Shawn's Trip to the East: Don't Dilly in ...Dali

Well we have made it to Dali. Definately a paradise of sorts. The Hostel is really awesome. It outside the small city gates so it is quiet. Also it is only a 5 minute walk to the chaos. Apparently Dali is known as the "Amsterdam of China". Didn't know that before I came. The hippy/Reggae culture is in full swing here. We have met lots of cool people. Apparently the mountains behind our house are home to many Cannabis plants. Of course I have steered well clear of this subversive counterculture.

The hostel is super chill and has the best hamburgers that I have had since moving to China.
It is clean and the view out our window is awesome.

Today we went to walk around the shops in Dali. We were shopping from around 10 this morning until 6 pm. Liu was stoked that I was so patient. Generally I am not down with the whole shopping thing, but the town was really awesome. The stuff is super cheap here. We got a lot of Shtuff for just a few quai.

Yesterday we left Kunming in the morning and made the 6 hour trek to Dali. So when we got here, we just hung low and went to bed relatively early.

Two days ago we went to Xi Shan mountain in Kunming. It is about 10 miles southwest of Kunming and there were some remarkable views of the city. We went hiking to the top and found this place where the mountain drops off 2,000 meters on a sheer face (about 6,000 feet). There is a picture of me hanging my feet over the rock. If a good wind came along or someone bumped me, that would be it for old Shawn. Liu was a coward and wouldn't dangle her feet over the rock.

Here is a story that Liu finds hilarious. That night we went walking around downtown Kunming and came across a guy selling roses. No big deal except he had no arms or legs and was rollling around in a wheelchair. I really admired this guy for actually trying to sell something rather than just panhandling (in Xi'an there are a lot of panhandlers). Not to mention he was selling the roses for 1 yuan (about .15 cents). So I told Liu to hold on a second and walked over to buy a rose. I told him I wanted one and he leaned his head forward with his mouth open. I thought he wanted me to put the money in his mouth (he had no arms or legs after all). This was a disgusting proposition to me, but I wasn't going to argue with a disabled man. So I hung it about 3 inches from his mouth. He kept nodding his head forward, so I thought that maybe he couldn't lean in far enough to get the money. So I tried to stuff it in his mouth. The whole time he was speaking to me in Chinese and I couldn't really understand what he was sayaing. Liu ran over and told me that he wanted me to put the money in a very small well hiden bowl near where his feet should have been. I didn't want to walk up and stare at his disability, so I never looked that far down in the first place. So basically I was trying to stuff money into a limbless mans mouth. Liu was laughing her ass off, and the guy was a good sport about it.

So onto tomorrow. We are heading up into the mountains and doing a 12 kilometer (around 8 miles) hike to a hostel in the middle of the mountains. It should be a real killer. Then on Monday we are going to a special market. In the evening we are leaving for a new town, Lijiang. Hopefully i can update then.