Have you seen the price of frozen dumplings in the UK? About 3 times the price here.

'English is barely spoken', don't fret, they barely speak Mandarin either.

Some chicken is fingerlickin good. Other chicken is just ass wipin' bad.

To add to the list.

If you are a tea drinker, bring your favourite brand of tea. I would also bring instant coffee if that is your thing. It will take you a few days to find stuff that you might crave (like coffee).

When travelling, bring something to read and some cookies. Delays are normal here.
At the airport shop you will need to buy water. You will see Evian/etc. at silly prices. They sell cheaper water, but they make it hard to find. Also some airports (not all) have free water dispensers.

Don't forget your electrical chargers.
If you read a lot, get a kindle. So much easier to find and download books you want if you have Kindle with 3G/wireless.
Bring your iPod/mp3 player. If nothing else you can insulate yourself from the madness. Some days are too much, som days.

Bring a security wire/computer lock, if bringing a laptop.

Shangrila

Try travelling independently from Lijiang. We hired our own car and driver in Lijiang. This was a taxi, we arranged an early am pickup from the hotel. Negotiate the price before you leave. The taxi driver will know of places to visit on the way, like tiger leaping gorge.
If you can, get the driver to take the old route, not the new highway. That way you will travel through beautiful scenery and see people off the tourist trail herding cattle in national dress. The taxi driver will need to know this is your plan, as it will take much longer to travel this route.

Shangri La old town. Avoid the vendors and head straight up to the old monastery. There is a lot of public access within the monastery. Then you can work your way down the hill exploring the back streets, which used to be very open and empty and interesting oddments to photograph.
The new town is a typical concrete frontier town urbanisation. However, the restaurants in the new town are where locals go. Some have a bit of a floor show, that at least is locals doing the local thing. Find a taxi driver and ask him where locals go for this. Otherwise he will just take you to one of the new tourist traps which are kitsch.

There is a famed wetland area, 120 to get in behind the 3m high fence. Then you see that it is flat and wet, you can't walk around, and so they will rent you a horse for another 100. For a 15 minute stroll on horseback. I would not bother.

Pudacuo National park is about an hour outside Shangrila, very wild and beautiful. There are areas of the park that are 'pristine' in ecological terms. You need at least a half day, but the park is huge and once you get 500m away from where the park bus stops, you will lose most of the noisy tourists. Lots of wildlife, take a camera. Take the boat ride as well.
More info here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pudacuo_National_Park

As a counter point of view. I can easily spend 3 days in Lijiang, and avoid the commercialism.

If you go to Lijiang, stay in Shuhe, about 3km due N of Lijiang old town. It is in a protected area/national park and you need to pay 70rmb to get in but the ticket lasts 3 days. There are no cars in the park, yay!
Traveling N from here there is Baisha village, this has a small temple and painted grottoes. As you enter the grotto area there are a few vendors outside the wall. Don't shop here, there are many more inside and more competition. Baisha village also has the Naxi (ethnic group) Museum. This is a cultural museum and I found the paper making of some interest. The Naxi also have thier own ancient writing system, independent of Hanzi. There is also a local troupe of musicians who write and play Naxi music. You can walk along a country lane (no cars) from Shuhe to Baisha.
If you leave Shuhe and travel towards Snow Dragon Mountain, there is a water village, that is actually a nice quiet place to relax. There is an ancient water management system (dams etc) nothing spectacular, but a nice area to walk around.

Snow Dragon Mountain. You have to park at the visitors centre, and take a bus up the mountain. We had to wait an hour for a seat on a tour bus. Knowing Chinese drivers, I can see the sense in closing the mountain road to all but authorized buses.

Within the old town itself. Get away from the centre. The other streets we found to be virtually empty, and peaceful. There are still people living in the old town. The centre of the old town is over commercialised.
There is also the Mu family residenct. The Mu family goverened the area for some time. They have an interesting history, and you can see a family home, which makes a change from visiting temples and palaces.