Lijiang

Wow, horrible sleep. Even if I slelpt at all. There was this weird pressure thing happening on the bus, my ears kept popping and I was getting nasty headaches from it. And temperature, air-con blowing directly on me, blanket on me, my bodu couldn't adjust.

We got to Lijiang about 5:30am, I think, still dark. Got a taxi to take us to the old city, the touristy area, but nothing was open yet, so we just wandered around for a long time trying to find the good hostel in the Lonely Planet. We eventually stumbled on it, and Lisa walked into a random room, trying to find the reception desk, and ended up waking up some local. She asked about a room, he got up and took us down the road to the proper reception. He seemed upset that he was awakened by Lisa.

We got a twin room (100 RMB) and went to sleep.

Got up about 11:30am and checked-in and paid and got some directions and a map from a British guy working at the hostel for a few weeks.

We walked around the old city, then had something to eat, walked to the local market where I got an accidental buzzcut and a super close shave.

Lisa went to bed, as she's not feeling well and I wandered.

The Old City is quite awesome. A maze of stone roads and alleys, with restaurants and cafes and shops and small guest houses, it's very easy to get lost in all the intersecting lanes. There are no cars allowed, so it's pretty much all pedestrians.

I got back to the hostel just after 4:00pm. Wrote in journal, interneted, read for a bit.

Lisa and me headed to supper after 6:00 near the main square. There were a bunch of pubs there that had some awesome live acoustic music earlier in the day. We picked one, shortly after all the pubs in the areaq turned loud and obnoxious. After eating Lisa went back to sleep and I went to a quiet pub to have a beer and read. After a while, two older Aussie couples (3 originally from Malaysia, one from Phillipines) sat with me and we talked. Live music started, acoustic style, very good.

To bed around 11:00pm.

Lijiang Old City is a big tourist draw, but 95% of the tourists are Chinese and most of the shops and restaurants cater to them. There's only a handful that have any English.