Wow! Time flies, more than half a year has passed!
Gor Gor and Di Di are getting very busy with many activities coming up. Di Di will be going to full day school next week.
As promised to my friends, Mummy is working hard to put together our stories of our 8 days trip to Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Shangri-La Deluxe Tour.
Our flight to Kunming was at 3am and it was an experience for Gor Gor to take the wee morning flight. Fortunately, he felt asleep easily in the airplane all the way till arrival to Kunming airport at 7 plus am. Once we reached Kunming, our tour guide immediately started to bring us to the first destination, Daguan Park.
Main entrance of Daguan Park.
This year is the year of the Dragon, Gor Gor posing infront of the huge Dragon display at Daguan Park.
Our local Kunming guide showing us the directory of the park.
A closer look at the directory.
Our local tour guide told us that this flower shown in the picture above is often mentioned in the martial arts books by Jin Yong to make poison.
“What a beautiful garden!”
The lake is filled with blossoming lotus flowers
The park is filled with flowers, trees, ponds, causeways, pavilions and halls.
The most famous building in the park is the three-stories Grand View Tower (Daguanlou).
Our local tour guide specially mentioned this two 5-meter-long couplets in front of the building, each couplet was hung at the two sides of columns, written by a famous Qing Dynasty poet called Sun Ranweng. The couplets are unique because each has 180 Chinese characters, and he mentioned that this is believed to be the longest couplets in Chinese history. Our tour guide has memorised all the words in the couplets.
During our trip, we see many interesting signs which basically means “keep off the grass”.
Next stop, Jiuxiang Scenic Area.
We are now at Jiuxiang Scenic Area.
Gor Gor wearing a life vest preparing to take a boat ride.
So exciting, we are taking a boat ride now!
The scenery is simply breath-taking!
After the boat ride, we are going to explore the caves. There are about 100 caves of various sizes and among the caves are numerous natural bridges, valleys, rivers and waterfalls.
Our whole journey was escorted by a guide from Yi tribe, dress in traditional costume.
There are lots of climbing but you will be rewarded with the beautiful and breath-taking scenery along the way.
More climbing …
Along the way, the local guide will point out to you the interesting structure like the above picture. What do you see? An old man facing a tortoise. To the Chinese, tortoise represents longevity which means long life and it is auspicious to the Chinese.
The twin waterfalls.
One of the main attractions of the Cave is the Divine Field, beautiful multiple layers naturally formed.
This fish is known as Jiu Xiang Blind fish and it is very rare.
The interior of the cave is beautifully lighted up.
Wow, the cave is so huge and beautiful!
You can see calligraphy on some of the rocks.
If you are too tired to walk, there is an option of taking sedan ride. Some of our tour members took the sedan ride for the whole journey. You also have the option of taking a shorter sedan ride at the cost of 50 RMB.
A small bottle of water is provided at the entrance. Be prepared to do lots of climbing and the cave floor can be slippery, make sure that you are wearing a pair of good comfortable shoes.
After this, our tour guide brought us back to the hotel to rest as we arrived in Kunming early in the morning, he felt that we will be tired so it is better for us to rest early and have the energy for our next trip tomorrow.
