After breakfast, we met up with our driver (the guy who picked us up from Dali Airport to the hotel and Jason added him to his WeChat and negotiated the transfer fee of 600 CNY) for our transfer from Dali to Lijiang (丽江). The drive was around 2.5 hours, Jason asked him about where locals buy their silver jewelry. He told us that those manufacturers are in this little town/village and he offered to stop by for us to check it out. We went to a shop within a mansion that the owner owns and lives, it was huge but their prices were surprisingly high. We didn’t buy anything as a result. Then, we continued to our way to our hotel: Intercontinental Lijiang Ancient Town Resort. Before arrival, I told our kids if they are not feeling well like a headache, let mommy know right away. Walk, don’t run as we are in higher altitude! That was my #1 worry when going to Lijiang. It turned out, they were totally fine and running like usual LOL!
The first thing we saw when we entered the resort was this golden tree right in the middle of the lobby! The kids loved the moving butterflies.
We got there before lunchtime and luckily, both of our rooms were ready and we were upgraded to a suite, thanks to our IHG Diamond status which we bought when they had the promotion at the end of last year! It was well worth the $60 extra for all those free breakfasts, upgrades, and perks!!! The staff drove us to our rooms via the golf cart, it is a big resort with individual 2-story traditional houses that consist of 4 rooms (2 per floor):
Our suite with a living room and behind it is the office:
The bedroom is divided into 3 sections: the toilet and shower on the left, the bed, and the tub on the right:
The bathroom is spacious with toiletries and even travel-sized bottled of mouthwash, I love their mouthwash flavor, it was jasmine green tea! I wish we have that in the US!
Our suite is located on the 1st floor which also has a courtyard with a seating area. It overlooks other houses though so not the best in terms of privacy and scenery.
The hotel provides amenity kits for kids too, how cute was that? The odd thing about it was the kids’ slippers were Hotel Indigo branded LOL. Hotel Indigo is their sister property located across the street, we checked out their breakfast one morning and it was very small compared to the Intercontinental!
Complimentary mini bar with my favorite coconut milk drink!
We immediately headed out for lunch, it was a 15 minutes walk to ZhaZha Mi Xian 渣渣米线(古城店) one of the most famous “over the bridge rice noodle” restaurant chain in Yunnan. The hotel has a back entrance that enters directly into the pedestrian-only Lijiang Ancient Town (丽江古城). As we walked into the ancient town, the scenery, the vibe, the architectures were AMAZING decorated with flowers, lanterns, umbrellas! I thought Dali Ancient Town is nice, Lijiang’s is jaw-dropping beautiful!!! This is one of the restaurant, how pretty is that?
We reached ZhaZha Mi Xian and luckily there was no wait for a table upstairs. Their menu, their noodle soup is so affordable, even the most expensive combo is only 168 CNY which is the exotic seafood combo.
We ordered the house flavor (the first one on the left column) for 98 CNY, the classic scholar (last one on the left column) for 38 CNY, and the fatty beef (2nd one right column) for 58 CNY. The ingredients that put inside the soup were on small dishes on this cute bridge shaped rack:
The soup base was on a boiling-hot stone pot and they provided instruction: first pour the meat into the soup, followed by the vegetables and noodles. This was our first time having “over the bridge noodle” and the first sip of the soup, WOAH, it was so flavorful! My favorite of the 3 was the fatty beef. The noodles were chewy and had a smooth texture. I finished the whole pot of noodle soup in no time!
After the delicious noodle soup, we walked to Mufu Palace (木府), but we stopped every few seconds to take photos of the beautiful ancient town. It was not as crowded as I expected, end of June was a great time to visit Lijiang! We came across a lot of “fresh flower cake” shops as that’s a Lijiang specialty!
Lots of ancient costume rental shops as well:
The most beautiful buildings are always restaurants!
We finally reached Mufu Palace, it was built by the rich Mu family during the Ming Dynasty, modeled after the Forbidden City in Beijing. After we visited the Forbidden City 3 years ago, I much preferred Mufu Palace; it has no crowds, no need to set an alarm to book tickets, clean bathrooms, and we were able to walk into the halls/rooms! The architecture is as stunning as the Forbidden City. The admission fee was only 60 CNY for adults and the kids were free.
Unlike the Forbidden City where all the rooms/halls were empty, the exbihition rooms in Mufu are all furnished!
