YES YES, the famous Dali and LiJiang.  If there are two areas of Yunnan that people go visit, its Kunming the capital and these cities.  It took us 3 buses and about 7 hours to get to Dali, but actually we went around the lake to Old Dali which added an hour. On one of […]

Technically I have been to Beijing twice. Once for less than 24 hours due to a plane layover when coming back from America in Jan. and another time on a purposeful vacation of 3 days. When I was booking flights I noticed that I had a 15 hour overnight so instead of wasting my time

Let’s start with the fight.  Now, I forgot to write this story on the original Kunming post but whatever, you get it now. On the evening of Stone Forest, we met up to get a bite to eat and then headed to KTV…which was so fun.  All english songs, people enjoyed themselves, had a range

This is a post that is so far overdue that it must now be written before I go any further.  My first trip to Kunming was taken in late September 2013.  I had about 4 days off because of a holiday and it was such a great experience. I stayed at my first hostel, The

In December my grandmaw took a turn for the worse and her heart started really giving her some issues.  Near the end of the month she passed away.  I called my contact here in china to make sure that I could go, but however it was more of me telling versus asking. Anyway, in my

I’ll try not to bore you guys with all the details of the trip. Let the copious amount of pictures do that for me.  I’ll try and write the highlights and stuff I may have found interesting. Since I write these posts after the travel, I can say the following with confidence (even though I

I previous wrote about how my trip to XiShuangBanna 西双版纳  , xsb,  was postponed because of helping out the boss.  Turned out the people I was going to go with tried to go but the bus was all booked up and they didn’t even get to go. Not to mention the bus ride would have

This will be a preview post of my 3 day 3 night guided bus tour to xishuangbanna  county and JingHong the capital city.  I have 5-6 more clips but they seem kind of pointless. Just head over to flickr to see all the photos and I have CAPTIONS on these photos (not on facebook).  Oh, Ling was with

I’ve noticed a few jewelry fashion trends.  Of course in rich cities you will find gold bracelets, chains, LV/gucci bags etc but in poorer cities and honestly even the rich guys stick to the picture representations here. To start with, people like jade.  I’m no jade expert but like any precious stone, you can spend

Took about 3 hours to get to Daijie and that’s normal.  Her household was going to have a few extra guests, present company excluded:  the sister Charlie and JohnBo (the guy who helped recruit me here, he is friends with her family, his family is in Beijing and Chicago, and Charlie was last years translator).