The aftermath of vacation: unpacking suitcase, downloading last of pictures, writing a to do list that starts tomorrow. Also thinking that I love a local story of how Guanyin transformed herself into an old Bai woman, who carried a rock by roping it to her head and then used it to stop an invading army. Yes!
Shenzhen Noted 
Where is this place? Is it near Shenzhen. I love your blooogg.
…and apologies for the missing question mark.
Hi Nora Joy,
Thanks for reading Noted! Dali is located in Southwest China, and abuts the southeastern border of Tibet. To get to Dali from Shenzhen, buy a plane ticket to Kunming (1.5 hours) and then take another plane from Kunming to Dali (40 minutes). Unfortunately these are separate flights and so you have to go through check-in again at Kunming, so you spend two or three hours in the new Kunming airport. However, if you don’t want to fly from Kunming to Dali, the bus trip is 5 hours. The point is its close enough for a long weekend, although I would recommend five days, rather than four. That said, Dali remains a backpacker hotspot and so Lonely Planet offer all sorts of travel suggestions.
Thanks for the info. I’ll be putting that on the list. Have you been to the dwarf empire in Kunming? I have mixed feeling about that but either way, sounds fascinating.
Have not been to the dwarf empire. It does indeed sound fascinating.