Lijiang 丽江, the Ancient City 古城 of Yunnan

We bade goodbye to Dali and embarked on a 5 hours bus ride to Lijiang. Surprised to see a few Caucasian couples and even an Israeli young couple on the same bus as us! Once we get to Lijiang, we hopped onto one of the shared van taxi and got to the Gucheng.

A part of the Lijiang Stream running through the city

A kitty cat on the roof top view of Lijiang

Lijiang is full of ancient buildings which function as restaurants, cafes or inns. Naturally we stayed in one of the inns. Named Time Garden, the inn is so quaint and full of character. (480 Yuan per night)

The lions den for the 3 nights in Lijiang

There's even an apple tree in the courtyard!

Of course we couldn't help looking for food after a 5 hour bus ride from Dali. We stumbled upon many cafes and restaurants but settled for this eatery that looks humble. Soya noodles, Naxi fried rice and Ba Ba 吧吧 (One of their form of pancake) seems to be some of their main staples here.

Soya noodles with soya milk

Ba Ba Pancake (filling is sweet, I think it's lotus paste)

In Lijiang, there are also some stalls selling exotic food. The lions cannot resist it as it is an adventure to them trying new exotic meats. Bee Larvae, yak's meat and even dragonflies! Bee larvae taste like egg yolk and dragonflies taste like... dragonflies.

Bee Larvae

They pull out the bee larvae then deep fry it

Dragonflies!

Of course, while walking around Lijiang, we cannot help but take pictures of the lovely cats there.

Poor Kitty chained up

Time passes as we were exploring and the hunger for dinner comes creeping. Exciting our senses once more, we headed to a Naxi restaurant. Naxi fried rice, fried vegetables, stir fried chicken and the last odd item is fried egg with tree bark. It's nice and taste very very fibrous.