some combination of the good, the bad, and the fairly amusing:
- christmas day: eating a dinner of wild mushroom fondue and local delights such as tiny mangoes, a strange fruit called mangosteen, and albino pomegranates.
- the weather: i miss it already, dammit...sitting in this arctic bedroom it's hard to believe i deluded myself into thinking it was spring for a few days.
- it's true: there actually is only one time zone across all of mainland china, which means that in the southwest the sun doesn't rise until 8 am, and sets close to 7 pm, whereas here in shanghai it rises almost at 6 and sets before 5.
- the tour bus: we got awoken at the rude hour of 6 am every day (remember, 2 freaking hours before sunrise)...but to make up for it, our first guide was an absolute storytelling machine. i'm pretty sure i never heard the word "um" come out of his mouth. major props.
- jade dragon snow mountains: not only were they above 15,000 feet in elevation (there was a stand selling mini oxygen tanks and everything), they were damn beautiful and the weather was perfectly sunny for pictures, which will come tomorrow hopefully.
- the terrible food: for some reason, along the way, the trip planners decided to save money and take us to restaurants where they would order some seriously uninspired junk...not joking, i could probably make a better lunch if you gave me some vegetables, a pot of boiling water and salt. as of our travelling mates complained: "we wake up earlier than chickens and eat worse than pigs!"
- the rampant commercialism: another reason i think it would significantly less lame just to plan your own trip to kunming - after a few days of being fed thinly veiled advertisement to buy overpriced silver, jade, tea, medicines, and whatever else they had the opportunity to pitch, it just got old. i mean there is something seriously wrong with a trip where you get herded through the historic district of Dali on little cars in like half an hour, missing any opportunity to take good pictures, but then stay in an obscenely huge gift shop for 3 hours full of things you don't need to buy.
- the old cities: one of the nights we weren't being taken to bad restaurants or advertised to, we got to roam around the historic district of Lijiang, which was really quite picturesque, with a merry street full of pubs that you get to by taking tiny bridges across the characteristic moats that run through the historic streets of old Chinese cities. unfortunately my family has become a little too lame to go prowl the night with, but this would definitely be one of the places i would come back to if i were to visit the province again.
- the tea garden: some beautiful and exquisite architecture and fine art was on display at this private estate in the Dali prefecture that apparently cost 80 million RMB to make, one of the few places we visited where there weren't any blatant attempts to sell us shit. the tea was also really fun, served in three courses, one full-bodied and bitter, the next milky and sweet, and the last filled with the most confusing combination of spices. also pictures to come soon.
- the rock forest: one of china's national "geoparks," full of interesting stone structures left over from an age of being part of the sea bed. again, this would have been more fun if we hadn't been hurried along with a giant gaggle of people but we did manage to get some good pictures in.
- the flower market: the culmination of trying to sell us shit was the last day, where we were brought to Kunming's local "market..." at first I was thinking "oh cool, we're getting a tour of the local artisan trades" or whatever...but it turned out to be another giant gift shop arranged like a maze so that in order to get out, you literally had to pass by every single product that they were selling.
- and of course, the awesome english translations on signs...including gems like "no burning," "please don't fall in the water," "do not tock the gondola," and "be careful of landslide."
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