Spring Break to Chengdu and Yunnan

Here it is, the long awaited plans for my get away. On Thursday evening April 24th I'll get on a plane in Shanghai and head to Chengdu in Sichuan province. Sichuan has most recently been in the news last year where it was hit with those devastating Earth quakes (hoping that doesn't happen while I'm there), but It's also famous for being the home of the Panda Bear, and having melt-your-face-off spicy food. So for two nights we'll be staying in Chengdu which is the capital of Sichuan where we will go see Pandas, eat spicy food and explore.

Sunday morning we fly from Chengdu to Kunming in Yunnan Province in SSW China. Yunnan borders all of the south-east Asian countries of Vietnam, Myanmar (Burma), Laos and I think Thailand too so were pretty far south (should be warm ala). We spend Sunday just exploring and then first thing Monday we're on a bus headed to Lijiang, about four hours away from the capital of Chengdu. The main attraction in Lijiang: Tiger Leaping Gorge, looks beautiful, supposed to be some great hiking too. We're staying at an Eco-lodge overlooking the gorge for two nights (it's our most expensive accommodations at $7 a night). So that puts us at Wednesday when we drive back to Kunming for the remainder of our trip. Not sure what we're going to do in that time, it's apparently a pretty cool town. Then on Friday we fly from Kunming back to Shanghai with a few days left over to sleep and do the homework that we'll be neglecting while we're gone.


It's not Tibet, but I think it's going to be a great trip. Really excited for Tiger Leaping Gorge, and seeing some "natury stuff."

Hot and sticky in Shanghai this week.

-AL