Chihuly and Children!

Chihuly exhibit at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Leo, Sami and JJ had a great time, not just with the cool glass sculptures but also with all the wild plants. It was hot and crowded, but we ended up spending most of the day on a treasure hunt for Chihuly sculptures!

China trip 5 - Shangrila

We went up from Lijiang to Shangrila, passing through the Tiger Leaping Gorge area. I had read a lot about the two-day hike through the gorge but we decided it would be too difficult with the kids. The Chinese advice was that it was too dangerous and not worth visiting if we were from the US where there are a lot of canyons. So we drove to the main overlook of the Tiger Leaping Stone with the rest of the tourist masses. The Jinsha River flows violently through this part of the gorge. It's spectacular.

Shangrila used to be Zhongdian but they renamed the town to turn it into a tourist destination. Many Tibetans live along the road to Shangrila.

Some houses had one or three flags on their roofs. Our driver Mr. Chen explained that the flags signified that a 'living Buddha' had come from that home. A 'living Buddha' was someone who had been identified as a Lama (Buddhist priest). The home in this picture has one flag.

The circumference of the large round timbers that make up the front of the house signify the wealth of the family. Rich families can afford bigger timbers. Apparently the forests here cannot be cut down because the government is trying to reforest the land, so large timbers are rare and expensive.

There are wind farms along the road between Kunming and Shangrila. Mr Chen said they had been installed last year.

The old town of Shangrila was unfortunately burnt down earlier this year in a big fire. We stayed just on the edge of the fire zone. Somehow, the only thing that survived the fire was the toilet:

Leo on a yak below the giant prayer wheel:

Had a great time horseback riding. Leo and I even got to gallop, which was exciting.

China trip 4 - Lijiang

We went to Yulong Shan, the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. We saw this awesome show about the various minority peoples, directed by Zhang Yimou. It was a giant spectacle. Outside and with the 22,000 foot mountain as a backdrop, we watched about 300 performers dance, sing, ride horses on a grand stage that encircled us.  

Cost a small fortune but well worth it. Even Leo enjoyed it. Apparently, you have to wait in line two days before the show, just to get tickets. The travel agency was hugely useful in letting us know about the show and getting us the tickets.

We never saw the mountain peak but the glaciers were occasionally visible. 

We visited the Blue Moon valley which was a series of blue glacial-fed lakes. 

We saw a minority group (the Naxi?) perform local music:

The travel agency invited us to a local Naxi hot pot place for dinner. Leo ate next to nothing but what else is new! 

Then we were off to se the Torch Festival which is a Yi people tradition. All the kids and some adults had bundles of sticks wrapped in flowers that they lit and waved around. 

Hugely dangerous and entertaining. At 9pm, the main plaza torch which was huge and which people were dancing around, was promptly doused.  

We stayed in the small town of Shuhe, which is on the Tea Horse Caravan Road. The road was established to bring tea to Tibet. Tea and salt from Yunnan went up to Tibet on the road. Yak products came down. They say that Tibetans drink a lot of tea because of their meat-based diet.  And if you've ever had the Tibetan yak butter tea, you'll often find it salty, which is sort of awful tasting.

Anyway, we stayed in a fancy hotel in Shuhe, the Huifeng New Resort Hotel, which were fancy suites, about $110, and good for parties with kids.

China trip 3 - Naxi village

We had an extraordinary opportunity to visit a Naxi village near Lijiang. The village housed an art cooperative (lijiangstudio.org). They did things like murals on the village buildings, Naxi shaman music:

Here's an example of Naxi writing. I have no idea what this means, maybe something like, women who have babies in their bellies should go that way to find a bathroom:

This is the nearby lake. The kids caught 3 or 4 toads here.

The guy in the middle of this picture is the grandfather of the family that housed the art cooperative. Jay is on the right and worked with the grandfather to set this all up. The grandfather was a cute man. He drank whiskey with breakfast.

The grandmother of the village was an awesome lady:

We had a great dinner at the village:

Fly paper near the kitchen.

We walked to a nearby Tibetan monastery which was really cool. Here's one of the Naxi guys who rode horses near the temple:

The new part of the temple which is under construction (amazing paintings and art already on the walls before the temple was even completed):

China trip 2 - Dali

We flew south to Yunnan province which borders Burma/Lao/Vietnam and is home to many of the minority peoples in China. Yunnan also borders Tibet, so a trip up towards Tibet was obligatory. Jean and her extended family had been hanging out in the capital city of Kunming for the previous month or so. Kunming is at about the same altitude as Boulder and is one of the more livable cities in China - nice weather, not too hot in the summer, dry climate except for the rainy season which happened to be the same time as our visit!

We rented a huge van - there was a seat for each one of us and each piece of luggage too! We drove up to Dali, Lijiang and then Shangrila.

The kids got along great, especially Leo and Hugo, who climbed around on the seats and did headstands in the van.

Of all the places we visited, we liked Dali the best. It was funky, with a great night market, and lots of Chinese musicians playing in the streets. Lots of artsy stuff to buy and pretty unique. I think all of us agreed we could have spent many more nights there. I wish I had a picture of the amazing grilled squid guy. Makes me drool just thinking about it.

We stayed at Jim's Tibetan Guest House, just outside the old town. It was perfect, about 400 Y for a suite with two rooms and three beds. Jim's father had been sent from Tibet to Yunnan during the Cultural Revolution.

Dinner in Dali was awesome! Select your own meats to grill or veggies to stir fry:

Yunnan cities often had streams running down their streets:

We did eat some fried grasshoppers and cocoons, courtesy of Jean, but we didn't have any of the bug street food like these dragonfly nymphs:

The big attraction was the bicycle-powered cotton candy guy:

Feet get super icky in China - all those squat toilets don't help. The solution? Fish! Here we are getting our feet cleaned by fish. 50 Y for 30 minutes of foot cleaning.

Does it hurt? Well, most of the fish are pretty small. But some are monstrous! Yeah that's me screaming. It's super ticklish.



Keeping the kids going while on tour is difficult. They have zero appetite for historical sites. So occasionally we have to do things like this horse cart ride:



We took a boat ride to Erhai Lake near Dali to see the Cormorant fishing. In old China, they put rings around the Cormorant's necks and had the birds catch fish. We had a big debate over whether this was staged or not but the show was pretty good:



And they did catch a fish in any case:

Leo and Hugo at Erhai Lake