Day 209: Farewell Lobsy! — Fly to Lijiang to See Blue School Friend Kiran
After early morning goodbye hugs for Lobsy we headed off to the airport, hands full of to-go breakfast bags and more gifts from the hotel.
It was a short 1.5 hour flight to Lijiang, a small city in the Yunnan Province in Southwest China.
We’re here to visit Willa’s school friend Kiran and her parents, Jay and Qiao, who spend summers here managing an artist’s retreat in a village about 20 minutes outside the city.
While Lijiang is a popular summer holiday spot for Chinese tourists — apparently 8 million visitors per year according to Lonely Planet — it’s definitely one of the more random / off-the-beaten path destinations of our whole trip.
We’re staying at the Bivou Lijiang in the Shuhe district. It’s a cool little 16-room hotel built within two farmhouses with a cute cafe serving fresh western and Asian food.
We checked in around 12:30, had lunch at the cafe and then grabbed a taxi out to the artist’s retreat.
Getting there was a bit of a challenge. First the hotel staff had to walk us to the taxi and explain where we were going just by pointing to a dot on a google map. That didn’t really work so we got Jay on the phone with the driver who gave directions plus instructions to avoid a construction site and traffic jam. The driver ignored the instructions and we were stuck for 45 min. Finally we got through and made our way to this little village and the artist’s retreat.
It was a good time to visit because there were a bunch of kids around in addition to Kiran. A few of the artist’s had kids with them and then another family from a local village came by for dinner. Willa and James had a blast.
Jay and Qiao rent the space for the retreat from a local family that also stays lives on the property. The rental fee includes meals and we were told the mom of the family once ran a restaurant and puts together amazing stuff.
Tonight there were three little tables, each with a hotpot of fresh chicken soup. So good.
After dinner Jay kindly gave us a ride back to the hotel.
It started raining after we got back, making for a super cozy little spot here in the Yunnan room #10. We were all excited to be able to sleep in with nothing planned for the morning.
