh out of trying to order a bottle of water, and picking from the color-photo menu. We finally select 3 items and enjoy the adventure. Food is interesting and one selection is oily once again, another (tofu) rather bland, but the 3rd is juuust right. And interesting looking lotus flower stuffed with ground meat and interesting spices, surrounded by steamed broccoli tops.
Filled, we head downstairs and try a new route home. Lance says he knows where he’s going, and it’s a good thing, because I’m so punch drunk tired from the early morning and looong day that I have to hang on to his arm as we go (that, and the fact that there are very uneven cobblestones paving the road). We indeed make it out of a long dark alley back at the end of the tree-lined pathway to the resort. And again a good thing that I have his arm, because I am laughing frequently and harder all the time. As we head through the resort courtyard, I am just about falling to the ground. Anyone who knows me well has probably witnessed this silliness. Get yourself to bed, young lady!….and I do.