We left the village in the morning for our short trip to the attractions around Dali.

Butterfly Spring
Located at the foot of Yunnong Ridge of Cangshan , on the west side of Tibetan-Yunnan road, 1km away from Zhuocheng Village of Dali City. There is even a special day called Butterfly Holiday on the 15th of April in the lunar calendar year. It is believed that when the butterfly tree is blossoming during this period, a lot of butterflies will gather there.
The spring is a symbol of love by the Bai people and young people go there to date. I am not so lucky, so I only took photos of couples in the group.
This area has become such a 'tourist attraction' that the women are vying for one another's business. We had a chance to wear the Bai people traditional clothes and take photos. I did not wear even though the lady there kept asking me to try it on. I just do not feel comfortable posing for photos, especially when I had to put something on just for it. Besides, it was too commercialised, women persuading you to try their clothes, I did not like this. Guess I would rather be the person behind the camera, helping my friends take photos and capturing beautiful moments on camera.

Cangshan
That was the first time I sat on that kind of cable car where there was nothing below. I could take photos without the window below my view. Upon reaching the summit, we went to look at some of the temples. There was nothing really interesting except for a foreigner I met. He could speak perfect Mandarin and he told me he learnt them in Germany. Impressive, the western world is really interested in Chinese culture and language.

Three Pagodas
One of most interesting place in the three pagoda temple was the reflection of the three pagodas in the pond. Lots of tourists like to take photos there, maybe it was just special and significant.
After which we had a short tour in the old city of Dali and went back to the village in the evening.
The trip back was noisy but memorable. The group behind was singing all kind of songs they could think of. At one instant, national songs even emerged, inclding the national anthem. I could also hear the familiar army songs, children's songs and popular chinese pop songs. When we were back in the village, it was pitch dark and yet, the children were waiting for us. They seemed so happy that we were back and were waiting just at the crossroads for us to come back. I was touched. We felt like VIPs. Nevertheless, some of us even sang with them on the short walk back to the entrance of the school. I miss those days...