Hello world. Are you all ready for President Donald Trump?

I got a touch of Trump class, recently. A friend of mine from the US had his parents visit Bangkok, and they were kind enough to invite Ella and I out to dinner. Always appreciated, but this really went above and beyond. They were staying at a hotel where 1 night was about 20% of my monthly salary. So, I really, really, hoped they were paying for dinner. Turns out yes. We had a great buffet, which although was good, I would have preferred street food. The one exception was the cheese bar. Oh, cheese! I've missed you! I think the hotel lost money on my ravenous cheese excursion. (Also, Ravenous Cheese Excursion would be a good band name) Still, one of the most luxurious nights I've ever had in Asia.

Some coworkers invited myself to karaoke, and... we'll just say "a friend" (not pictured) also came along, in case he prefers to stay anonymous. He sang Ylvis's amazing, "What's the deal with Stonehenge?", and we were all in tears of laughter afterwards. Especially my British coworkers, as I don't think they've ever heard it before. Overall it was a pretty great night. Friend and I decided at one point to go out on the terrace and have a chat. The soju was flowing, but overall the mood was a bit serious, reminiscent of those many late night drinking sessions I had at Ryan's place so long ago. One of the others popped their head out, and said "Hey, it's time for the last song."

Little did I know my night was about to get a little crazy.

So, Friend had been perfectly coherent and calm, mostly, up until that point. Then the switch in his mind flipped from "calm" to "I am Ethanolius, Destroyer of Sobriety". He jumped on tables, things were broken. On the way out he decided to go down the stairs ass first. He slammed into the glass door really hard, so hard in fact I was shocked when it wasn't broken. Outside, he proceeded to climb up the sign of this place. Again, surprised the sign didn't break. He fell into a pool of water and got his feeet soaked. Then he went back inside, and started messing with the security guards stuff. The gaurd was not pleased, and told us to leave. He wanted to go talk to some girls near the door, which required a great deal of physical restraint to avoid.

So before, I was just going to get him in a cab and send him on his way. It was quite clear there was no way in the world he would be able to accomplish that. So I flagged down a cab to come along. It began to slow down, then pulled away rapidly. I'm thinking "What the heck?" I turn around, and friend is just flat out lying on the sidewalk, making snow angels. Alright. So I flag down another cab. It slows down, and suddenly a rubber traffic cone flies over my head and hits the taxi. He speeds away. Now, in retrospect, like the rest of this story, that was hilarious. At the time I didn't think it was so funny. Well, okay. I thought it was pretty funny. Finally restraining him for a moment, we get a taxi. And it turns out he speaks fluent Thai when he's drunk, which was a surprise. But amazingly, we made it home.

After that little adventure, I was eager to step back a bit. So on a particularly lazy Sunday, I decided to document Ella and I's entire day for no reason other than I could. We decided we wanted to cook something for dinner. We rolled out of bed pretty late, and then went to get brunch at our local Myanmar restaurant.

There's really not many Myanmar restaurants in Bangkok. In fact, this is the only one I know of in the city. A shame, because it's really quite good and cheap. Their biryani especially, is amazing. After that, we needed to go grocery shopping. First we needed bread, so we visited this Syrian family that makes flatbread.

Then it was off to the Bangkapi Mall.

Or actually, "The Mall Bangkapi". The Mall is some conglomerate that owns a bunch of big shopping centers. It's about 1-2km as the crow flies, but in reality traffic makes it closer to a 20 minute journey.

Ella wanted to get hair scrunchie things, and there's a store that sells them really cheap there. I mostly stand around and look at weird stuff while she debates on getting a dark blue or navy blue band.

Then comes the cooking. We actually prepared a lot of ingredients, to be used over the next few days.

And finally, the result of our labor.

Actually, I missed out on a lot of stuff. I really suck at this blogging thing. Alright, New Years Resolution - when you say you're going to document a day, remember to take more than 5 photos.

Wish you could have had many more boring days, Grant.

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.