Hot pot in Lijiang

Despite a developed transportation network (extensive railway, flight and bus systems), our trip across China proved to be very ambitious. For the three weeks dedicated to traveling, we made it to Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Hainan, Kunming, Dali, Lijiang and Beijing, skipping Guilin, Yangshuo, the Tiger Leaping Gorge (in Lijiang), Chongqing and Xian [These names probably don't mean anything to you]. With these places on our original list, I don't understand how we thought visiting all of these places would be realistic.

ANYWAY

We made it to Beijing. How we got to Beijing is an interesting story, and it all begins with the night before we leave Lijiang. We've been using our Lonely Planet religiously, especially taking note of their recommendations for food. Disappointed by our mediocre feast from the night before at Mama Fu's, we hoped that the Blue Papaya would be a better representative of Lijiang cuisine. True to her job's namesake, our waitress was hovering over us antsy to take our order. She recommended hot pot, since everyone around us was eating it and seemed to be having a good time. Lonely Planet highly recommended the place so it didn't hurt to order something we weren't so hot about (haha).

When in China, ordering something with uncertainty can result in a painful experience. Our experience at the Blue Papaya is a perfect example of a meal gone wrong. Without realizing the option of no spice, we had ordered a our hot pot with a spice that would ruin our entire night. Taking into account Liz's pescetarian diet, we had ordered a fish hot pot. Fish in China comes with all the bones. Added with the boiling hot broth (that was literally on fire for a majority of our dinner) and a spice that could have blinded us, there were aspiring Chinese pop stars - complete with flashy outfits and headset microphones - singing as loud as they can through crackling amplifiers and their entourage of loafers toting menus of Chinese classics to the hordes of tourists (probably having a better time with their milder hot pots), there was nothing pleasurable about the experience. It didn't help with the occasional street vendor approaching us with random trinkets, fruit, flowers and cigarettes.

There were too many things going on with our meal, which was very frustrating since we were all hungry and wanted to get some kind of nourishment from our expensive meal. If we were not choking on small fish bones or on the verge of passing out from the spice, we were assaulted by vendors or had our conversations halted by competing singer/songwriters singing as loud as they can (here is another promising career for our singer/songwriter friends).

And of course this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our trip to Beijing.

Stay tuned!

Preview for the rest of our trip:

10 hour bus ride on a 2 lane road

being led by a child to our destination

walking around at 2 in the morning trying to find our hostel