Kunming! The city of bad luck.

So after arriving back in Kunming, we had to do a little detour. Ella had some paperwork to give her Uncle, so off we went to his workplace on the other side of town. The taxi was only like 12 rmb ($2), which is amazingly cool. Also cool is Ella's uncle. A very friendly guy, he made sure we sat down and had some tea. He's the kind of person who just cannot stop talking and wants to share everything with you. At one point he video called Ella's cousin to have us say hello. Then took us around "his" park.

Back to the middle of town, it was pouring rain. I wanted to get some noodles, but we were wet, cold, and not wanting to search. We were right next to a McDonald's, which was our first Kunming meal. After we got a taxi to the "hotel".

Man, I've traveled a lot. I've never had an experience like this. So their map places the hotel near a subway station near a park. It is clearly not there. So I try calling them. Invalid number. I double check the description - in a park, next to the subway station. But something doesn't look right. I check the Chinese version of Agoda. They're more specific with the subway station, using its actual Chinese name. On the far south side of town. "City center" my ass. After seeing the horribly wrong map I should have called it off then, but off we went. This park is right next to the new station as the crow flies, but about 1km to walk to an entrance. It does not look like a place a hostel should be. The name is a 100% match to their directions. We ask a few security guards, they all have no idea what we're talking about. One says there is no hotel here, and we've likely been scammed. We call it a wash, so head back into town to find our own place.

I call back Agoda to tell them. They put me on hold to contact the hostel, but after 5 or so minutes and being on a subway the call gets dropped. I call back when we get back to the city. Straight to voicemail. I call again 30 minutes later, voicemail again. I leave a message with my number. Instead they email me instead of calling, the next day, with more accurate directions. Of course we were not homeless for a night and got a new place. Also, Gmail doesn't work in China unless you have a VPN. I'm guessing most don't, so that email is useless. And of course, a response a day after your reservation is useless. Anyway, screw them.

That night we went out to an American / Mexican restaurant I saw on Wikivoyage, except it does not exist anymore, either. Next door though was a lovely Thai hotpot and pizza restaurant, because why not? It could have not been a more pleasant experience. The owner was cool,  the pizza solid and cheap, and he gave us free pumpkin soup. Super nice guy, I'm going to put his dealie on Wikivoyage instead.

That evening, we took a walk along the lake at night. We passed a lot of bars, but they were pretty empty for a Friday night. I guess because it was 8 or so, raining, and New Years was the night before, they were pretty dead. We just walked and chatted before grabbing a taxi back to the hotel.

Ok, next day! Full speed ahead! We went to Yuantong Temple, and along the way was in a police propaganda video. They were marching the same way we were, with a guy who kept running ahead to take video. So, we're in a lot of shots. Yuantong Temple is quite pretty, and if they cleaned it up a bit would be ripped straight out of a storybook. Very pretty, with even a Thai Buddhist Temple in the back. Great place for photos.

There wasn't much else on the agenda, so we sort of wanderer around the city, stopping off at every minor tourist sight on the map. A lot were closed, under construction, not that interesting, or something else. What that means is, Ella said that Kunming has a lot of history with many historical buildings. Instead of running a museum, the city rents these buildings out to (fancy) restaurants and bars. While the idea of eating in a place where General X did Y, it doesn't let you learn that much.

So instead let's talk about more good stuff. We stumbled upon a giant canteen full of local food, so we had our fill. Despite being a much larger city (10m or so), we didn't see but 3 or 4 foreigners the whole time here. What we did see were a lot of cats, much to Ella's delight. In fact, we found a whole street that was basically a pet shop street market.

We went to the old part of the city, which is a pedestrians only area chock full of small shops, similar to the one in downtown Hangzhou. All sorts of kitschy "Chinese" things, it's a nice place to pick up souvenirs. We also went to go see a church (closed), art museum (closed) and a theatre (closed for a private event). After we wandered around a bit more on our way to the East and West Pagodas (closed for construction). There was a giant gate turned into an upscale jewelry store though, so we got some great pictures anyway.

We went back to a park we had passed earlier that had been full of birds, but we apparently got there past their bedtime. There were only a few left, but we did get to see the sunset and try a snack of dough and powdered peanuts. Afterwards we went to the "bar district", which was also quite empty. But it was around 7, so that's not too surprising. Honestly it had kind of a sleazy sort of vibe to it, kind of like something that had its heyday 20 years ago. Quite hungry by now, we ate some Szechuan Chicken with our hands using plastic gloves. Classy! And that was about it for Kunming. We grabbed a few beers and the went back to the hotel. The next morning it was off to the airport and back to warm Bangkok.

Overall, I kind of like Kunming. It's a big city, although has somewhat less to do than I initially thought. There's a few day trips you can take as well, and we skipped a lot, so I suppose it could keep you occupied for 3 or 4 days. That's not too bad for a city pretty much unknown to tourism outside of Asia. Ella suggested we try living there one day, and who knows, that may happen. Although, there's lots of other places on that list. But to give you an idea of what we did, I took an unusually long, and probably incredibly boring video. Check it out below if you feel so inclined.

Welcome back to China!

This was an unusual trip for me. More like a family reunion, we went to see Ella's relatives for Christmas. Not because they celebrate Christmas, because we both had time off.

So off we go to Kunming Airport, in Yunnan Province. You've probably never heard of it, but it's the 4th busiest airport in China. Behind Beijing, Shanghai, and I'm not sure of number 3... Guangzhou? Chongqing? Anyway, a lot of people come through here. It's actually far south, neighboring Laos and Myanmar. But after landing, we grabbed the train to Qujing, Ella's home.

