Jonny,

I searched around for a little while on the internet (in Chinese), and was unable to find anything, except for the death of a Vietnamese student back in 2006. It would be easier if you could find the Chinese pinyin spelling, or the Chinese characters for the places you mentioned. Maybe you could find a Chinese person in your town to help you out?

You can buy the seeds at just about any gardening market in Kunming.
The Chinese term for basil is luo le (罗勒), but most gardening places sell it as qu wen cao (驱蚊草)

Gaoxing,

Here are a few pointers to make your stay in Kunming better:
The food: sounds like you're eating cheap fried rice. You're right, it does suck. The sole criterion for choosing a decent Chinese restaurant is crowd size. If the place is half empty at meal time, don't go there, no matter how clean and spiffy it looks. Also, it's near impossible to get a good Chinese meal for one. Find some food buddies.

Night life: Kundu=bad idea. If you want to do the club thing, try out all the bars in the back of Jinma Biji square. It's not quality entertainment, but the drinks are cheaper.
There's also plenty of live music around, with quality Chinese acts at Laowo and Don't go, and good mixed stuff at the Hump, Halfway House and Movie Bar. Hopefully someone will pipe in with more input on that front.

Other stuff to do: I don't know, check out the exhibitions at the Loft Artists Community or Cat's Cradle, buy bike and hit up the surrounding hills, go to trivia night at Chapter One, go rock climbing with local enthusiasts in Fumin, join the local skaters at #88 the Spot, there's plenty to do.

Kunming isn't a world class city, but the weather is good, it's easy to get around, and there are a few million people here. You get out of it what you put into it.

Some of the old-school expats may be a bit stuck up, but a lot of them are tired of making a new batch of friends every few months just to see them go home at the end of the holiday/semester.

So anyway, give this place a shot. If not, then go find your place. It's hard to empathize with someone who can't have a good time in Kunming.

Send her to the computer markets down the road on Yieryi (121) street. They sell USB 3G antennas for computers with various options ranging from contract to pay-as-you-go. China Unicom seems to be faster in the cities, but it has a poor range. China Mobile will work almost everywhere in the country, but may be a bit slow at times.

@nir119: the water stoppages usually happen on a neighborhood to neighborhood basis. The management office of your complex probably knows the schedule of stoppages, or if it's actually some kind of maintenance issue instead.

Sometimes they cut the water off for only certain parts of the day.