Daniel, our writer of the day, making a purchase

Ms. Greene, the snack lady, making sure we always have snacks, water and oh yes, ice cream!

A roadside strawberry stand. Notice the balance scale for weighing one's purchases.

This is the shallowest spot on the Yangtze River and where the Red Army crossed during the Long March.

We traversed this walkway to Tiger Leaping Gorge for many miles.

The red arrow points out a statue of a tiger. Legend says that in order to escape from a hunter, a tiger jumped across the river at the narrowest point (still 25 meters wide). This area is being considered for a hydroelectric dam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_Leaping_Gorge

The sign reads "Take good care of your children in the touring spot"; we are!

This is the entryway to our hotel. The cart is used to transport luggage and other items through the narrow streets.

Today is Tuesday the 17th, We are in Lijiang. Our first meeting of the day was right before breakfast, about 7:45, the timing was good, not too late, not too early (we were up at 4:45 yesterday). No one was late but some people needed to change clothes.

The breakfast was ok, nothing like the buffet in Beijing or Dali's noodles, we just had a hard time making coffee. About 9:00 we were on the road going to the Tiger Leaping Gorge. On the way, we stopped where we could see the Yangtze River for the first time, and there was some local market, some people selling a lot of regional stuff in rustic tents. For me the interesting part was that in these kinds of places we find the old Chinese people we have heard about. In other areas like Beijing or Kunming they are modern city people, not that different from us. When we were in Beijing I believe that it didn't feel like we were in China, except for the Chinese characters and the fact that no one looked like us. Dali was really old fashioned, but I was really excited to see the small towns and villages, and see how people lived a long time ago.

Finally after a two and a half hour drive we got to the Tiger Leaping Gorge. After a five mile walk with wonderful views of the Yangtze River in between mountains, an image of the movie The Lord of the Rings came up, not only for the view but for the walking as well. On the way back we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant. Back to Lijiang we got fifteen minutes at the hotel before leaving to go shopping in the old town. That means good Chinese tea for my Righi mom.

Once we were done shopping we met to go to dinner. Tonight we had two surprises: a "special" dinner and a traditional Chinese music concert. The dinner was different, it is called hot pot. There a boiling water pot in every table, after you pick whatever you want from the cold food section, you just put the cold food in the boiling water and wait. You could choose between spicy and not spicy. The concert was pretty exciting in the beginning, but we didn't have enough time to watch the whole piece.

Well tomorrow will be a hard day, we are going to hike the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and we need some rest. Have a good night.

A view of the Yangtze River with Tibetan foothills in the background.

Tiger Leaping Gorge is yet to come and behind the group.

The view was worth the long walk!

Ms. Greene and Dr. Wu, who is traveling with us from Kunming and sharing his expertise as he guides us through the Dali and Lijiang areas.

We stopped at this restaurant for lunch and ate on the second floor.

Daniel adding to the hot pot.