Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Lijiang - Day 1

Brian and I had a half day left in Beijing and it was pouring down rain, so we decided to go to shopping at the Silk Market before we headed to the airport due to it pouring down rain. The Silk Market is a big knock off market, but they also have really nice jewelry and nice Chinese-type gifts. We had a nice shopping trip except for the overly aggressive shop owners. Brian was able to get great gifts and I actually collected quite a few gifts to give as birthday gifts for my friends back in Chengdu (It is slim pickings for these types of things in the Du.).

We headed to the airport for our 3 1/2 hour flight to Lijiang. It was a fairly uneventful flight and we arrived safe and sound in Lijiang. It was much cooler in Lijiang that in Beijing and we were still dressed in our summer clothes. We took a taxi from the airport and were dropped off on the street with 5 bags between us and waited for someone to come and help us with our bags as we weren't exactly sure while we were being dropped off on the street. Two men came and gave us the business card of the hotel and grabbed our bags. It was about a 400 meter walk to the hotel and I was sure glad I didn't have to carry my bags on the old cobblestone street with a step here and there. We arrived at the hotel and were pleasantly surprised. The hotel was beautiful with gorgeous Chinese antique furniture and nice clean rooms. Brian took the room downstairs while I took the room upstairs for my family. Here is the view I saw from outside our room.

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It was so beautiful! When I moved to China this is what I thought all of China would look like. Unfortunately that isn't the case.

Brian and I got settled and headed for a bite to eat while we waited for Jonny and the kids to arrive around 10 pm. We found this Belgian Cafe with fabulous Chinese food and sat and waited for Jonny to call. Jonny and I must have got our wires crossed because they were already at the hotel when we got back from dinner. The kids fell asleep on the plane just as they landed in Lijiang and slept all the way into town in the taxi.

Jonny had his hands full with the two kids, so they were kind enough to send a rickshaw to pick them up. Here is a picture of Angus sound asleep in the back of the rickshaw.


angus_sleeping_rickshaw_1

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I must say Kim, reading your blog is far superior than subscribing to any travel magazine. keep up the good work, I envy you so much. Love, Jean