DAY 4 OF YUNNAN!!!

Woke up to breakfast cooked by our housekeeper. Quite nice. Anyway, we travelled to the real ancient town this time. Went to look at the "Mu" mansion which used to house the "mayor" of Lijiang. It's real big inside. They have this tiger skin that the guy sat on a few hundred years of it. Didn't take any pictures though. The mansion has paths leading up to a temple which we were warned not to pay attention or money to the fake Taoist priests inside that can supposedly tell your future. Our guide said that one old man was conned into giving them RMB2888 for telling his fortune. Poor man.

Entrance

Entrance to the main hall with the tiger skin!

So after the mansion visit, we were given time to go walk round the ancient town. Dad and i bought more Pu-erh!! Hahahahaha Don't you just love pu-erh? You do, don't you? Hahahahah anyway, we had to walk to our bus which was parked very far away. Along the way there was this sudden big Mao statue.

There it is! It's quite cool.

After arriving at the bus, we went to lunch and then on to watch Impression: Lijiang at the bottom of the Snow Jade Mountain. Our bus driver joined us as well. The show is directed by Zhang Yimou and it was supposed to be very spectacular. I'm not so much of a theatre-art person so i only have 2 words to describe it: never ending. Yeps, the thing just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and..you get the idea. The only thing i found spectacular about the whole production is the number of performers performing. Same style as another Impression show i watched at Guilin. Maybe it's because Zhang Yimou directed both. The music was blasted slighlty loud, the performers' voices were muffled and the storyline was bland. It took a whole lot of banging(tables, that is. XD) and singing just to get to the main part. I think it took almost an hour to reach there and another one to reach the conclusion. Basically the play is about this young couple that seperates due to parents and the girl runs off and commits sucide at the bottom of the mountain and the guy finally commits suicide too at the bottom of the mountain. Yeps, that's all there is to it. Along the way, they introduce to you about the Naxi people there and about the horses as well. I remember something about their horses being unique due to their small size yet hardiness. Then again, if you look at it as a whole, in which part does horses fit into the main play? Yeps, so it was pretty much a very boring and slow 2 hours till the play finished. Hahahaha Janice looked pretty bored as well. :)

After being tortured visually, we headed out of the main performing area and went to take pictures of the Snow mountain close-up. They had this big urn in which you can scribble your wishes down on a paper and throw it in.

That's the urn! People were quite urn-nest in putting their wishes in. Hahahahha Pardon the pun.

That's the snow mountain in the background.

After that, we went to White Water River where we had to change to those eco-friendly buses. While we were heading back, a fierce wind kicked up and a mini-sandstorm occured. It was dang cool!! First time in a sandstorm!! Hahahaha so i turned back to look at the sandstorm blowing over only to get sand thrown in my face. Dang. Couldn't take picture of it.

That's basically the whole scenery with the Snow mountain in the background.

On the way back to dinner, we stopped along the road to take pictures of some weird stone protuding out. No one really went down cos it was rather plain.

Yeps, that's it.

After dinner, Janice's family and our family set off for the ancient city which becomes a lot livelier at night. All the pubs will come alive and there will be people inviting you in to sing with them. Hahahaha we went shopping though. They were selling shirts with the Naxi language printed on them which was dang cool. Didn't buy any though. After walking round for a few hours, we headed back to our hotel to sleep.

The Naxi language is real cool. All drawings.

Aaron

DAY 5 OF YUNNAN!!!

Woke up earlier today, booked out of the hotel we stayed in and sat the bus to the 1st bend of the Lijiang river. It was quite cold when we got there. Omg mum bought more strawberries from the stalls there. They were selling some cool antique stuff. We just took some shots and went back up the bus. Didn't get to take much cos you have to pay to go closer to the river. So we had to take from a distance and my batteries gave out halfway.

That's the entrance to the place that we couldn't go in. :(

If i'm not wrong, that's the 1st bend. Then again there are a few bends down there!

Anyway, we continued on towards Shrangri-La and we had to say bye to our Lijiang guide. Finally reached there after like forever. Met our new guide who looked quite young but we found out later that she's 28! Hahahaha and she will take part in singing competitions. So she sung us a song to welcome us. While refuelling at the petrol station, we met 2 dogs, 1 of which is real small and cute. Janice went around the bus to avoid the dogs cos she finds dogs scary. Hahahaha Then the dogs kinda chased after Tricia for a while.

That's the small cute one and the big buffy one! Awww..

