Living it up in Lijiang

By that I mean that I am staying in a room by myself with a bathroom, eating western food and drinking copious amounts of coffee. Yep, I decided to spoil myself after 4 weeks of village life. Every night I find a cafe that attracts westerners and find people to speak English with. Overall, it is very fun. During the day I have been getting some things organised. I went and ordered business cards today with my contact details in English and Chinese, printed out my questionaire, bought stationery, sat in a cafe in the sun, etc. Just that kind of thing. It's a pleasant change. I've also had a haircut and spent too much time in the shower. Got to go back to Lugu lake on Wednesday so I am making the most of civilisation and luxury. It is particularly nice being independent.

Tonight I went to a cafe and ordered a steak with mushroom sauce. Big disappointment, It was tiny and the sauce didn't really taste like mushroom. It's not often you walk away from a steak dinner thinking "maybe I'll go somewhere else and order pizza or something". Especially with what you pay for western food here (It's actually equivalent to Australian prices! I'm not used to paying that much for food anymore). My pasta carbonara last night was nice though. Unfortunately my "American breakfast" yesterday was stone cold and served with salad.

I ate sizzling yak meat yesterday for lunch with rice. It wasn't bad. Stirfried with chillies and sesame seeds. But very salty. The rude shock came when I went to buy a map at the bookshop with a Y50 note that they gave me in change and they wouldn't accept it. I assumed this was because it was torn and took it to the bank where the teller explained to me that it was a fake. I was pretty annoyed (Y50 may be worth less than $10 AU but it can buy a lot over here). I marched back to the restaurant - I knew that was where I got it and told them that they'd given me a fake 50. I thought that they would at least be more careful in future, but they actually reimbursed me even though I couldn't actually show it to them (the bank didn't give it back to me). I walked away feeling pleased that just for once China hadn't screwed me over financially. Not that it's expensive here but you often walk around feeling like you're not getting local prices or buying items that are poor quality.

There is a nice little bookshop in Lijiang that has a bookshelf full of reasonably priced modern English novels. Because the selection is small I can't stick to the same authors I normally read so I have read some interesting books I picked up there that I probably wouldn't buy back home. The latest of these is "Life of Pi" which has been fantastic so far- I haven't quite finished it. If you come across it, it is well worth a read. A bizarre and interesting and hilarious book. Well I have to go meet rowdy backpackers and an archaeology PhD student at a noisy cafe in the French quarter. bye for now.