Here we are at the center of town. This is a big open area. the large rock wall behind the working water wheel tells that story of Pu'er tea among others. It is told in the only surviving pictographic language still in existence. The people are the Naxi and the language is called Dongba. 
There is much activity in the square even in the early morning. These are prayers that are hanging on a trellis in the town square. They make a pretty sight. There are people coming and going to the market for their daily food, and men dressed in traditional costume giving rides on the sturdy horses of the area.
Before heading to the airport for the next leg of the trip, we are stopping to visit the Black Dragon Pool park. This park once held the villa and family temple of the Mu chieftain. The temple was built in 1601. The lions at the gate are different than the ones at the Forbidden City. There are two sets here. The male lions are on the inside. They stay at home and study. The lions on the outside represent women who do everything on the outside of the house. The male lions have genitals. This is not the case on other lion statues seen in the Forbidden City. We bought a painting here done in Chinese ink painted with the palm of the hand. It is a landscape but the artist Guan Yao Jiu is really known for his palm paintings of dragons in the clouds. The inscription on the painting is "the mountains in a row but feel peace of mind". Through our friend we learned that he is the creator of this kind of painting. He told us that he will be exhibiting in Beijing and that he will be presenting his 100 dragons painting to Beijing for the Olympics. Sometimes it is a good thing that we don't understand what is being said, because when we do we have to try to sort the fiction from the reality.
What a stunning vista. A beautiful pagoda reflected in the lake. The Jade Dragon Snow Mountain is in the background. We were happy to be here early in the morning.
The lake in this park is fed by a spring. There is a custom that within the first few days of the lunar new year, the Naxi husband comes to this spring and draws water. He then goes home to cook dinner while his wife reclines and rests. He has done his duty for the year, the other 364 days are hers to manage. There were boys running around filling old peanut oil bottles with water. There was a small boy of maybe 6 walking with his grandmother. He was carrying the water bottle and her big black purse. So charming.
In the heart of the park was the Naxi Dongba Cultural Museum. Here the museum guide is recounting the creation story. "Long ago, having set up the earth and the sky, the nine brothers and the seven sisters of the Naxi people conferred with the wise men and the able men. they decided to build Junashiluo Mountain (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain) which could prop up the sky and guard the earth. Thereafter the Naxi people told the story that human beings and nature are brothers and that the Naxi, Bai, and Tibetian people are originated from one ancestor". If you look to the right of the guides head you can see the two people with the three sons. This is who survived the great flood. Each of the sons are the forefathers of the Naxi, Bai and Tibetian people. The story is written in the Dongba language.
The Naxi totem is a frog. Frogs reproduce easily and cover the earth. Many carvings depict a frog in the center and the 5 elements radiating from it (earth, water, fire, metal, and wood) with the 12 zodiacs surrounding this. 
Now it is lunch time and most of the people want to try the local delicacies. The guide said that they usually don't serve these. First Tom is holding the deliciously crisp dragonfly in his mouth so carefully.
Now to try the rather squishy bamboo worm. Yummy. Tom preferred the worms. They were warm. 
After a yummy lunch of vegetables, meat, and local treat, we head back to LiJiang for some shopping and general roaming of the old town. We saw this lovely vista of the Jade Dragon Snow mountain.
We pass by one of the few remaining statues of Mao in China. The creators were meticulous about the sizing. the statue is 7.1 meter (1971 was the founding year of the communist party), the box he is standing on is 5.16 meters (can't remember this significance perhaps May 16), and the total height arrives at 12.26 meters (the birthday of Chairman Mao). I understand that all statues were different from each other but that all are as carefully designed.
We went to one of the many tea houses in LiJiang for a tea ceremony. We all sat around the big table and tasted many different years of Pu'er tea. The longer the tea sits the milder it becomes. There are many factors that determine quality. Tom said that it is just like wine in this regard. The best leaves come from the top of the tree and are the youngest. The best way to ferment the tea is naturally and not in a factory with chemicals. Lastly, is the length of time that the tea is allowed to ferment. It is packed into biscuit shapes about the size of a luncheon plate and maybe an inch thick at the center. It is then wrapped in paper. It was originally packed that way to aid in shipping.
We had a wonderful lady in our group who is very interested in Pu'er tea and she asked intelligent questions and translated the answers to us. Without her help we would have learned a whole lot less or just gotten stories about the teas and her family. With her, this was a valuable learning experience and good tea to boot.
We tasted 5 year old tea as an introduction. It was fine and it gave us a point of comparison. Next we tasted an 8 year old tea that was smooth. The hostess told us that this tea would sell for 800 to 900 yuan in Kunming (probably more in Beijing or Hong Kong). Here in LiJiang at her shop which sells the tea from her 300 year old family business she would sell it for 360 yuan ($50 USD). We figured that a biscuit of tea would last for a year. We compared this tea to another 8 year old that was comprised of younger leaves (400 yuan); a slight improvement in smoothness.
We moved onto a 15 year old tea that was formed into a brick for transportation. We questioned our hostess about this and she said this is common but not as much as the biscuit shape. Some of us liked the smokey taste of this tea, especially those who like smokey tasting scotch ( the caramel color of the tea reminds us of good scotch). Others preferred the 8 year old because it was not smokey and smooth.
Our hostess had teased us from the beginning with a rare tea that she has. It was picked in 1975. It has the highest level of quality (7) and there were only 28 biscuits produced. We asked to taste this along side the better quality 8 year old for a good comparison. Our hostess warned us about this saying this is very unusual and she knew we would prefer the older tea. She was right of course. She had a few 1975 biscuits left in her shop and the remaining 14 are in Hong Kong. The price of this tea was 2800 yuan. We decided that at a us dollar a day it is still way cheaper than starbucks and you can get 15 cups of tea from this amount. A young man who was with us wondered aloud if there was tea from his birth year of 1976. HA! I must say that several biscuits of this old, yummy stuff was hand carried home on the plane by several people (yes, including me).
we wandered around the town. It was a very busy town with everyone enjoying the New Year. There were alot of folks just going about their daily business like this man bringing home vegetables and a live chicken.
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