Went for lunch after the dogs and we met another ASA group and both groups had quite a time discussing the different itinerary. After that it was more discussion of the itinerary. Hahahahaha

Up close and personal with a yak!

K it's wasn't a real yak. The restaurant actually had this! Hahahaha XD

After lunching, we went to the ancient town of Shrangri-La. It was real cool and had this temple and a big golden thingy that you could turn. Each turn represented one recital of the entire buddhist scriptures if i'm not wrong. The thingy requires a few people to push cos it's heavy. There were people selling some barbecued stuff at the town center and we saw more dogs!!

That's the big gold thingy.

Entrance to the temple after climbing lots of steps.

Booked into our hotel which had a third bed for me!! So no more sleeping on foldable beds for 2 nights!! The hotel was kinda boring though cos it only had mahjong as the recreation. Our toilet got stuck and the tap water is dang cool. It comes out cloudy. After a while, lots of bubbles rise to the top and pop and the water becomes clear again. Quirky. Anyway, since it was a while till our dinner. Dad, Mum, Aunt meow, Junx and i decided to go walk around the hotel and visit the shops opposite. Bought some stuff and went back to the hotel for dinner. So after dinner we decided to have a kids.. err, i mean young people's gathering a.k.a party at janice's room. Hahaha it was quite awkward at first cos it was the first ever. Hahahaha TongTong asked whether i am JC2. Hahahaha Omg, found out that TongTong is actually Company leader in Girl Guides and Janice is her junior. Small world. Hahahaha We played indian poker, murderer, a failed round of taiti and watched some funny chinese show. Supposed to teach Janice and Benj how to play taiti but we kinda failed. Dad called and i had to leave. Felt so bad for breaking up the party.

The hotel we stayed in!

Indian poker!! :D

Aaron

DAY 6 OF YUNNAN!!!

Woke up at 8 today which was the latest time throughout the whole trip. Had 4 eggs again since the restaurant didn't have much to offer. The meeting time for the whole group was 12 so we had loads of time to spare. My mum, aunt meow, Junxin and i went to walk along the streets to kill time since it was so boring. Dad stayed back at the hotel cos he was sick. At 12 we all gathered back at the hotel lobby and set off for lunch which was at some one's house-turned-restaurant. We had a hotpot which was quite cool. After lunch we went to the park which was up the mountain. Along the way, we stopped over at some place to get some medicine which supposedly helped relive the acute mountain sickness(AMS). Didn't really want to eat it cos it was a bright red capsule. Some bought those small little fire-extinguisher like tanks to breathe from. It's for those who "que yang" or lack oxygen. Omg, i only found out later that "yang qi", which the guide was mentioning all the while, is actually chinese for oxygen. I always thought "yang qi" is the yin-yang thingy in taichi or traditional chinese medicine?! So i always thought "que yang" meant lacking in the "yang" chi. No wonder i couldn't figure out how you could breathe in the "yang" energy. Hahahahahha Thanks to Junxin, i finally know what oxygen is in chinese. XD

The medicine to cure AMS! Didn't work for dad though.. Poor him..

Anyway, we had to switch to those eco-friendly buses once we got there. The buses would drive up the windy roads and you could choose to get off and start walking a few kilometres if you like. The temperature there was like sub zero so you could see some snow at the sides of the road and ice blocks floating on the river. There were millions of piles of yak poop all over.

The 1st stop

Ice blocks floating along the river.. It's dang cool!! So sad we can't see this here.. :(

I can read the tibetan words on the bottom.. It says "Green toilet" Hahahahha :P

At the 3rd spot, we decided to get off and walk. Poor dad was so sick due to AMS, he stayed on the bus the whole time. Awww, should have bought the small oxygen tank for him.. At that moment, my camera batteries went dead on me. So i had to borrow Junxin's camera. Cool they had this walkway that stretched all the way to the lake and you could step off the walkway and walk/slide on the ice. It was dang slippery and that is a very bad place to fall cos there's a lot of frozen yak poop everywhere. I wonder if falling on them will cause the poop to splatter all over or will it just remain the same like an ice cube. Didn't get the chance to experiment though so.. hahahahahaha that's what happens when you go to higher altitudes. Your brain is deprived of oxygen and you start thinking quirky stuff OR it's just me.. Hahahahahaha :D

After descending from the place, we went to the a "zang zu" person's house. "Zang zu" is one of the ethnic groups. Anyway we took a tour of his house which was real dark inside.

That's the house!!

