Kunming Hotel

... br>Police followed Zhu's mother, as she went to visit her son at the monastery in Lianghe.<br><br>(Yangtze Evening News)<br>SavedURI :Hide URLdata:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3C!DOC TYPE%20HTML%20PUBLIC%20%22-%2F%2FW3C%2F %2FDTD%20HTML%204.01%2F%2FEN%22%20%22ht tp%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2FTR%2Fhtml4%2Fst rict.dtd%22%3E%0A%3Chtml%3E%3Chead%3E%3 Ctitle%3ERich%20Text%20Area.%3C%2Ftitle %3E%3Cmeta%20http-equiv%3D%22Content-Ty pe%22 ...

The sun was bright and the skies clear which seemed a perfect day for a walk in the park. The park had several huge lakes coverd in water lillys. There was also several shows put on by minority groups (by this I mean not han, the main race in china) these were entertaing but I watched from a distance as I could tell the idea of getting a foreigner involved was getting ...

... this unique way of<br>getting to class, they shot this film instead. <br>Peng Jiahuang, Director, said, "Their story moved me. I read about<br>these kids and how they need to slide across a steel cable to get to<br>school every day. Nowadays, kids in the ...

... in Laos and on to Yunnan in southern China. "The roads are in good condition. I hope my book can be of help to those who entertain hopes of backpacking to China," said Tanakorn, who spent 60 days the past two years exploring places such as Xishuangbanna, Lijiang and trekking to the Tiger Leaping Gorge, collecting information that he has put together in the form of a book. The 254-page book priced at 145 baht is available at Se-ed bookstores.

from roast magazine: Chinese coffee is something of an enigma, even to those in the coffee industry. Saddled with a reputation for poor quality and sold most often as instant coffee by Nestlé and other large companies, China's coffee is difficult to categorize and even more difficult to understand. Part of this is due to the Chinese culture, which traditionally makes it challenging for outsiders to access information. This is compounded by the fact that ...

... to reveal their more repressive side) and this rather Soviet looking building across the street from me which now hosts the Kappa sports store. As the Kappa ad line reads - "Anything is Possible" here now. Anyway, in 3 days time I will be attempting to cram the contents of my room into my rucksack and heading off to Xishuangbanna in the south of the province for a few days to start my 2 months of travelling around China. More soon...

... China are slightly similar in the absolute discrepancy and dual economy between rural and urban areas. I bid farewell to the family and exchanged emails with the kids, so I could send them pics, help them practice their rapidly improving English and give them any advice when it came time for college applications. I then made my way to the bus station for my first overnight sleeper to the ancient and Naxi town of Lijiang. Bus travel is not cheap in China as ...

... were caged animals (dogs, tigers) who were right outside the stagey arena whatsit, but never went on.. Aside from the animals, the zoo was a cool place (ironic huh?!) hudreds of people had gone there specifically to play Mah Jong (i doubt very much that the animals even got a look in), as the zoo was a lovely environment, with shady trees and a nice relaxed atmosphere. There were a few wee pagoda type things, some one dpoig Tai Chi, and someone ...

There are only 400 km from Dali to Kunming, but the train lasts more than 9 hours! It's faster by bus, but this way, we save a night at hotel, we sleep at the train. We arrive in Kunming, meet our guide, Wang Yin (or something like that), go to have breakfast(to a hotel which is not ours, cheaper), and then we are taken to ours, for checking in, and have a little rest, in which we clean some clothes. Then we start the first visit: Shilin ...

... a week that I'm lonely. :-) <br><br>Because of Kunming's size, it is a good place to do a bit of shopping. I'm going to need some warmer clothes for the 5,000m mountain passes that await me in Tibet. It took me a while to figure out what my Chinese size is and I was none too pleased to discover that I am a 2.3 - or an XXL! Yes, my 30" waist puts me in the largest of large sizes for pants at Carrefour (basically a Wal-Mart Supercenter). I know it's just a number, but jeeesh!