Just a friendly warning to any and all reading this thread to BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL about combining anti-depressant drugs with other recreational drugs (including but not limited to alcohol).
There are plenty of repair places, but only one licensed Apple repair place.
If you are in warranty, you want a licensed place. If you are out of warranty, for a simple job like replacing a hard drive, I wouldn't worry. The only issue with replacing a hard drive is that you also need to replace the operating system, and cheap shops may not do that properly or at all.
There's also the budget option of beg/borrow/stealing apple screwdrivers and opening it yourself, which is basically what most repair places do.
Overall, given that you are asking the question, I would recommend considering the licensed place. There's one in the middle of town, and their used to be one on 121. I've been to both of them, the one on 121 was in my opinion poor in service, speed, parts and customers. I complained and it seems they have been de-listed.
The one in the middle of town, which I have used multiple times and always had good experiences with is behind Starbucks in Jingying Plaza on Huguo Lu.
You are best to turn up exactly when they open as the queue gets long really quickly (most people are repairing phones).
Their address in Chinese...
新亚－昆明店
云南省昆明市五华区威远街168号昆明金鹰购物广场Ｂ座1楼L1-01号
昆明, 云南 650000
0871-68184199/64644199
... you should probably call first and ask when they open, as unfortunately the website doesn't say when that is. Good luck.
There are a lot of road bikes nowadays. One common thin tyre route is (partly or fully) around Dianchi Lake. Another is a trip to Fuxian Lake, then around the lake. Another is northwest to Fumin, then southwest to Anning via the hot springs, then back to Kunming. I have most of these (everything except the bottom of Dianchi Lake), and you shouldn't have any problems on a road bike. That said, Chinese road surfaces are not up to foreign standards of repair so be careful - you can easily cycle in to a huge hole that isn't marked and wasn't there yesterday.
TC's suck. Just use ATMs and stash some higher value foreign notes.
Yes - I believe they are too expensive, but agree that this is echoed in local establishments.
Retail food prices in major Chinese cities are largely at western levels (or close, often higher), whereas standards of management, service, cleanliness, and choice have rarely kept pace.
Whereas you can have a white tablecloth dining experience in Chengdu, Shanghai, Shenzhen or Beijing, Kunming currently has zero (really, zero) options, but is happy to present many inferior places in the same price range.
I believe this situation is partly because of the following:
A) Macro-economic influences in the domestic economy, such as significant real inflation, rising wage expectations, lending, credit and the longer term trends in rising ingredient prices.
B) Cultural norms where very high food expense as a percentage of income is considered normal, where living in the moment is considered normal, and where dining is considered a group activity with 'face' elements.
C) A significant breakdown in multi-generational residential situations in preference to single generation residential situations, even bachelor apartments.
The hive mind 'go with the flow' mentality is fine until things break. I believe there will be a correction in the near future, because the situation is currently borderline ridiculous.
I mean, frankly, apartments are way cheaper and nicer in Bangkok (a place without Chinese visa issues), and many western meals are cheaper in Sydney (which is known to be an expensive western city). What does Kunming really have to offer to justify these prices? Not a great deal. A lack of adequate competition, perhaps.
If I were running a conventional food retail outlet right now, I would be worrying.
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@nailer is being unfairly dismissed: they are certainly fallible. At one point they were well managed and the only game in town, and their outdoor bar had an interesting social vibe. Recently, none of these is the case (was given a bad bill to the tune of ~300% - no managers present and a subsequent complaint resulted in a less than ideal outcome, many more places are now open, and the outdoor bar is closed). Unless you are specifically seeking faux-Americana (often far better examples elsewhere) or two degrees removed faux-Mexicana, there's little reason to go there. How come French Cafe can serve a great sandwich for 24元 but Sals requires 50元 for a pretend-exoticized nibble? Certainly the business will continue, but the hey-dey is clearly gone. Romaniticizing the past aint gonna help. E-waste recycling by shipping (non carbon neutral) junk across the country? Puh-lease. Garbage processing people here recycle anyway! I applaud the ethical stance of one of the managers, but the place has frankly lost its mojo.
Hands down the best draft craft beer in Kunming. On top of that, very reasonable prices for food and other drinks (especially wine).
Called the number provided on a Friday at 2:15PM while a 10% discount was advertised "on Friday and Saturday" (listed in GoKunming specials).
