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Published: September 30th 2009
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Today we left Chengdu behind (after more delays at the airport). We were met at the airport by a high school friend of Jacks (Mr Jong) whos family runs a really cool hotel right next to 'Old Lijiang Town'. Also Jacks stepmum joined us and well for this visit to a small town in Yunan province. Apparently Lijiang used to be very popular with foreign tourists until ten years ago when Chinese tourists really started to come here. I can see why as well, it only gets to 2 degrees in winter and uyp to 25 in summer, the old town is a beautiful example of traditional architecture (Chinese and Naxi). - Naxi is an ethnic group that lives around this area. They are well known and misunderstood for their matriachal system of society. They have a colourful, more simplistic form of picture language, practice a sort of nature worship and have their own music, dress and customs.
Anyway after finally arriving we settled in for a hour and a half of drinkling tea Yunnan style. This involved pouring the te into different bowls then straing into others and drinking out of really small cups, etc. It was pretty cool
and ritualistic and they obviously take it all very seriously. I really enjoyed the whole process but after an hour of not understanding the conversation i decided to go for a walk. I quicly found "Old town" with it's stream lined streets, old school buildings, heaps of handware shops and plenty happening.
So we head out to dinner then on to a Lijiang Pub. This was quite an experience, there are tables everywhere around a stage where singers and dancers are constantly performing all night. The first girl had a terrific voice, then there were two twin girls, some dancers and this guy who compared and went into a huge song set. It was good and really funny. They had the crowd into it and they were very drunk. Some memorable moments were the 4 drunk girls from beijing, the guy who got up and tried to pole danec around a huge beam, Jack winning 3 Naxi sex permission certificated (I know - weird) and the really, really drunk guy speaking slurring semi english while waiting for the seedy toilets to be free.
SIDENOTE - This pub used to be the number one pickup joint in Lijiang for
one night stands, they used to have a blackboard where you put your details up and off you went - who says China isn't rising to the st levels of the West.
AND - I think my bag got searched the other day in Chengdu, a friend of mine in Defence said it happens so I wasn't suprised. I noticed the straps on my backpack were different from how I do them up. If that's what happened thhen I don't really care as I have nothing to hide and security is certainly increasing as we get closer to national day on the first of October.
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