Lijiang

Well I think I may have found the place I want to move to (it's in a dead heat 
with Italy) and that's Lijiang. This place is so peaceful and laid back. There 
are no cars beeping horns, there are actually no cars at all in the city limits 
so you can walk around peacefully without getting beeped at. It has that same 
magical feel as Venice (without the pigeons!). There are all kinds of cool 
alleyways and side streets where you can get "lost" in but you always find your 
way back by following the little canals that flow along the walkways and the 
sound of the water flowing by gives it that very peaceful feel. People are all 
hanging out in tea houses just chilling and sipping tea and some of the men just 
seem to sit around and smoke some long pipe things (I'm guessing they're feeling 
no pain!) And it's all surrounded by beautiful mountains. What's not to like. 
 
Tomorrow I'm heading to Tiger Leaping Gorge, which believe it or not is almost 
twice as deep as the Grand Canyon! I just hope it's a nice day again tomorrow 
like it was today. Keep your fingers crossed! Hope everyone has a great Friday!! 
 
Jeff 
 
PS: Cute little side story... so I was walking around the town all day today (I 
forgot to mention that it had a really cool park as well) and didn't get back 
until about 6:30 PM and was just exhausted and so i came in and just flopped 
down in the common area and all the hostel workers were just sitting around 
talking. I think they realized how tired I was and they asked me if I wanted to 
join them for their staff dinner. So within about 5 minutes, we all went back 
into the back and had this great dinner with all this homemade Chinese food. 
Some of them could speak English so it was cool getting to know them and where 
they were all from. Cool ending to a great day!