Lijiang

I've shown you kids and old ladies from Lijiang, so maybe it is time to give you a little sense of Lijiang. Lijiang is located at the tail end of the Himalayas where they sort of peter out on their eastern side, it is at about 8,000 feet altitude. It was hit by a large earthquake about 15 years ago which pretty much destroyed the town except for the old quarter where all the houses were built of wood and somehow managed to ride out the quake. At that point someone realized that old Lijiang was pretty cool and that maybe they should make some attempt to keep it around, an uncommon idea in China where almost all towns and cities are being rebuilt at a frenetic pace (I've read that 70% of all tall cranes and 50% of all the cement in the world are in China, and when you are there both estimates seem low).

Here is a peak into a courtyard in Lijiang, most of the houses are built around open courts.

It had a lively market, and when we walked in the first thing on display were copper pots. If it were easy to ship home 200 pounds of stuff from Lijiang I would probably be the proud owner of various copper woks, hot pots, and other stuff. As it was I just lusted...

These women were selling walnuts, the baskets are filled with whole, shelled walnuts. The women in the back with a cleaver (a very sharp cleaver) is taking off the outside shell with 4 precise whacks, something I would not have thought possible if I hadn't seen her do it about 20 times. Not one crushed walnut to be seen. The local restaurants served the walnuts lightly fried and sugared, they went great with beer.

This gives you an overview of old Lijiang (though I just realized that this is the part made out of stone and concrete, rebuilt after the quake to look just like it had before). The streets are narrow and no cars are allowed, it is sort of a non-watery, Chinese version of Venice, I guess. It is surrounded by snow-capped peaks (even in Summer, we're told, due to glaciers), but it was overcast the whole time we were there so we didn't get to see any peaks, we'll have to go back someday.