Posts Tagged ‘crowds’

Tiger Leaping Gorge and more time in Lijiang

October 29th, 2009 by admin

We woke up early this morning to visit Tiger Leaping Gorge. It’s a 3900m gorge cutting through the marble mountains creating magnificent scenery. We walked along the middle of the gorge looking over in to the rushing water and enjoying the views.
On our way back from the Gorge (of which we have millions of photos) we stopped off at the first bend of the Yangste River.

The next day we had all to ourselves, we woke up early and headed up to the top of the Old Town and found a tea house over looking the roofs and the hills in the distance. We found ourselves hanging around there for a couple of hours before deciding to explore the place a bit further.
Explore we certainly did in a ‘not entirely sure where we are’ sort of way. We wandered around for another couple of hours before finally stumbling upon our hotel from a completely different angle to the one we were expecting.
After that we took a rest and had some lunch (meat on a stick) before venturing off again into the town, this time sticking strickly to the main routes. It’s a beautiful town, and because of that got very busy towards the centre with all the shop sellers and tourists trying to get a good deal.
We’ve really enjoyed our time in Lijiang and despite it’s obvious touristy-ness it’s certainly somewhere we’d like to go back to and spend a bit more time.


Ricshaw Ride, Tiannamen Square & The Forbidden City

October 15th, 2009 by admin

Woke up early with the jet lag still in our heads, ready for a long day with much to see.
We started by returning to the Hutong district where we met our Hutong guide, Grace, and went on a rickshaw ride through the tiny streets. It’s an amazing pocket of old China right in the middle of a massive city. First, a short stop where Grace (who talks about herself in the third person a lot) explained the history of the Hutong aswell as some of the design freatures of the houses/courtyards and stopping evil spirits entering the buildings.

From there we went to meet Mrs Zaio(sp.) who took us into her home and talked more about the history and the way of life in the Hutong (she shares her house with her brothers family, her parents and her cousins family as well as her own). Then it was back on the bikes to return to the bus.

The forbidden city is vast and beautiful. Hard to imagine it without all the people, but the shear size of the place means it’s not too crowded.

Writing this, we’ve Just got out of the “Legend of Kung Fu” show. Absolutely brilliant, combination of Kung Fu fighting, gymnastics and ballet and then the cast posed for photos at the end, which was fun.


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