Qujing is probably considered a small to medium city, with about 2 million people. I know that sounds insane. But for reference, you can walk across downtown. And there is 1 KFC. Meanwhile, in Bangkok there is 1 KFC per block. They like to build up in China, with massive apartment complexes. When every building in the city is 25+ stories, they don't really look out of place or overly impressive.

Anyway we arrived of course, and were met at the train station by Ella's mom and dad. They're both very sweet, dare I say fairly typical Asian parents. Dad commented that the scotch I brought for him was too weak after downing a glass of it. Then smoked a cigarette and went to work. Mom on the other hand, believes that if you have not eaten a grocery store's worth of food, you will die of starvation within moments. Therefore, the only solution is to put food in your bowl for you.

I got a bit of a culture shock here, even having experienced China before. For one, it's cold. Just a little above freezing, which is nice after the heat of Thailand. They also do that weird thing here where they keep windows open. Something about fresh air. I didn't understand it in Hangzhou, I don't understand it here. But in Hangzhou, the homes and stores had heaters. Here, nope. It's not that easy to enjoy dinner when you're sitting in a freezer. At least showers are hot, it gives some reprieve from the cold.

It's a big test of my Chinese ability here, because Ella's parents usually do not speak Mandarin Chinese. Mom is very nice and will switch when talking to me, but Dad doesn't really know how to speak it. They speak the Yunnan dialect of Chinese, while mostly similar, is different enough to be confusing.

Anyway, what have we been doing? To be honest not much. Mostly eating. And visiting people. And more eating. And then going to the grocery store, for more eating. We've seen a few minor points of interest in the city, like a park with an art exhibition in it. Like in Xiaoshan, I'm sort of the subject of attention here. There's very few foreigners in the city, probably less than 10. So lots of staring. And in the case of the artists selling their stuff, not-so-stealthy photos of me looking at things. Which I'm sure will appear on their next catalog.

We went to Qujing's south gate one day, an impressive and large wall as is often the case in China. They're super good at building walls. And ya know what? I didn't see any Mongolians invading. So apparently it's working.

We hiked up a hill for the view, and took a walk through a very pretty park to find a sort of fun fair for kids. We saw an advert for a 7D movie, which I guess means in addition to travelling through time, it utilizes string theory. While there someone told us that 7D is for chumps, he has a 9D movie.

Okay China. Dimensions have defined meanings, you can't just add them as you want. Hell why stop at 9, I'm going to open a godamn 100D movie. Anyway you basically put on 3D goggles from the Atari dimension and sit in a chair that moves to the movie. At least it should, but the movements had fuck all to do with what I was seeing. Weird to say the least.

After we saw some monkies and went to the zoo. Asian zoos are always a little depressing. Like in the last blog, animal rights are pretty unheard of, much less regulation. This one wasn't too bad, except for the monkies inside who were confined to a very small, wet cage with nothing to do. The lion and tiger also were a bit cramped. But everything else was more or less alright, and they had some wolves. I tried howling, and to my surprise they actually howled back. It wasn't long before the 3 of them were howling up a storm, and we could still hear them going after we had left.

The next day, we took a walk around the old town with Ella's old friend, Tadpole. Or at least that's her nickname, in Chinese. We had lunch, did some shopping, and wound up in the most luxurious KTV I've ever been in. This was straight out of the Donald Trump dimension, with marble floors, chandeliers, and lots of expensive looking art scattered around. It was quite ostentatious, even if it was fake. They had an amazing selection of music, quite beyond what any place in Thailand has. Like Walk The Moon. That was an unexpected find.

Thoroughly drunk, the next day we went to the big tourist attraction of Yunnan, The Stone Forest. Basically a bunch of interesting looking stones that shoot up from the ground like trees, it really is quite impressive despite its boring sounding description. On arrival they had folks letting you borrow traditional Yunnan clothes for a few bucks, which was fine because we got some great photos. As is usual for places like this, I don't have much to say except it was beautiful and to look at these pictures.

On the way back we stopped at a smallish temple which turned out to be a large and pretty temple. I of course took some photos, and some dude yelled at me in Yunnanese to stop. Of course I didn't know what that meant so I just kept doing it. Then Ella translated for me, and I chose again to ignore it because hey, I don't speak that language. Keeping this beautiful thing train going (god that was a bad segue), we visited Dad's workshop. Dad teaches deaf students how to do things, like woodworking and art. His students made some amazingly beautiful things, which is to be expected because he's no slouch himself. A lot of the work is his own, and his and Mom's artwork hangs around their house. Mom even tutors in art on the side. Now I know where Ella gets her talent.

That night was New Years, so I definitely wanted to go out to the bar to celebrate. Bar, singular. I exaggerate but there is really a single small street with 4 small bars the size of a dorm room. And that's about it for Qujing nightlife. We quickly downed our cocktails from one bar before hopping next door. When midnight came, it was quite anticlimactic. I had a clock out, and of course did a countdown. And then midnight came.. and nobody gave a single shit. I heard one glass clink, and I imagine the conversation went along the lines of,



"I say Ping, it appears to be midnight."

"Oh right you are Li. Shall we clink glasses?"

"I suppose that would be acceptable."

<clink>

"Quite."

"Quite."

We had to wake up at 630 the next morning to catch the train back to Kunming, so we left shortly after that. A few people asked for photos with me on the way out, because foreigners seem to be unicorns around here. After an early rise and staying goodbye to Mom and Dad, it was off to Kunming!