Kunming
Kunming beckons travellers from freezing Chinese provinces in winter like a light does to a moth, but I wasn't there for the weather - Longzhou as a matter of fact is even warmer than Kunming, rather I was travelling through the Spring City to get to the northern cities of Lijiang, Dali and Zhongdian. Kunming is the capital city of Yunnan Province in the south western part of China where Yunnan shares borders with Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Tibet, Sichuan, Guizhou and Guangxi. Yunnan is the sixth largest Chinese province and home to 24 ethnic minority groups besides the Han.
The night train from Nanning was quite comfortable. It left at 6:10 in the evening and arrived in Kunming at 8:15 the following day. I immediately took a cab and well, the taxi driver brought me to a hostel. I gave him the address I got from a website but he insisted he didn't know any hotel by that name and address. I was glad though that he brought me to a place I read about somewhere and somehow has been recommended by international backpackers. The place was nice and comfortable and an excellent breakfast came with the room rate. The day was beautiful. It was sunny and cool and so I wasted no time and went exploring the city after a cup of coffee and a toast. Oh, yeah - I met one of my Amity colleagues over breakfast! She just arrived from Gansu through Chengdu in Sichuan. Well, that was odd but I was pleasantly excited being able to start my day in a strange place with someone I knew.
Not really knowing where to begin with, I hopped in a cab and pointed to the driver the park in the middle of my map. It was called the Green Lake Park and again, I was pleasantly surprised to see hundreds and hundreds of red-beaked seagulls flying all over the place. People were tossing bread crumbs into the air and the birds would swoop down for them. The crackling sounds, the sudden plunge close to my ears, the continuous ecstatic flying, the cacophony of bird shrills and human laughter were simply overwhelming. I proceeded to the nearby zoo from the park. I was particularly pleased to see many of the animals looked happy unlike zoos I'd been to before. Well, you can say I love animals and there's this child in me that leads me to these places. I wandered around, took some pictures and left before dark.
The next day, I had second thoughts of taking a bus to the Stone Forest. I've seen it before and I wanted to see it again but I thought I didn't have enough time, so that was a pass together with the Bamboo Temple. Instead, hoping to get to the nearest interesting places from downtown I ended up at the remains of the 1999 International Horticultural Exhibit. It's still being maintained and there were nice exhibits though. From there, I took a short bus ride and walked up to the Golden Temple. Like many non-functional temples in China, the place draws more tourists than worshippers. It seemed that senior citizens visit the place to socialize, play card games, Chinese chess or ma jiang. The hill has a thick forest cover and well maintained gardens that makes it unique and worth visiting on its own.
The night train from Nanning was quite comfortable. It left at 6:10 in the evening and arrived in Kunming at 8:15 the following day. I immediately took a cab and well, the taxi driver brought me to a hostel. I gave him the address I got from a website but he insisted he didn't know any hotel by that name and address. I was glad though that he brought me to a place I read about somewhere and somehow has been recommended by international backpackers. The place was nice and comfortable and an excellent breakfast came with the room rate. The day was beautiful. It was sunny and cool and so I wasted no time and went exploring the city after a cup of coffee and a toast. Oh, yeah - I met one of my Amity colleagues over breakfast! She just arrived from Gansu through Chengdu in Sichuan. Well, that was odd but I was pleasantly excited being able to start my day in a strange place with someone I knew.
Not really knowing where to begin with, I hopped in a cab and pointed to the driver the park in the middle of my map. It was called the Green Lake Park and again, I was pleasantly surprised to see hundreds and hundreds of red-beaked seagulls flying all over the place. People were tossing bread crumbs into the air and the birds would swoop down for them. The crackling sounds, the sudden plunge close to my ears, the continuous ecstatic flying, the cacophony of bird shrills and human laughter were simply overwhelming. I proceeded to the nearby zoo from the park. I was particularly pleased to see many of the animals looked happy unlike zoos I'd been to before. Well, you can say I love animals and there's this child in me that leads me to these places. I wandered around, took some pictures and left before dark.
The next day, I had second thoughts of taking a bus to the Stone Forest. I've seen it before and I wanted to see it again but I thought I didn't have enough time, so that was a pass together with the Bamboo Temple. Instead, hoping to get to the nearest interesting places from downtown I ended up at the remains of the 1999 International Horticultural Exhibit. It's still being maintained and there were nice exhibits though. From there, I took a short bus ride and walked up to the Golden Temple. Like many non-functional temples in China, the place draws more tourists than worshippers. It seemed that senior citizens visit the place to socialize, play card games, Chinese chess or ma jiang. The hill has a thick forest cover and well maintained gardens that makes it unique and worth visiting on its own.
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