Mushroom dinner and a cheap but fresh fruit stand.
The view from my hotel room of Kuming
Taking a ski-lift up very very high.
Kunming
| We started off in the city of Kunming first and quickly toured the Grandview Pavilion, a large park with a man-made lake connected to another huge lake. It wasn't so impressive but it seemed like a nice place for the locals to walk about and fly kites. We then had a sixteen course dinner consisting of mushrooms and other fungus cooked via "fo wo". That was great and it began what was a week of nonstop beer drinking. The local brands were Dali, Lan Cang River and Blue Sword Light Beer. Both are light-bodied and not too complex. I preferred Dali over Lan Cang River. After dinner we headed to the Tea University where we were seated in a room and students told us the background of "bo lei" (Pu'er) tea. Once we were all dazzled by their knowledge, they proceeded to sell us the expensive tea they were describing, of course. I bought a bag of "monkey-picked" bo lei tea. It's very fruity and smooth and is supposed to help sooth sore throats. Sounds good to me. We then returned to the hotel to tuck-in and to my surprise I had a single room at every hotel because I was the odd-man in our group of thirteen. Shrug* gee alright I'll take the humongous single room if you insist. I think I watched vintage subtitled Hong Kong movies in every hotel room before sleeping. Only in China. |
|
Flying over the North Pole! | |
|
Views from the Grand Pavilion |
|
|
|
|
Mushroom dinner and a cheap but fresh fruit stand. The view from my hotel room of Kuming |
|
|
Taking a ski-lift up very very high. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Religious statuary. |
| Back in Kunming, we stopped off at a cave and gorge that was carved out by a river. Not so many stalagtites, etc, but lots of open spaces deep in the earth. Very beautiful and well-presented. Then we visited the Stone Forest which is a piece of land which originally was underwater and through plate shifting ended above ground. The limestone rock was carved and shaped rain and wind into these oddly shaped "trees". See the pictures. Very cool and unique. Stopped off at an herbal medicine plant selling "bofuling" a chinese cream good for all kinds of skin conditions. Apparently, it works very very well on burns. Walked around their bar and shopping distract at night. Didn't get to drink or shop, however, since it seemed like the tour guide was in a rush. |
|
|
Update 11.2004
