Sleepy Lijiang and the Black Dragon Pool

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I arrived at 6am only to discover my hostel didn't open its doors until 8am. After 25hours on a train, then 10 on a sleeper bus, while carrying all my things, this was not the greeting I was hoping for.

I wandered around the town a bit, glad my pack is small and fairly lightweight. There were only a few people out yet, mostly grandparents walking their grandkids to school. At 8am I was at my hostel and Ken was waiting for me, surprised I was there already. Surprise!

For the day we set out to see the Black Dragon Pool. It's a park in another section of the town with amazing views of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. The price to get in was a bit steep, and we discovered later how we could have gotten in for free. But the views of the mountain reflecting off of the lake with the clouds circling were so amazing neither of us could stop snapping photos! Just when we'd thought "hey, this one is great!" an even better opportunity would present itself.

By the time we left we had both gotten a bit more sun that anticipated. We went hat shopping after dinner so that we wouldn't burn on the trail in the gorge. By this time, it was no longer sleepy! All the shops were open, selling the same stuff as the one 3 down from it. The tourists--Chinese, Western, Japanese, and Korean--were flocking to the stalls like kids to a candy store.

After dinner we went with some people from our hostel to see the local dancers perform in the town square. All the women and men wore traditional costumes and danced around a giant fire cauldron. Then we were invited to join them. They told us how to do the dances (in Chinese) and some of them were easy and some of them were hard. But it was really fun when we formed a conga line or 2 around the square, laughing the entire time. We had no idea what were were doing. But when I stopped to rest, I caught a glimpse of some monks who had come out to watch. They were then herded away by the sharp blast of a plastic whistle.

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Photos

At Black Dragon Pool
dancers for the tourists

Tombs
All from about the time of the revolution. Perhaps war heroes?