Thursday we are in Lijiang, northwest of Kunming. It's still cold. I'd expected it to be warmer since we're so far south. We walked around the Black Dragon Pool Park and walked through the old town. The streets are paved with big rectangular stones with a small canal with clear water running down the side. Often, because the stones are so old, they were shiny from being walked on so much.
On one street a man was standing outside his gate, as we looked in at his courtyard he invited us in. All 36 of us. His 84 year old mother came out to greet us and he offered us candy and oranges. In the middle of the courtyard was a cinder block pig sty with 3 pigs in it. In the corner was a corral with a few more pigs in it. There wasn't any pig smell. Their house and yard were pretty with beautiful wooden gates. Just down the street an 85 year old woman was working in her garden. She was widowed and lived with her son and daughter-in-law and two grandchildren in a stone and mud-block house. I love the old people. They are so withered and yet so agile.
Here we visited an embroidery school. They have always been well-known for their beautiful embroidery but it hasn't been kept up by the younger people, so now they're trying to carry it on. It was truly beautiful. They use very fine silk thread. Ernie bought a picture and I bought a scarf. It was just pretty!
We also visited a flower mart with fake and real flowers. I wished I could have bought some.
We enjoyed a hot pot for dinner. At another dinner I was digging down in the soup to get some vegetables and I scooped up a whole fish. He was looking me in the eye. They claimed that the broth was good for you, but you were not to eat the fish. Everything in China has a good purpose for your health.
Friday we took a long bus ride to Dali. On the way we made a bathroom stop. You had to pay 10 yuan ($.16) to use the bathroom which was a trough with waist-high partitions. I didn't have to use it. Dali was very nice. Our hotel had lots of character with flowers growing all around. Because we were so far south there was lots of foliage. Tianjin is very dry and dirty and everything is covered in concrete.
On our first evening in Dali we again noticed the cobbled streets with a small canal, maybe a foot wide, flowing down the side. We also noticed a girl, about nine years old, going to the bathroom in the canal. The next day we watched a woman wash her hands in the canal and later another little girl used it for a toilet. Then we saw a woman with produce to sell, washing her produce in the canal! It's China!
Saturday we visited the Three Pagodas. Very big and very gold and about 10 million steps to the top of the temple area. We didn't make it to the top, but almost. We also visited a marble factory. They cut the marble in slabs and the shading and whirls look like mountains and trees. It's really pretty, but very heavy; not conducive to hauling it home.
As we were walking down a street in the town a man came up to me and pointed to my shoes. They are splitting on the side and the shoe man on our street went on vacation. This man wanted to sew my shoes so we agreed, but we didn't agree on a price. He sewed both sides, glued the sole on one side, added some more sole to the heel and glued it and polished my shoe, and then he did the other shoe! When he was done he asked for 120 yuan. Dad gave him 100 yuan ($15.50) These shoes better last another 5 months!
We had a tasty lunch in Dali and later we found a restaurant that advertised brownies! We went there for dinner and ordered our dessert the same time as our entree. They brought our dessert first. It was a square of warm chocolate cake with ice cream! Yum!!
We had to get up at 5:30 Saturday morning to get to the airport and go to Kunming from there our group separated to fly to their own airports. We had a four hour layover and a four hour flight. When are flight was boarding there was a tour group of about 30 indigenous people. They were short and dark skinned. They had obviously never been on an airplane before. When the plane took off there was a collective "ah-h-h-" from the back of the plane, and when we hit some turbulence there was another collective "ah-h-h" from the back of the plane. They were very glad to get off.
Our flight wasn't non-stop and when we stopped everyone had to get off the plane. They gave you a ticket and then the cleaning crew went to work and 15 min. later those of us who were continuing on got back on the plane again.
Somethings that happen in China would just never work in the U.S., but they're coming along.
It was nice to get home. Even our hard bed was welcoming.
On Wednesday we went to Beijing to listen to a Beijing China International District Devotional with Elder Dallin H. Oaks, quorum of the Twelve Apostles. We went early to do some more shopping. We stayed with Steven and Alice Quan and their two daughters, Sarah and Emily. Steven works for the U.S. embassy and they live in embassy housing on the 19th floor. I told Alice her apartment is like a castle and she is like the queen. It's very different than our humble abode! It was a great devotional.
We spent the night, had lunch with Paula And Wynn Ferrell at Peter's Tex-Mex and came home.
We have another week of vacation and school starts Feb.27th. I'm looking forward to it. We'll be on the downhill slide!
XXOO Mom
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