The dragon on the ceiling that symbolized royalty and power:
The corridors that connect different halls/buildings were colorful too with red beams and lanterns.
The hall of thousands of book scrolls:
We were also able to climb up the stairs to the 2nd floor for its view of the ancient town and the mountains on the back.
Amazing wood-craved furnitures on the 2nd floor:
Overlooking another hall behind it:
We walked back down the stairs to see its ancient scroll collections; this scroll on Buddhism?
I was surprised that we had the whole place to ourselves and occassionally had a tour group passing by.
There are stone bridges and huge fish ponds just like in ancient dramas!
Our kids enjoyed watching the koi fish!
Pagoda with an ancient boat was a nice backdrop for a family photo 😀
The courtyard of the house:
Bedrooms:
A nursery too!
The statues of the three gods which represent happiness, wealth, and longetivity.
The details of the woodcraving on its door:
The beautiful corridors again:
Their ancestor hall:
The step into the hall was so high that my son had to climb over, he was having fun!
This hall was closed:
On the back of it, we spotted a pagoda up the mountain…urg should we hike up?
Then, on the highest point as far as we could see is a temple on the top of the hill:
The kids were determined to hike up there……urg…..they were so fast climbing those stairs…wait for mommy!!! They had no problem with high altitude while we, the adults, were catching our breaths from the flight of stairs LOL!
We finally made it to the top to the temple, phew!
The dragon wood craved panel, look at all those details!
We were rewarded with great views of the palace complex and the ancient town! I love Lijiang preserving the old architecture and not being “polluted” by modern skyscrapers in the backdrop.
We walked back down via the stone walkway instead of the stairs and came to this hall:
We spent like 3 hours in Mufu! It was huge but manageable and no crowds so we enjoyed our own pace and took as many beautiful photos as we wanted. I highly recommended Mufu!
After the palace, we explored more of the ancient town but not too far off from Mufu since our plan for dinner is at 滇西王子 Mufu branch. Of course, we continued with a lot of photos, every corner, every turn was so picturesque!
This is another famous “over the bridge rice noodle” restaurant chain, we’ll try it out later.
People said Lijiang is commercialized, yes it is with lots of repeating shops that sell the same thing: fresh flower cakes, tea, silver jewelry, Naxi-styled dye clothings…I wish they have more varieties.
Next, the umbrella street:
I went into a shop that sells handmade oil paper umbrellas and got one for my daughter, she loved the small size one, she said perfect for her size 😀 This shop was unique, we didn’t find another one that sells the same thing!
More highly decorated restaurants advertised with views of the famous Jade Dragon Snow Mountain (玉龙雪山).
We also found the wall with pictographs, their Dongba script, the world’s last surviving living pictographic writing system, used by the Naxi people in this region. The kids had fun guessing what the picture means.
Our dinner at 滇西王子, we ordered the mushroom dish – it was spicy and flavorful; the sour soup fish fillet was tasty especially the fish texture was fresh, the fried egg with flowers (the kids loved it)…
The fried tofu with sauce was okay, I found their tofu wasn’t as silky.
The restaurant gave us lots of free dishes to try…including this drink that looked like milk tea. I didn’t get to try it because my son urgently need the bathroom so I went back to the hotel with him……..he’s particular with #2, he needs a sitting toilet.
We walked out of the ancient town and ordered DiDi to get back to the hotel as fast as we could. Meanwhile, after dinner, Jason walked back to the hotel with my daughter and explored the famous Zhongyi Market (忠义市场) filled with food stalls and vendors selling dried mushrooms.
After they got back to the hotel to meet up with us in the room, we went to check out the hotel’s kid’s club! It was located next to the hotel pool and not staffed. Basically, an indoor playground for kids. There is a ball pit with a slide and a digging area.
The kids loved it. There is a desk, chairs, and books but those chairs were the most uncomfortable chairs that I had ever sat on. Whoever designed those chairs was a bad designer! The kids spent an hour there to drain their energy and then we walked back to our house (room). The resort at night:
Our house/room:
It was a great first day in Lijiang, I can not recommend enough of it, especially Mufu Palace! Lijiang is the most beautiful ancient town that I have ever visited, more beautiful than the watertowns in Hangzhou in my opinion. Even though it is highly commercialized with similar shops, it is unbelievably picturesque at every turn and corner. The unified ancient architecture, along with colorful flowers, lanterns, and umbrellas surrounded by mountain ranges made Lijiang one of a kind!
