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 Hump Hostel, in a 4 bed room and luckily it had storage with electronic lock. Sure it wasn’t a place to keep your valuables but it still resembled a little safe place to keep your clothes. Upon check in you get a free coffee and it wasn’t the Nescafé instant bag style. They served a variety of breakfast options including eggs and toast with butter. Butter is not a luxury my town carries in the stores.
Well I wanted to go to the Stone Forest at some point that week and I put a sheet up for someone to call if they wanted to go with me. Luckily while I was meeting up two American buddies by the arches, I got a call. A guy from New York and his cousin wanted to do stone forest in the morning and two other girls wanted in. Turned out one was a french/chinese, one was from a french speaking island, and a german/indonesian.
New York guy actually has been living in Chengdu and trains the pandas there. He even got a 30 minute CCTV special just about him and why he came to China to work. In fact, when Michelle Obama came to China, he was the one that gave her the tour of the facility. Pretty cool if you ask me.
Anyway, NY and his female cousin came hang out with us and we got to check out a few quick attractions. First up we walked through the major shopping area of town. Name brand stores and like 6 buildings 6 stories high of just stores. There are also plenty of normal shops up /down the streets to the destinations as well.
First stop was Yuantong Temple. There is a dragon and apparently that is rare and is a symbol of an emperor in the Chinese Feudal Society. I took a lot of photos of this place; probably because it was my first temple… now that I’ve seen a few temples…it’s kind of the same ol’ stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, the age and architecture and craftsmanship of the stone/concrete carvings is phenomenal though. Typical scene is in the middle of a stairway there is an intricate cement dragon carved. This temple was kind of anti-semantic though… lots of swastikas. Just kidding, Hitler ruined that symbol, it once did have a better meaning. This place even had a little moat/stream type of serene area built into the complex.
Just a few km away was Green Lake (Cui Hu). This lake is popular not only because of all the lily pads but because of the massive amount of seagulls. They even put a statue of one here. Unfortunately no seagulls during our visit.
We went to a place called Dianchi Lake and it was a part the second biggest lake in China. It’s fed by like 9 rivers. The place had a few “amusement park” type rides ( Daguan Park) which were lame but it was a nice time sharing stories with the german girl.
She was quite beautiful, smart and was genuinely interesting and it’s too bad we haven’t kept in contact to well. It did get chilly so the shorts I was wearing was not a great idea.. Spring City is Kunming’s nickname you know.
Another great place we visited was Dragon Gate. We took a ski lift over the lake and the german was cool about it but she really really doesn’t like them. NY was joking with that the whole system was built by germans, it was actually the Swiss but still was no comfort to her.
Dragon Gate is not for the cripple. The whole place is set on a side of a 1900 meter “mountain.” Stairs Stairs Stairs. There were a few shrines and classic gates to see. One gate has an oval stone in the center on the underside of the gate. You touch it and make a wish or something, and anyway you can get good luck.
People were burning incense nearby for the statue god there. The views of the lake and mountain were breathtaking, especially because most of that morning the fog rolled in and out. Great time conversing and getting to know NY, Cuz, and German.
NY walks slowly, he has been in china to long, so we would take turns walking with him… not like a pity case or anything it was just funny that it turned out that way on its own.
If you haven’t noticed, I try to jam several things into each day. I’m not crazy with every hour planned, but if you can do 2-3 things comfortably in a day, why not?
One evening 3 of us went see Dynamic Yunnan. My first theater experience in China and it was a minority tribe dance representation. The drum song was incredible, the peacock lady moving her body and hands like a peacock is by far the best I’ve seen yet, and lights, lasers, projected images, stage design, costumes… all superb. I really liked hearing all the high pitched girls singing and dancing in unison.
They sold DVD’s in the lobby but it was like the behind the scenes/ how we made it/ inspiration stuff… I was hoping more for a CD of the music. I would jam that at work, instead of mostly progressive house dance music (people like that too).
It was silly to see how many people were so preoccupied taking pictures and trying to record it. Sure I got a couple snaps, but I was trying to stay in the moment. http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g298558-d1438210-i92615185-Dynamic_Yunnan-Kunming_Yunnan.html#92615185 http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g298558-d1438210-i30255401-Dynamic_Yunnan-Kunming_Yunnan.html#30255401
Back to Stone Forest. On the two hour van ride there (also a reason we had 6 people in the van and did several extra activities is because we could split the van cost) we got a lot of conversation about how we were, what we are doing in life, here in china, why learn chinese, and of course even a convo about random sex stuff about pandas.
One story was like: this one lady is really quite good at jerking off a panda to get its sperm for mating purposes. Yeah it was somewhat crude like and needed a little Jerry style observation on the situation and how the lady actually said what she did. Not sure what that says about me and still remembering it, but there you have it.
Oh and I heard a story about some party that had the guys on one side of the room and ladies on the other. Everybody went to the middle, lights go down, and girls can um do stuff to the guys (like a blow job if she wanted to)…and then the guys are supposed to tip them. This one guy didn’t have a low bill so she got quite a tip and the next time she was making ridiculous amounts of noise. Needless to say that story was kind of unbelievable but the guy swears it’s true.
Well anyway back again to Stone Forest. This place is made of tons and tons of stalagmites /Krast formations coming up from the ground and it dates back to the Ming Dynasty and can be called the First Wonder of the World and is 350 square km.
Pure beauty and fascination. I think the earth around it eroded and so the gigantic rocks remained. I photo bombed a guy and he didn’t mind at all. The cuz was great. She asked some of the costume dancers if she could put their hat on and they agreed. Another time she got a dressed lady to get on her back like a piggy back ride.
I got a few photos with some kids in the costumes. A lot of the attractions in Yunnan have a booth where you can put on a minority group outfit and pose for pictures. I don’t really know how to explain the views and enjoyment of experience something new with people you just met in a hostel. Look at the pictures on flickr.
About 3 hours before I left for the bus to go home, we stopped off at Guandu Ancient Town. It’s like 5 km from the hospital I found out later. So this place dates back to mid-1450 and had temples and old buildings. Did get to see this local guy making your animal birth year designs from candied sugar. That was fun to see.
