Bamboo Temple (Qióngzhú Sì) Kunming

Moving on from Hong Kong! A short plane ride took us to Kunming, about 1000 miles from HK (home to Portland). Everyone in China is in a huge rush, pushing and running just to get in line! Kelli said she can't help it, that China has made her that way too, haha. Although we didn't travel too far, it made a world of difference. We are definitely …

On Friday morning, our last in HK, we said goodbye to Alex and his folks and met Abe at The Flying Pan, a great 24 hour restaurant that served American breakfast. They even had tofu scramble! Yay! Abe, being the best host ever, drove us to the bus station in his nice BMW so we could get on our way to Shenzhen Airport for our next leg. We thanked …

... I weren't exactly eager to move on again. We took a day to wander around the city and another to visit the nearby Buddhist "Bamboo Temple." We found the city to be accurate to the above definition, and the temple... well, it was nothing if not serene. ...

... we caught a mini-bus about 12km's out of town to an 800 or so year old Buddhist temple on a hilltop (named the Bamboo Temple in English) which was very interesting. As well as a large colourful temple complex with huge gold buddhas, there were rooms ...

... at least partially understand many of the signs, even if I could barely pronounce a word. 10 km outside of Kunming, I visited the Bamboo temple, which seemed to contain no bamboo at all, but did have 1000 carved monks, each one unique. The temple ...

... polluted currents snaking their way through the lake to complete pollution.   Erin and I trekked up to the Bamboo Temple, a Buddhist temple that is mysteriously devoid of any bamboo.  And for the first time in my Chinese life, ...

... to get home. Decided to call it quits, and maybe stay the night out there when we return to Kunming post-Vietnam. Instead, we headed over to the Bamboo Temple. Bit of a wait waiting for the minibus to fill up, and were a bit worried that our morning ...

... up turning around and finding the ticket office. It was getting a little later in the evening and we choose to visit the Bamboo Temple. A famous Buddhist shrine on the top of a hill in Kunming. It was really pretty and pretty empty as they were nearing ...

... my mind in gear for the next stage of my travels.  So other than going on a half-day excursion out to a place called Bamboo Temple and walking around parts of the city, I spent a great deal of my 2 nights here just planning for the next few weeks ...

... and Teresa guided us to the bus. I'm sure we would have got lost without her. Next day we were off to look for the Bamboo Temple. This was significant from the point that EVERYONE had said we had to see the Xian Terracotta Warriors, but we weren't going ...

... . The intention of visiting Kunming was to go and see Shinlin (the stone forest), Louping (some massive waterfalls), the Golden Temple and Bamboo Temple. In the 3 days we have been here, we have managed to achieve none of these things. The weather has ...

... -ant and the Camelia that sell nice cold beer. Forget about draft beer: it's much more expensive than the bottled variety. The Bamboo-temple is a must-see (10Y), but forget about the golden temple. To many tourists, they charge 20 Yuan and after that ...