Zai jian

I leave China in a few hours.  I have been here for almost a year and I think it would be impossible for me to articulate the experience in writing.  What I can say is that it has been a not-so-gentle reminder that life is good.

Thank you all for reading.

And . . . SCENE!

Last Hurrah

My friends and bandmates, Peter and Elliott, and I decided to take a few days off from work to travel to a part of China called Yunnan.  It is a province in the southwest that borders Tibet, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar.  It is home to China's largest minority populations.  Yunnan has a varied terrain, but is famous for its gigantic mountains.  The pictures below will explain this epic and final travel during my time in China.

10 hour sleeper train from Kunming to Lijiang.  Unfortunately, we didn't get much sleep.

Pictures do not do the Tiger Leaping Gorge hike justice.  The trek took us about 7 hours spread out over 2 days.

You don't want to fall in that.  

Cooking class in Dali.  

Food market in Dali.  The produce and meat comes fresh from the outlying village farms.  

Me playing at the Bad Monkey.  In exchange for our musical servies over the course of 3 evenings, we were given free drinks and food and were encouraged to come back anytime.  

Peter and Elliott trying to be funny.

Erhai lake during our bike ride.  

Peter and Elliott with traveling musician and current house performer, Carlos, at the Bad Monkey.

Minority woman selling produce in Dali market

No trip would be complete without a photo of me with a cute animal.

I anticipate that this will be my final post while a resident of the PRC.  I suppose I'll wrap things up during my 2 days of travel back home June 18th.  Till then . . .