Day 10 - Lijiang Old Town

Today we had a late start as we had a restless night last night. Our hotel room is just amazing but it was extremely hot in here. We both woke at 1am and tried every setting on the air-con and thought we had it figured and went to sleep. Didn't get a lot though as when we woke in the morning it was just as hot. Luckily the settings are fixed as the cleaner helped us and we are now comfortable.

We had our first breakfast this morning, again not as good as Beijing but still nice. We went back to our room, had the best showers ever in the best hotel bathroom we have ever seen and we were off for our days adventures. As no-one speaks English and there are no English signs we just headed down the road to the old town which we thought was a single street but is in fact a whole town off the main road. It is all brick roads with tiny little food stalls, mini restaurants - literally seats one table of people and lots of other shopping. We walked for ages and stumbled across a market, mostly for food. It was HUGE and very busy. We were a little unsure if we would be safe eating any of it so only bought some wrapped lollies which we haven't tried yet. We then found a restaurant area, picked the busiest one and got a great table along side a sort of river/canal. Was very pretty. We got Yunnan Noodles and only ate the noodles, yet again there was raw meat in it and not really our type of food! The water flows alongside every street in the old town. People wash their hair, food and clothes in the water - it was interesting to watch and we got some photo's and videos. There are also a million dogs walking the streets. I would hazard a guess to say that every single store had it's own dog and in saying that it's own little child. There were little children everywhere and they all seemed the same age - it was very strange. We also got a snack which we watched being made, it was a small ball like a doughnut filled with hazelnut and we think red bean paste. At the time it looked like chocolate until we ate it. They were ok though and we had a couple each. We also both bought a bracelet - matching - and I also got a scarfe - so much cheaper than the markets in Beijing and we bartered hard for those - oh well...

After walking the streets for hours we were lost, the streets are like a maze - they all run off each other and there are many different ones to take. They have signs up all over the place saying 'You Are Here' but didn't show any of the main streets and was all based on North, south, East and West and we didnt know which direction any were. We eventually made it out and back to the hotel for a rest. It is very tiring walking around Lijiang as it's at such a high altitude. We have noticed our hands have swelled and our rings really tight. I guess this is also the altitude.

After a rest we headed in the opposite direction of the old town into the main street. We both bought a new sim card for our mobile phones - again no-one spoke English, and also got some snacks at a supermarket. We didnt see any big restaurants on our travels so decided to have dinner at the Crown Plaza. Well did we eat like pigs again, this is what we had:

* Steamed Rice. We ordered 2 and they only bought out 1. When we said we wanted 2, the waitress went away and spooned half into another bowl - haha, I am laughing writing this, it was really funny - how cheap must we have looked. We ended up ordering another during our meal too.
* Rice Noodles with Garlic or should I say Garlic with noodles - we are both oozing garlic right now - lucky for you Daniel you are not having to endure it.
* Hot & Sour Potatoe - not what we expected but nice enough, it was just thinly sliced potatoe in a sauce with some green chilli and ginger.
* Fried Diced Chicken with Dried Chilli, on the menu it had it as extremely hot so we asked for less chilli. When it came out the waitress explained it had less chilli as requested and oh my god, it was a plate of Chilli with a little chicken. We obviously only ate the chicken which were mini pieces (5 cent coin size) and each piece had a bone so there really wasn't any meat.
*String beans & minced pork. This was suprisingly nice as it was actually green beans which were grilled i think, with minced pork and heaps of tea leaves. They have a lot of tea leaves in the food on the menu, very interesting...
* Jasmin Tea

We ate all we could but couldnt eat anymore as we thought the dishes would be small as they were cheap and we were at a hotel. They were in fact huge and we really orderred double what we should have. We had our own dedicated waitress and boy was she dedicated. Unfortunately for me she was standing facing me about 2 metres away and watched us the entire time, rarely taking her eye off us. Everytime we had a sip of tea she re-filled our cups, if you went to serve yourself food she was there. At one point Tam dropped a chopstick but it still landed on the table, she flew over and took the chopsticks and gave new ones. It was hillarious. All up for rice, 4 HUGE dishes and tea, we spent $177￥/$32AU in total. So cheaps and really we only needed a portion of that food! We have decided to go back there tomorrow night and try some different dishes as they are very authentic Chinese for the area and we cant find anywhere else that we would be safe eating at. I have already informed Tam that she will be facing the waitress tomorrow night! haha

For now we are resting in our room and are still considering room service to get chocolate cake and cheesecake - we are so bad....haha

Gan Bei (Cheers)

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