cce blog

back home

returned from china on sunday and am now back, battling jetlag at school again just like last year. after chengdu we ended up visiting the leshan biggest-ever buddha. then michael and i parted ways: he went to cruise the yangtze (and listen to rats fight as he slept), and i sought warmer climes in lijiang, yunnan.

lijiang was pretty, but the "old town" has almost completely been taken over by densely-packed souvenir shops, more than you'd think the place could sustain -- how much jewelry, yak jerky, and tea does a person need anyway? it also seems to be a fashionable destination for the new moneyed classes from the east (shanghai), whom i hadn't seen as tourists much before; they were there in large number, taking pony rides through the old town dressed in local naxi minority garb, snapping photos with their fancy cameras, drinking and dining at prices higher than my china budget allowed. but i'd still like to come back to yunnan sometime to do the tiger leaping gorge trek, see dali, and xishuangbanna in the south (then over to laos!).

i've got more to write about the trip but for now i'll just link to some pictures; i haven't gone through all my photos yet, but was playing around with apple's new iWeb program and put a bunch of photos into the site it generated. i only have a trial .mac account and don't plan on paying for it, so expect these photos to move to my site's gallery later.