My first time to China, what a place. The energy, the joy, the people and, of course, the food. It seemed that everyone was on the move, unintentionally we had scheduled our time in China to coincide with Golden Week, which is a week of celebrations surrounding the anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, this year was the 59^th anniversary.

Lijiang and Dali were the two cities that we visited. Both walled cities originally built in the seventeenth century, and while, as you can imagine, full of tourists – us included, the main tourist groups were however city Chinese enjoying the more rural experience.

My search for traditional textiles was a little disappointing until we arrived in Dali, where I found the more tribal appliqué pieces on the web site. Dali is the centre of the Naxi people and the goods are bought from the villages into small shops and stalls for sale. I was very thrilled to find these particular pieces as I have never seen anything quite like them before,
The downside is that I still I have a long way to go in developing my negotiation skills!

The only consolation is that the Naxi are considered to be some of the most skilled in the art of bargaining in the world. A work in progress.