That's the guy who lives in the house. Nopes, he's not dead, he's just sitting there watching us watching him while we watch him watching us watching him! Hahahahah :D

Animal skin we discovered in one of the walls. Looks like a raccoon or possum.

After that we went to a dzi beads shop where TongTong's mum bought her one. Hahahaha It's supposed to help in studies. Should have bought one. Hahahaha Yeps so we went back to the hotel.

That's our bus driver!! He may be old but he's real groovy. One of the best drivers i've met!! :D

After dinner, we had another party in which Janice suggested we bring pillows to her room for a pillow fight. Had no idea why that idea came to her but we all knew why in due course. So we played this game where we drew a card each and the one with the lowest card would be attacked by everyone else. When it came to Benjamin's turn to be hit, all of us but Janice couldn't bear to hit him cos he's so small. Janice literally went on top of him. Hahahahaha poor Benj. Omg never knew Janice could be so violent. (EDIT: K It wasn't that violent. Just a little tiny weeny bit. :D) After all, she seemed very sweet, shy and gentle. Hahahaha It's quite amusing seeing how siblings fight though cos i don't have one to fight with. Hahahahahaha :D

Anyway Day 7 has been updated!!

Aaron

DAY 7 OF YUNNAN!!! (EDIT)

Woke up at 6 which was the earliest timing we had to wake up by cos we had to rush to the aiport to get ready to take a flight back to Kunming. The flight only took an hour whereas by bus, it takes 8+ hours. Said bye to our Shangri-La guide and our driver who was preparing to rush back to Kunming to meet us the next day.

That's the airport!

That's our plane!!

I took this while the plane was flying. I think clouds are real cool!!

That's the plane's engine at the bottom!

Arrived at Kunming and met Yaoli again. Went to a shop selling crystal cos according to Yaoli, only tourist shops have the cleanest toilets. Hahahaha once again, TongTong's mum looked rather interested in getting something for her. hahahhaha omg and Tricia was playing "ice and water" with me. Yeps, the game where the catcher freezes everyone and you have to unfreeze your friend. Sense of deja-vu. Used to play it in primary school. Junxin and TongTong were just standing there watching me get frozen by Tricia. So evil of them. Hahahaha After that we proceeded to have lunch. The restaurant was quite special cos it had small stools and normal chairs that you can choose to sit on. The guide chose small stools for us since we couldn't make up our minds. I wanted the normal chairs though cos once you sit on those small stools, it's near impossible to get up and my legs are rather long which makes it hard to sit.

That's the restaurant

That's how tiny the tables and stools are. They scattered grass everywhere which just made it rather slippery.

After lunch, we headed to Jiuxiang cave where we got to paddle through some gorge and then paddle back. Had to climb up and down steps cut into the rock face and at the end, they had this 300+ steps for you to climb before reaching the top. Some people opted for the sedan service which seemed quite dangerous to me cos the sedan sways a lot.

The entrance to the place.

You have to take a lift all the way down to start which is real cool! The only thing not cool is that when you go down, you have to come up. :)

Blind fishes that live in the caves. Quite cool.

That's a lion!!

That's the super big Lingzhi that a farmer found and donated to the state government.

Waterfall inside the cave.

They have horses which you could ride down. Only for individuals, not for groups. So had to take the cable car down.

Cable cars!! :D Dang fun to look down.

Bird's eye view(no pun intended) XD

So after the cave trip, we retreated back to the hotel for dinner! They had this famous painter painting and they would auction off his art pieces. Janice's mum won a painting for guessing the four words hidden in the painting. hahahaha There was this bamboo casing on the table that contained some kind of beer that has 50% alcohol content. It was taken away though cos everyone thought 50% was way too high. hahahahaha could tell Janice wanted to try that beer. :P In the end she had to make do with the 3.5% one which tasted very diluted. hahahahahha

That's the guy painting!

Yeps, so after dinner we had another party which was the last one for me. Hahahah omg we were real bored after a few pillow fights though i don't think Benj or Janice got bored when it came to attacking each other.. hahahaha XD So we made the worst mistake of the entire trip: TongTong decided to invite tricia over for a short while. BAD move. She came over and started attacking me while the rest fled to the other bed giving me supporting me optically. Omg that little girl is evil. Tried to bite me. Luckily she's small and light. So no damage inflicted. After that we were forced to play hide and seek. hahahahha she saw through the plot for benj to hide in the other room. Finally, the one who suggested the terrible idea or TongTong carried her back to the room. Omg, it's all TongTong's fault!! After she left, peace and quiet returned. But we were getting real bored and ran out of ideas so junxin and TongTong started talking bout jc life, which left Janice, Benj and i out of the conversation. Had no choice but to talk about runescape with Benj. Hahaha Janice was already stoning on the bed. Then we started exchanging school ghost stories. Janice's mum called and we had to go off. Hahahaha though it got a bit quiet sometimes, it was still fun!!! :D

