Kunming Thursday

It is Thursday evening Kunming, China and it is beautiful outside. The temperature here is similar to southern California. We are looking out from the 21st floor of a beautiful motel onto the city and we can see for miles. I love it. The day has been beautiful! We were told yesterday that it was going to rain and we should pray for good weather for our tour. I did and so did some others and God answered our prayers.

Fresh fruit is in season and we have had some wonderful things. We are served watermelon every meal, but it is only a small amount. John and I love watermelon and could eat it every day. Another dish I really like is a tomato dish with egg. The hot sour soup was wonderful, as was the lemon chicken. They feed us well.

Tonight John and I did not go with the group to the restaurant. We had some wonderful cheesecake and local coffee with Vera and Judy in the hotel restaurant overlooking the city streets. Wonderful!

We started the morning early, going to an ethnic village and seeing locals perform and wear their cultural dress,which is beautiful! I took lots of pictures. We saw the various types of housing the tribes live in and listened to their music. There was a lot of walking so they rented carts for us. That was our favorite spot. Lunch was the same style as I have described before. We spent a lot of time on the bus and our tour guide was very helpful in telling us all about the area and teaching us some Chinese. She is cute and energetic.

After lunch, and it takes a while to feed around 70 people, we went to a beutiful lke in the middle of Kunming. We walked around for over half an hour and took lots of pictures. After that we went to a silk factory for tourists. They explained about silk and tried to sell us many beautiful things. Several in our group made purchases. Tour guides love to take us to these places because they get a percentage of the sales for bringing the tourists.

Our people have loved to buy things everywhere they go which has led to a new crisis for most. China loves to sell as much as possible but they work against themselves. From America, we are allowed to check up to 2 bags of up to 50lbs each on the airplanes. Our tour company neglected to tell everyone that China has different rules. They are telling us that we can still check 2 bags but the total weight for both bags cannot exceed 20 kgs or 44 lbs. That's a far cry from the 100 lbs we were told we were allowed.

There are people out there having melt downs (of course most will deny it so do not ask) because the travel company is not helping people understand how to deal with the discrepancy. Hopefully they will by morning, but we are putting our luggage out tonight at 10 pm so the bellboys can take care of it for us. We leave at 6:45 am.

In China the tour guides want people to do everything for us because then we are expected to tip them. It is adding up to a bit more than many of us expected. Any future travelers reading this should plan for it. It is not a huge expense,maybe $7 to $10 a day. It is nice to be helped.

John and I went for a walk around the downtown area. They fix food on burners in carts on the sidewalks. It smells wonderful. A favorite is grilled corn but they have things like dumplings, noodles, fried potatoes, chicken on a stick, rice, cooked foods I have never seen before and lots of fresh produce.

There are lots of small,open front stores with things for sale all along the streets,a little bit bigger than a booth or kiosk at home. There are so many people and such variety,it is fascinating, something worth experiencing. John tried out a spicy rice dish in one of the restaurants.

We went into a couple of little teashops and got some tea.It is difficult to make ourselves understood. One lady let us try the teas and I was able to get just what I wanted. Tea that costs the equivalent of $20 in the place we toured yesterday costs $3 in the little stores. We went into a store and got more batteries for my camera. Normally Ipay about 60cents each but these were about 30 cents each. We had a good time walking around and seeing the town.

The little kids are so cute to see. There is a one child rule for most people, so these little guys are only children and are very pampered by parents, grandparents and great grandparents. The children are out with their parents and appear to go to work with them. The minorities and a few other groups are allowed to have two children now if they want. If an only child marries an only child, they are also allowed to have two children.

We got our suitcases ready in plenty of time and have the window open to let in the cool night air. We are on the 21st floor so this is different. The window opens out about 12 inches and there is a ledge right under it. There is no screen but there aren't any bugs. We have noticed very few
bugs. I don't know if it is a fluke or if there really aren't very many. It is very nice though.