Cathy, Jimmy and I climbed into Mr. Mao’s black VW for a 3 hour drive to LiJiang. We took a break at a open market where local people trade and sell their livestock, vegetables, souvenirs, and Buddhist religious necessities, such as prayer flags, incense, candles, and play money (to throw at a funeral). This is where I got some good pictures of the colorful vegetables and seasonings.
LiJiang is an area that has a lot of the Naxi minority. They tend to live in small, all wood houses. The Naxi have their own form of pictograph writing called DongBa (pictured above) that looks a lot like Microsoft Office Screen Beans.
The city, which is over a mile high, has many canals and bridges (350). Almost every street in old town ran next to a canal. The cobble stone streets were very crowded so you had to be careful that you didn’t accidentally walk or were nudged into the many open canals.
Side Note: “IA challenged” (Internet Availability). The hotel was ok but its advertised 24-hour business center was never open. I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is to me! No Internet has a direct ripple effect on this blog. I am starting to realize how dependent I am on the Internet and not just for normal family/friends communication. I email myself with my daily journal experiences and then clean it up a lot for the blogs. One reason is that my handwriting skills have declined as my typing skills have increased. So lack of Internet means I don’t have good notes from LiJiang or Shangri-la. Hopefully you will forgive the lack of information due to my temporary ‘handicap’.
