DALI - MONDAY - August 19th

After the short plane ride from Kunming, we landed in a tiny airport in Dali. We hopped on our 2 busses, and went straight to the sightseeing. We passed through the new and developed section of the city, but all of our adventures took place in Old Dali. Luckily, we stayed in the only modern hotel in Old Dali... which eerily towered over the surrounding buildings.
3 Pagoda Temple Leaning Tower of Dali

This was the first stop of our tour... the 3 temple pagoda was the symbol of the city. Even bags of chips had pictures of the pagodas on them.

That mountain range in back went on for as far as the eye can see.
Can you guess what those are? Here's a closer look... yeah... they were spiders... there were thousands of them. Someone call the exterminator.
Master Hu looks up and takes a picture...
...of Phil who looks down and takes a picture of...
...Master Hu, who looks up and takes a picture...
a long walk
The ancient Buddhist symbol of "rock on"
"HEY COME HERE, LOOK"
Photo courtasy of David, who doesn't mind taking pictures where he's not supposed to :)
IT'S BRIAN!!!
Me making sure Jiayin didn't slip when she tried walk on the edge all the way back.
Poor Jose, i bet he wish it were him.
Jiayin was a way of making people conform to her ways
Jiayin showing Scotty the shoe tying technique she learned. I never learned it cause i had laceless shoes...

cause i'm sooo lazy i don't even want to tie my shoes in the morning.
Master Zong and her brother who coordinated much of this great trip.
Lunchtime...

I remember always having to make sure Scotty and Jose ate. That also meant being a guinnea pig for all the dishes they served us. Well... at least they trusted my word when i said something was good.
DALI - TOUR OF OLD TOWN

We went to several locations after lunch to experience life in rural China. The wierdest thing was when we toured someone's house. There were people there doing their everyday things, and there we were watching them. I don't know about you, but if people suddenly came into my house to experience life in suburban America... i wouldn't be so comfortable.
Inside the courtyard of a house in Dali
A cute little boy wondering who all the visitors are.
Now that guy knows how to have fun
Hey Jiayin, they're coming after you... it was great chasing them away so that she could sneak by... just one of her many phobias.
Our next stop was a scenic park of Old Town Dali. We didn't have much time here though so we walked down a couple blocks then returned to the entrance pretty quick. We didn't want the tourguide yelling at us again. She had just yelled at me and scotty for being late cause i was busy bargaining. "One time, i give you no more chance"... shhhivers...
Just puts into perspective how other people in the world live... without walmart... until maybe 4 years from now.
Nothing too exciting here...
...compared to Old Town Lijiang, which we visited the next day and was way cooler.
...After that

We visited some tie-dye making place which the region is famous for. Pretty neat watching the old ladies laboring over tying the little knots. I didn't put many pictures up of all the shopping that we did... but by this point, many of were tired of all the places they were dragging us simply to buy stuff...

I wasn't though, bought some coasters i know i'll never use.
Dye... or as Russ put it, smurf sh*t.
I remember James kept trying to bargain it down, but didn't end up buying it.
I bought the one James has in his hands
THIS IS IT!!!!

THE BOAT AND THE KARAOKE REVENGE!!!

On the bus, we learned that our next stop was a boat tour... great... another boat tour. But then they kept talking about these rooms we could rent that had tea, snacks, and.... karaoke. Once we got on, we headed to our deck, but then we saw the room and figured... hey if we have lots of people join in, it wouldn't be much a person. Ended up being 44 yuan. We gave 45 a person with the promise that they'd get us water bottles, which they never did. Scott was supposedly broke by this point, but being such a great friend and humanitarian, i payed for him. The room was sooooooo worth it... maybe not for some of the non-karaoke enthusiasts. Cause it was hours of pure Karaoke madness.
Run!!! or we'll miss the boat Rich is thinking... "i'm regretting this already"
I call this karaoke revenge cause they didn't let me sing at the banquet... if they just let me sing... i would have spared everyone from the trauma, but... nope, too late.
Shyness is not part of our vocabulary.
I know somewhere deep inside... very very deep inside, Bill wanted to join us.
This is before we scared everyone away.
Timmy, Jose and Scotty... giving me a little break. I still haven't seen the tape... frankly, i'm a little scared myself.
Break over... this must have been one of the Bon Jovi songs.
neeeear..... faaaaarrrrrrr... whereeeeeeeeeeeeeever you aaaare.....
Part of the tour of Er Hai Lake were short stops to tour scenic islands. We all left the boat for the first stop, but for the next stops, we decided to stay inside and keep doing karaoke... i think it had taken over our souls.
Jiayin on the boat.
Some of the nice island scenery
i don't know what this was all about... looks like we're trying to wrestle each other into the water.
Scotty singing

That little heart necklace everyone was wearing was our ticket to get on the boat. Nice little souvenier too.
More of that cuteness.
Goodbye Karaoke Boat!!! Those were the performers who did that rather boring little play. And they served us 3 types of tea, bitter, sweet, and minty. The water they used seemed a little suspicious though.
View from the hotel room. Brings back the memory that me, scotty, phil, dan, and rocky were telling ghost stories that were pretty lame... but then we played psychiatrist... and they all learned how dumb i really am. good times... good times.
The cool giant mural they had in our hotel.
So many random memories...

And no pictures to illustrate them..

Like how during dinner that night, there was live music playing. And how there were busses returning to the old city so people can spend more time there, but my homeys stayed so we could tell ghost stories etc... Then later, we chilled in Jiayin's room, and totally destroyed Ai's bed. and PAAANDAAA. You guys who were there would remember what i'm talking about. And how the hotel had a cool machine that changed american money to Chinese money... so many random memories.