China: Day 7 - On Loving Dragons

"Eats its victims... burns its victims... buries its victims, chokes its victims, turns its victims inside-out... Extremely dangerous, extremely dangerous... kill on sight, kill on sight, kill on sight..."
- Hiccup, How to Train a Dragon

Advice of the day
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Especially when it is complimentary in your hotel. Eat it. Eat it well.

Post breakfast, we decided to walk to the Black Dragon Pool at the north end of Lijiang Old Town. Built during the Qing Dynasty, it offers some of the most spectacular views of the region's tallest mountain, the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. With names like that, I saw now reason to not visit it. Have I mentioned that dragons are my favourite animals? Well they are.

Our walk to the Pool took us through Lijiang Old Town, south boundary to north . Cobble-stoned roads, waterways and bridges gave it a certain charm, and an indication of what kind of water systems have existed in this part of the world for centuries. We reached the main square called the Square Street.
Four roads radiated from the square. 
And sorry I could not travel all four. 
And be one traveller, long I stood....

At the Square we were treated to a 'spontaneous' burst of Naxi expression, an act which is repeated day after day for the past many years. Someone starts a song, and the old people dance in their native costumes for a few minutes. The tourists join, and then it stops. And we move on.

And then it repeats. I was amused at how forcefully constructed this event was. And how bored the local Naxi women looked.

And then I finally noticed - a Naxi woman picking garbage from a trash can. I had found the poor people of China. There were the original inhabitants of this region, now forced into a corner.

The Black Dragon Pool was exactly what it promised to be, except without any black dragons. There might have been a legend about them, but we didn't find any. The park is called the Jade Spring Park, because the water supposedly sparkles like jade on a bright spring morning.

The tourist places were clean and efficient, except for the toilets. The Chinese toilets are odd, because they offer no privacy of any kind. Squat toilets are ok. They exist all over Asia. But to not give a place to hide is shameful.

We returned to Lijiang Old Town and found ourselves gravitating towards Qi Street. It is here that we discovered street food. Tonnes of it. We felt like pirates stumbling upon treasure. We broke lose on the food like rabid dogs, salivating all over.


And so on, and so forth... It's what I loved about Chinese food. They ate everything. Everything edible. And it was all so tasty, and good-looking.