Once we arrived in Lijiang, we met Ruth, a friend of Lawrence's family. She's actually a native of Lijiang - a Naxi (i think it's pronounced na-shi). She brought along Beibei, a 4 -year old girl that she was taking care of. Beibei was adopted by her parents in Wyoming, and she moved here about a year ago because her parents were offered a job at a nearby university. She was sooooooo cute. she talked and talked and talked... Ruth said that because she doesn't speak mandarin, it's hard for her to make friends.. so when she actually does meet people who can speak english, she talks non-stop! she kept giving me candies, offered to share her fruit-in-a-cup with me, kept giving me her carrots at lunch.. hhaa. it was pretty sad to see her go. ruth had to take her back to her home, but you could tell that she wanted to stay.
for dinner, we went to a local restaurant. i'm pretty used to them right now, but i think this was the first one for kat. it probably wasn't the best way to introduce her to the local foods... because there were tons of flies, lots of dried meat hanging from the ceiling, a gigantic skull of maybe a yak in the corner... i could see on her face that she was a LITTLE nervous. Ruth ordered the food for us, and it ended up being really really good.
at night, kat and i went to hear the Naxi orchestra. it was pretty neat. the songs are really old... about 1000 years old. i read in another book that they lost a big portion of their songs because the older generation of naxi music players passed away. initially, we were put in the wrong seats... i was in a spot where there were 2 people in front of me and a column on the left... and the people in front kept moving their heads, so it was a bit irritating. after the first song or two, we ended up moving to two empty seats in the front row of our section, which was way better. the songs were great. the only down point of the night was that the "MC" was telling all these jokesin mandarin that we didn't understand... at one point, his comments were taking so long that it looked like some of the older members of the orchestra were falling asleep. haha.
the next day, ruth took us to Tiger Leaping Gorge. Ruth was so nice to us during our whole trip . she took us everywhere and always made sure that we were okay... we were really lucky to have her with us in lijiang. Anyways, we took a 2 hour bus to the gorge. pretty uncomfortablle ride... but we met this old scottish couple there. it's always cool to meet and talk to foreigners. they were just taking a little vacation - the husband has been working in beijing for more than a year... and i don't think his wife works. the bus took us close to the entrance of the gorge.. and then stopped. we had to pay another 120 rmb to take a mini van to the middle of the gorge... but that also included our ride back to lijiang and our ticket to get into the gorge. at first, we thought we were getting ripped off..but when we calculated it, it turned out to be a decent price.
the gorge was so amazing. i'll just post some pics. words can't describe it. it was a tough hike down though. it took about an hour to get down. but when we were down there... dang.. it was amazing. when we got down there, i hiked around a bit more while kat and ruth rested at a "cafe". i wanted to get onto this huge boulder that was just downstream on the yangtze river. there was this huge red flag on it...and i wanted a picture with it. but when i got there, the ladder leading to the boulder was caged off with metal wire. i was so mad... 'cause i really wanted to get on.. and it was really tough getting to that spot (it was just really steep). so when i had to climb all the way back up.. without the picture.... i got angry (not really, but just a little) :P. heh. but then when i got back, ruth told me that an italian guy died there last year 'cause he slipped ont he rock. after hearing that, i guess i was kind of relieved that i didn't go. actually, now that i mentioned that... on our way down to the gorge, ruth told us that just that morning (or the day before, i can't remember) someone died. at some parts, it was a bit dangerous (e.g. there were tons of "watch out for falling rocks", "go at your own risk" signs). our hike up from the bottom of the gorge was actually pretty tough. i felt so bad for kat... but she fought through it! i was really amazed/in a way proud that she did it. and she didn't complain or anything on the way up.. she just sucked it up and kept going.
oh ya, and here.. we wrote our names on the wall of the cafe:
ummm so when we got back, took a shower... ate dinner.. then walked around the old city of lijiang. we actually lived in the old city.. which was pretty neat. it's a really cool place.. just check out the pics. really cool place to be at night.
wish we could have stayed a few more days... 'cause there's tons more to see and do there. buttt, that's okay. i'm glad we're back in kunming... and i'm going to start working at the school tmw.
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