1. Remember the phrase "Food before 1 is just for fun!" They should still be getting all calories from breastmilk or formula.

2. Look up Baby Led Weaning. At first it involves placing sticks of appropriate food in front of them. They get to decide what to do with it! We used avocado (hated it), broccoli (loved it), and cooked sweet potato (loved it). Eventually you can move to small morsels, noodles, other finger food, and the idea is to introduce them early to the "adult" food complete with all the tastes you hope they will love! We still love applesauce, yogurt, and cottage cheese, but I blended exactly nothing :-) It helps them learn to chew instead of just swallow, but be warned that there will be gagging. It's not choking though.

EveAnnemarie, what did you find about the Montessori school? I found mention of one called Agapao online, but it wasn't the school website and didn't have info. Apparently Agapao was founded by a religious group, which doesn't thrill me, but I know that doesn't necessarily mean they evangelize. If we go back to Kunming (we were around in 2010), our daughter will be about 2.5.

Oh, sorry, I was talking about food :) I'm not sure how much it costs to stay at Compass or N's, and Marco Polo is just a restaurant. Of course the cost depends on what you order, but I got a tasty omelet with a hashbrown at Marco Polo for 25 I think. That said, the cheesy potatoes at Compass are tasty and reasonably priced at like 15 or so.

NONE of these places are cheap enough for eating every day, IMO. For that, there are noodle places on the edge of Old Town or up into the New town. All of the Tibetan restaurants (and the Indian/Nepalese restaurants) are pretty pricey too.

Hey there, I've lived in Shangri-la for the past 5 months and strongly recommend the night train to Lijiang. I was miserable on the bus, but that's just me.

There are a ton of places to stay up here. You needn't limit yourself to Noah's. Also, Compass is ok, but they're really expensive. A new place called Marco Polo opened recently that I find more reasonable, and N's Kitchen seems to be pretty popular too. My husband likes their brownies.

If you need help, you can give me a ring. 15288189747

I'm no longer in Kunming (I've been up in Shangri-la since April) but I'm glad to see this has picked up! I'll be back in Kunming in November, so hopefully I'll get to meet you all then.