A Chinese person answered the 'English' phone number in Mandarin then explained in broken English that you need to order 3 hours in advance. (Subtext: As their business is so slow)
Grumble. False advertising. Waste of time. Seems 100% Chinese run. Probably bad pizza.
The listing here is wrong! Teresa's are not defunct, they are just back to being one store instead of two stores on Wenlinjie now! They are still in business, still answer on this phone number, and are still delivering! Points for consistency, it's been years! As of right now, it's 68元 for the more toppings vegetarian at the largest size. They will do thin or thick crust. Yes, it's not to everyone's taste, but I always used to find adding dried chilli powder and some extra salt brought it up to tasty. Might go for a dash of Sichuan pepper oil to spice it up this time around. (You know you've been in China too long when...)
I also had a bad experience here recently.
Honestly, I wish them the best of luck, but I do think the staff are poorly managed and the owners have the wrong attitude and a clear lack of experience in service-oriented business. While the pizza is OK, everything else I have tried (including overnight stay) can be had cheaper and better elsewhere, and the pizza at Roccos is better in my opinion. The service has always fluctuated between acceptable to don't care.
Since they don't have their situation resolved yet, and it has been a few years, I have made the decision not to go there anymore or send anyone else. It's just not worth the hassle, given the crappy location (masked as private or lost). Better pizza with more quiet and privacy on Roccos' terraces.
2012: The Year in Review
Posted by"Cavemen were found near Jianshui" .. actually the location was more like "the lower Yunnense Red River" .. south of the river .. closer to Dienbienphu in Vietnam.
Bronze Age relics unearthed in Baoshan
Posted byErr make that 1700-1800 years. Damn lack of edit feature. (Boo, hiss!)
Bronze Age relics unearthed in Baoshan
Posted byThis is mostly interesting as because Baoshan is the southwesternmost major Han outpost referenced in early Chinese historical literature.
Unlike Sichuan, whose great plain was fairly definitively under Han dominance some 1000 years earlier, Yunnan's real Sinification really only began under the Yuan dynasty (1271 or so onwards... though a few decades later would see the beginnings of real change in Yunnan). Despite early references to Han parties reaching Kunming and other parts of Yunnan, evidence of serious Han cultural impact on Yunnan remains limited before that period. And this is *500-600 years* before that period.
For those interested in history, I'd highly recommend reading the Chinese accounts of the Yi people of the Sichuan/Yunnan borderland (still dominating most of far-southern Sichuan, ie. pretty much everything south of the plain), including how their queen wisely facilitated the passage of the Mongols in to Yunnan by brokering introductions to neighbouring ethnic groups to avoid a bloody war. While the Han have erected a "Museum to the Living Fossil of the Yi Slave Society" (or something equally condescending and dismissive) in that part of Sichuan, a quick trip around reveals just how important they must have been in the past.
The Ailao people would have been a known neighbour of the Yi to the west (via the Dali and Lijiang plains), as would have been the Naxi of Lijiang, the nearby Mosuo and the Tibetans to their northwest. Tai peoples migrated ever-south from southern Sichuan onward to the tropics.
This compounds archaeological interest in Yunnan, which this year saw the discovery of the Red Deer Cave People just south of the Red River that drains Yunnan's southeast (from about Dali, down to Hanoi and Haiphong in Vietnam), and the earliest Yunnanese stilted house ruins were recently discovered at Jianchuan (on the old Lijiang-Zhongdian road, just south of the big bend in the Yangtse river southwest of Tiger Leaping Gorge), and are also a major recent archaeological find.
Yunnan, along with neighbouring Myanmar (whose internal issues have caused problems with archaeological research in post-colonial times), probably form one of the most exciting archaeological zones in Asia for the coming decades. We live in interesting times!
Getting Away: Lincang
Posted byI second Cangyuan and Mengding.
Cangyuan has loads of neolithic paintings nearby, some traditional Wa villages, and a huge cave.
Mengding has the only maintained ming-era administrator's home I'm aware of in all of Yunnan, and it has been turned in to a great little museum.
AirAsia in Yunnan - better late than never
Posted byInteresting. In Bali right now, just checked that out, couldn't find a fare that cheap from KL to KM over the next couple of months. Maybe expired or sold out already or just a very short-range of dates. Anyway, good to know there's flights.
I know an absolutely exceptional and cheap hostel in KL... folks interested can email for details.