Yunnan Trip, Kunming
Alright, so, time to get behind again :P Yunnan trip. It’s this semesters equivialent to the Silk Road trip of last semester. A two week “academic trip” at the beginning of the semester. I guess I’m a little biased, but I think Silk Road was a better trip. But, whatever, this one was much easier and laid back. I enjoyed roughing it though. I guess it also is because west china is so sparsely populated and less civilization. South China is…regular I guess. Much more touristy. But hell, with the frigid cold of Beijing, I didn’t mind going down to the sub-tropics.

Anyway, first stop, Kunming 昆明


More Pictures!




The weather was such a treat. I’ll be going on about it a lot. Beijing is freezing and our first stop it was 70 degrees when we got off the plane. Flowers everywhere, palm trees, everything green. Beautiful. The weather and the plants reminded me a lot of California. It was gorgeous.
First night we had off, or rather, the old students took the night off :P We found a western restaurant that was fantastic. A very chill, indie type place. Had wonderful burritos (vegetable since I’ve turned vegetarian). Start of another trend on this trip. I haven’t had so much western food in such a short period of time in AGES (other than winter break back in the states). We visited this place the entire time we were in Kunming. Every city we visited after one night there would be one restaurant that everybody in the group would end up going to. I think we gave them all more business in 2 days than they would get in a month. This place was called Salvador’s. Tucked in a little back alley, good burritos, like I said, and they had this dessert called “Star Destroyer”. Oh my god. Delicious, brownie and ice cream. Yum.

Enough about the food. This town was really cool. There were tons of trees lining the streets, major city streets and then off the main streets too. Really gave the city a unique look. I think I have a picture of one of the streets. I was wary about bringing out my camera since I had just gotten my phone stolen on the first night. The city is so different from Beijing, all the cities are. They seem more compact for one, but also more advanced. I know Beijing tries not to do that though, preserving history and everything, but it’s nice to get out. Walking up and down the streets around the hotel and the restaurant was so different; small streets, trees, boutique shops lining the streets. Really a different place.

The day we get in we go to this minority culture theme park. It was like Disneyland, a human zoo. It was the beginning of another trend. Tourist trip galore. I felt like such a rich American jerk so often on this trip, people being paid to perform for us and everything. This theme park was ridiculous though. It had all the minorities of Yunnan in little mini minority villages and we actually took a train, universal studios style, around the place. Getting off, having people sing and dance for us and then hoping back on to the next “village”.

Second day in Kunming
Horrible Chinese breakfast. If that didn’t remind me of the Silk Road trip, nothing would. Horrible, disgusting Chinese breakfasts every morning. Ugh.
Headed off to the Stone Forest. Apparantly amazingly famous in this province. To Yunnan what the Great Wall is to China (so they said). The weather was pretty gross this day, but it got a little better. Freezing and no one was expecting it. Anyway, this place was awesome. Limestone…pillars really, as far as the eye could see. It really felt like a stone forest to walk through. Very touristy place though, there were tons of people. The place was huge though, you could go off on one of the winding paths in between all the rocks and completely lose sight of everyone and all the noises. Relaxing once you got away from all the tourists. It was a really cool place. Some parts felt like caves but with holes in the ceilings. Vines and small trees in little courtyards made by the rocks. Once I lost all the people, it was really enjoyable.
I had gotten separated from the group and without a cell phone, I had no clock so I headed back. Early, oh well.

I headed out on my own once we got back to the hotel; I didn’t want to get taken around by a host student TBC provided for us. Down the street was a park, so I headed in that direction. The first area when I first got there was FILLED with people; vendors, performers, visitors, and tons of seagulls (apparently a main attraction at the park). I grabbed some cotton candy (1元 how could a resist?) and started walking around. The park was HUGE, situated around a giant lake that you could cross by bridges and islands. The people disappeared after that first area, so it was a lot better. I walked around for hours, in front of a building there was a little band playing traditional Chinese music and one lady dancing in front of them. Not much of a crowd around them. I stayed for a little bit, but moved on. There were a couple other groups in the park playing music, just for fun, no one around, in little remote areas of the park. It was fantastic. I eventually came back to that first group on my way out. It had grown considerably. There was a much larger crowd and now had about 10 or 15 women dancing and the occasional man. I was surprised that they could all do the dances. I figured out that there was always a leader and they had a certain set of moves I guess, but the leader decided what to do and everyone else followed.
I stayed and watched for a while and all of a sudden heard someone walking up say “We should request Free Bird” *sigh* Only an American would say something like that. I turn around and it’s a group of my friends (old kids from last semester). Kind of weird running into people like that, but it happens, we all stay in a general area. We searched around looking for a place that was playing the Australian open (don’t ask…) but no luck. No TVs in this city apparently.
Went back to the western place for dinner.


Heading off to Shangri-la next!