June 8-9, Lijiang and Lijiang -> Hong Kong: Operation Spend Yuan

For the next two posts, I’m going to condense them into two-day periods each, as this post will cover the end of Lijiang and getting into Hong Kong, and the next post will cover Hong Kong more broadly, as I think I’ll be able to have a better understanding of the important stuff after having spent two full days in the city. Anyway, onto the story:

With a little more than one day left in Lijiang, we headed out into the old town with a purpose: unload our remaining Chinese currency before getting to Hong Kong. In Japan, we had a similar day, and called it “operation spend yen.” Catchy, I know. While “operation spend yuan” does not have the same caché, we were much more successful.
We went through the streets of the old town between spurts of rain – it was the only time we’ve seen rain in Lijiang – and perused tapestries, wood carvings, paintings, and more. I can’t go into too much detail, because internet here at the posting site is spotty, but we filled our suitcases to the brim and packed for our trip to Hong Kong.
But before the trip, we had one last night out in this mountain town. The local residents are known to fill both floors of the restaurants and bars in Lijiang’s main drag and then from the windows, taunt the other side – at a group of girls, or an empty bar, or whatever. Each cheer is following by the phrase that is pronounced phonetically like this: yah-so, yah-so, yah-yah-so, which is basically the equivalent of “come on!” (it actually means “add oil, add oil, add add oil”).
Here’s a couple of pictures from our night out:




We got up early in the morning, and spent the day traveling almost in its entirety – a connecting flight in Kunming from Lijiang got us into Shenzhen, which is located a short distance from Hong Kong’s limits. Getting into HK, however, was quite an ordeal. With our arms filled of bags and suitcases, we had to transfer busses three times – once from the airport to the Chinese border, once from the Chinese border to the HK border, and finally once from HK into downtown Hong Kong city. At each point, there were lines, lines, and more lines. It was quite an ordeal to say the least.
In any case, we got into the hotel, grabbed a bite, and headed out for a bit. I was exhausted from the travel and called it a night early; Chris and Alex spent a little more time out in the area, called Lan Kwai Fung, famous for its ex-pat bars and touristy attractions, then crashed pretty early as well. More soon!

Mike