Aaron

DAY 8 OF YUNNAN!! (EDIT)

Yeps, so i'm back!! Updating blog from the last day upwards. hahahaha took like 500+ photos, yeps.. So woke up today at 6.45, almost couldn't get up after last night's partying. Omg back was aching due to the center metal bar that i slept on throughout the night.. Went to the restaurant and ate eggs!! I realised that in other countries, if you can't get used to the food or if you are worried about getting food poisoning, just pile up on eggs. They are wholesome and build abs(hahahaha inside joke XD). Omg our bus driver met us at the restaurant. He left DiQing airport at round 8+ a.m. and reached Kunming at 11 p.m. while it took us 1 hour by plane. Omg, during breakfast TongTong's mum slipped and fell. Hahahahah then TongTong was like quite calm. Hahahahah Anyway, after breakfast we went to ShiLin or stone forest. Omg, took like loads of pictures.. The stone forest is real cool but there were too many people there. Just gonna post the important pictures..

This is the outside of the toilet!! hahahaha the toilet was before the main stones.


It has a 5 stars rating and mini tvs inside!!
Yeps, so we walked around ShiLin. hahaha the rocks are actually from the seabed. According to yaoli, that area was actually a sea centuries ago. Then the seawater receded and left behind the rocks that formed the seabed. We climbed up and down the rocks which was quite fun and it led us to the pavilion where you could have a pavilion's eye view of the whole area. It was dang crowded.

The main stone?

That's the piece of rock that came loose during an earthquake. Apparently if you have a guilty conscience, you shouldn't walk underneath it.

No idea what this is except some carvings on a stone.

Sword peak.

This is a rare deserted passageway cos the whole place is usually packed with people and stones.

Supposedly a lion?

I have a fetish for deep dark holes.. and alleys as well.. hahahahaha :D

That looks like a horse.

View from the pavilion, reminds me of something out of LOTR

Yeps so after exiting the forest, we took a ride to qicaiyunnan or 7 colours of yunnan. Had lunch there, omg couldn't really eat. Got real sick of eating 10 courses every meal.. Hahahahha they served us tea in wine glasses and there was no beer!! Bet Janice was quite disappointed.. :P hahahahha After lunching at the entrance, we walked in and saw lots of peacocks caged up. Apparently you can order one to be killed and have it cooked in your own way. The park had like thousands of peacocks but many people ordered them to be killed to taste the meat.. I wonder how it'll taste like. I'm thinking a cross between chicken, turkey and a weird taste.

The entrance.

PEACOCKS!!

Piggy fishes at the small pond

Anyway, after that we went to some place where they were selling jade and local products. Left after a while for the foot massage at some bee place. Weird. Anyway that place was rather scammish. They gave a free foot massage to us while they introduced their products and diagnosed your health through reading your palms and looking at the colour of your nails. I didn't really like the guy attending to my parents. He seemed rather nervous throughout, even after a while of talking. Usually people settle in after the introductions.
After the foot massage, we went to a coffee factory cum flower market. hahahahha They even have Pu-Erh Milk Tea which is like omg? The flower market was cool. They were selling this cute eggs that you could put in water and a plant will grow. Dang cute, but can't bring back to Singapore cos of the soil content inside.
Went to a restaurant for the famous mushroom steamboat. Omg i've never seen so many types of mushrooms in my life and i think mushrooms are quite yucky. They have spores, weird colours, twisted features and weird taste.
After a rather weird tasting dinner, it was time to say goodbye. Went to the airport and bought 2 group photos. As last minute shopping, we bought 1KG of Pu-Erh tea at the DFS, which was dang cheap. I, or the plane officially left Kunming at 21:37:57. Was quite sad to leave everyone, missed all the fun parties we had at night. hahhahahaha Pillow fights were the best!!! though they got a bit violent when it came to janice and benjy. hahahhaha :D We really should have another one of those!! Then again, i wasn't really that sad to leave tricia. Omg i'm so mean but she did try to attack me!! XD hahahhahah

Tea we bought at the airport!!

Reached home at 4 a.m. plus. Went right to bed and snoozed. Yeps, so that wraps up the whole trip!!

Aaron