We didn’t have much on the agenda today other than exploring more and maybe going to a museum. Up first was hotel breakfast. This hotel is tiny so it was all made to order instead of a buffet. It was very traditionally Chinese, which I love and Nick and Millie don’t. In my older age I have started to crave a savory breakfast. Like Confucius said, there is no bad time for a bowl of noodles. So I had that while they ate fruit and bread.

We set off and got some coffee. Nick, being Nick, paid an exorbitant amount for cat poop coffee. It tasted like coffee.

We walked a similar route to yesterday but took a new turn to head up into the hill above the old town. Millie continued her grumpiness from yesterday, which we tried to ignore but started to affect us. While we had many good moments today it was also a full day of feeling a bit off: her complaining or having a terrible attitude, and plenty of moments of frustration from us. Just some “behind the scenes” of the vibe before I bombard you with photos that will give the illusion of a perfect day.

We reached the top of the hill and looked out over all of the old village. We saw the surrounding mountains that were covered by clouds yesterday.

We stumbled upon an idyllic playground. There haven’t been many playgrounds in China so it was nice for Millie to run around a bit. She got frustrated that other kids didn’t speak English and that we didn’t play with her the whole time.

From here we walked up into a nearby temple and admired the view of the mountains around us. It was amazed by the amount of detail and what good shape it was in for being so old. I just looked up the history of it and it was built in 1997.

On our walk back down the hill we stopped in at a viewpoint cafe. We hung out here for a while, drawing and enjoying our drinks. Nick and I watched on as everyone around us had photo shoots.

We continued walking in search of food. Nick and I had delicious mushroom wrap things. We have no idea what anything is because we can’t read Chinese so we just look for stalls that look somewhat busy and then point to what other people have. Millie had watermelon, yogurt, and two bites of a yak meat skewer. Food here has been tough for her because most things are spicy, and when they aren’t spicy they are very sweet.

She started getting especially frustrated at just about everything: not wanting to walk, being jealous of random things other kids had, etc. After some tears she almost passed out on Nick in the town square.

Nick and I noticed that we weren’t feeling great, and thought it might be because of the altitude. We added that to the long and unhelpful list of “why our kid is acting annoying / why we are easily annoyed” reasons: altitude, too much sugar, tired, homesick, growth spurt, and so on. I need to remember that sometimes I have days of being grumpy for no good reason, so she probably does too.

When she woke up we decided to head back to the hotel for quiet time instead of going to a museum. She drew for a while and we lounged around.

She started a new comic book, “Millie’s sleepover with friends”.

I was resting and she kept stealing my phone, which she is not allowed to do. I said “give it back to me” and while she wasn’t listening to me she took this terrible photo of me. This is probably the most accurate photo of our day, her not listening and me annoyed.

Dinner time neared and we got stuck in that classic rut of “too hungry to choose a place to go to dinner”. Nick wanted to leave the hotel but didn’t know where to go. Millie didn’t want to do anything.

We walked out into the crowds. We stopped for a while in the big main square and watched what was advertised as a “cultural performance”. There were dancers and singers and kids doing an intensely patriotic performance while Chinese propaganda played in the background. At the end of it I told Nick “That made me proud to be Chinese even though I’m not Chinese”.

At one point there was this little old lady in front of us wearing a traditional giant hat. It blocked 90% of our view. It was about 2ft wide. Millie kept saying “why is this lady wearing this huge hat?!” I found it so funny for some reason, like being stuck behind a tall man at a concert, except she was an 80 year old with a huge hat. I wish I got a better photo of it.

Millie continued to lose it, this time because she saw a kid with face paint, asked for some, and we said no because we didn’t know where to get it and were about to head back for bed. She had a hard time all the way home as we walked through very thick crowds of people. It was quite overwhelming and made me look forward to this holiday week being over.

One thing that we remarked on today is that even though Lijiang is packed with tourists, all of them are Chinese. We saw maybe 3 other tourists today who looked like there were from somewhere else.

Hopefully we’ll all wake up in better moods tomorrow!