However, before I returned to the land of good coffee, beer, and cheese, I traveled to three cities in Southern China with my friends Becky and Ole.
The first (and my favorite) was Kunming. It is like the LA of China: sunny weather even in winter, really nice neighborhoods with interesting restaurants, really cosmopolitan compared to places like Zhengzhou. We met quite a few French people and ate at a lot of French restaurants.
First off, we stayed in this hostel called Cloudland. This was my first hostel experience and I LOVED it. It had a really cool atmosphere and a lot of interesting people there. All of the rooms opened out into the open air courtyard and was really nice to sit on the patio or in the bar. We stayed in an 8 person dorm which was clean and functional. There was a cute little dog that ran around that I became friends with.
In the center of down town is Green Lake, which was wonderful to walk around and the weather was sunny and warm (an nice break after the bone aching cold we had been experiencing in Xinzheng). There were old men flying kites in the park so high that we couldn't even see most of them.
Near by was a game store (just like Blue Highway Games on Queen Anne!!!) that we rented board games at. Rather, one board game: Ticket to Ride. I love that game. We played it three days in a row. We know play it all the time here as well. The French guy who owned it was really nice and informative and served good black beer.
The next day we made the 4 hour bus ride through construction mayhem outside of town to what was called "the Stone Forrest" which I had seen on a poster in our Hostel. It looked really cool and I pushed for us to go. Little did we know that it was 175 kuai to enter the park! This may be only $26.90 to you, which is a normal fee for going into a nice natural preserve (I paid that much driving through Glacier National Park in Montana), but I am a poor English teacher who gets paid in Chinese money. So, we trekked off into the unknown, finding some of the rocks in the countryside that were not maintained but rugged and more interesting (bright side of a really long bus trip).
It was again a really nice day and I ran around in a dress and flats (maybe I should have worn more appropriate foot wear, but I thought we would be walking around a park, not hiking into the countryside).
Where's Waldo? I am in this picture, I swear.
On the bus ride back we got to see a Jackie Chan movie about all of these Chinese dudes trying to save/kidnap a baby. It was funny, even if it was in Chinese. When we got back, we were starving and I ate the best sandwich of my life: BBQ lamb with blue cheese on french bread. My mouth is watering just thinking about it now. Mmmmmm.
Needless to say, I want to move there. Too bad I already signed a contract for coming back next year.
Highlight of Kunming: getting my first Yahtzee ever. Always go for 5s, cause that's what the picture on the box it.
