Yunnan - Day 1 : Lijiang (丽江)

so as i mentioned in my last post i've just come back from a Lunar New Year trip into China.
this time i went to Yunnan province (云南), a place i've always wanted to visit since i first came to Hong Kong.
Yunnan province is pretty mountainous and borders Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. it's also famous for its ethnic diversity with 25 of China's 56 ethnic groups living here.
i was surprised to see families with more than 1 child here (as China has a one-child policy).
i later found out that if you are from a minority group you are allowed to have 2 children, this way it helps keep the ethnic group alive.

so anyway, our first stop was the 800-year old, old town (there is an "old" town and a "new" city) of Lijiang (丽江).
the whole old town is actually a UNESCO world heritage site and very picturesque with its old buildings, cobblestoned streets and ancient waterways and bridges.

i'm not good with words so i'll let my pictures try to do the talking.





oh yeah, forgot to mention but we took a domestic flight as it's much cheaper to cross the border into China than to take an international flight from Hong Kong, but the cabin crew got up as we were preparing to land and started singing and dancing! then to top it off they started doing those stretching exercises that are often shown on the in-flight entertainment (no in-flight entertainment or screens for that matter on air china...).
i thought everyone would just ignore them but then everyone started to do the exercises!! i was cracking up with laughter and probably looked the silliest as i wasn't doing the exercises!
had to take a shot: