Travels: Round One

Pictures (Sorry if they don't show up in order)

1. Lijiang, on the way to Baisha

2. Lijiang, Women in Naxi clothing

3. Lijiang, in Baisha. Is any further explanation necessary?

4. Lijiang, lanterns. I think I'm obsessed.


5. Lijiang, the sea of rooves (that is, Old Town)

6. Dali, fields of rapeseed

7. Dali, atop the ancient city walls, with one of the Three Pagodas in the background

8. Kunming, Bamboo Temple, close-up of a surfing Buddha (on the far left)


9. Kunming, Bamboo Temple, a random pavilion with more surfing Buddhas on top

10. Kunming, Western Hill

11. Kunming, Western Hill

12. Kunming, Bird and Flower Market


13. Kunming lights

14. Our merry band of travelers, from left to right: Liz, Mario, Shay, Traci, and I












This threatens to be a little out of order chronologically, but a lot has happened in the past week, so bear with me.

So I just got back from a week-long trip! Five of us from my program all went to Yunnan province, which is south of Sichuan. Our merry little group consisted of Mario, Liz, Traci, Shay, and I. We had three planned stops in Yunnan: Lijiang, Dali, and Kunming.

We arrived in Lijiang on our first night. As we came out of the airport, I knew immediately we had made the right decision coming to Yunnan. A mere glance skyward and we were all awestruck by the celestial vision above. A myriad of stars met our eyes; not just a few paltry ones, but more stars than I had seen since I was in Yosemite last March. I’d forgotten how nice it was to see them! They don’t shine in Chengdu, thanks to the impenetrable cloud-cover. In fact, I had become so accustomed to the starless nights that it hadn’t even occurred to me to look up – it was Liz that alerted us all to the sky situation.

The next morning my conviction was irrevocably affirmed. I woke up, breathed deeply, and tasted the sweet, pollution-free air. It was clean and fresh – it didn’t give the impression of inhaling grit like it does in Chengdu. That morning we noticed that the city was lined with streams, with water clean and healthy enough to support fish and plants. In Chengdu, the nearest water to my apartment is a dangerous, murky turquoise, and the only thing it supports is a putrid odor.

And the sun – oh, the sun! And the sky! The sun was so bright and wonderful. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to feel the heat of the sun on my face. And the sky was the most magnificent blue. It was such a delight to look up and actually be able to see that beautiful cerulean instead of clouds and gray and smog. In fact, I enjoyed the sun a little too much, and my face is still peeling the aftereffects. On top of that, we were surrounded by mountains – and we could see them. Theoretically Chengdu is also surrounded by mountains, but, well, it might as well not be, because we’ve never seen then. We unanimously decided that we would rather be studying in Lijiang than Chengdu. No surprise there!

The old town in Lijiang was wonderful. It had so much character! The local minority in Lijiang is called the Naxi, and the older people walked around in Naxi clothing all the time. The streets were lined in cobblestones and the original architecture was disturbed nowhere by modern-looking monstrosities.

Our main activities in Lijiang consisted of walking and biking. One day we biked all the way out of Lijiang to Baisha, a gucheng (ancient town). We even made a Chinese friend for a day, Nicole, who came with us.

One of the nice things about Lijiang was that it had plenty of distinctive food to try. One of the local specialties is called baba, which is like a thick pancake with some sort of filling on the inside. The kind I got was quite sweet and made a good snack. Another regional dish is Across-the-Bridge noodles, which is kind of like hotpot (refer to the disastrous expedition described earlier if you don’t know what hotpot is) except that it’s personal-sized and not as spicy.

I’m going to try and zoom here a little bit to keep this post from getting out of hand.

Dali was a bit unremarkable. The most exciting thing we did was rent bikes for ten kuai and go out exploring. Mario, Liz and I ended up cutting through fields filled with rapeseed and being invited in by some of the locals.

Kunming had its ups and downs. We initially decided to go there because we heard it was warm enough to be outside in a t-shirt. Our first day in Kunming, however, saw rain, fog, and weather cold enough that you could see your breath. So of course we were all out in our winters coats. T-shirts? Ha! And that day we were touring, which meant our touring experiences were hideously sub-par. In lieu of the weather, we still managed to see the Bamboo Temple, Western Hill, and Ethnic Village.

Bamboo Temple first. This temple is renowned for its numerous “surfing Buddhas” – that is, carvings of the Buddha surfing the waves of the temple on the backs of various animals. Western Hill is supposed to be gorgeous, with commanding views of the lake below. However, like I said, it was foggy, so it didn’t quite work out. As for the last of the three, we all thought Ethnic Village was going to be a real Ethnic Village. It turns out we were quite wrong. It was more like an Ethnic Disneyland.

Regardless of our suboptimal first day in Kunming, the second day was lovely. It was sunny and warm enough that I only required a light sweater. We spent a large part of the day in the Bird and Flower Market, which sells everything from cats and dogs to model airplanes made out of gun shells. At least it can be said that we certainly got our fill of souvenirs!

And with that, I end this travel post. We returned to Chengdu, depressed though moderately well-traveled, without incident. I guess it's back to school and real life now!