User profile: sezuwupom

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > to Yuanyang and Xishuangbanna

Good news! The high speed rail (HSR) train from Kunming to Xishuangbanna will finally be complete at the end of this month, and in service for the public on December 2, 2021.

Approximately a 3-hour trip from Kunming to Xishuangbanna. 2.5 hours for Puer. Also stops at Yuxi. The HSR will continue beyond the Chinese border and connect to Laos as part of the BRI.

Perhaps I'll pay those elephants a visit later next year to apologize.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Demolition of 15 Apartment Buildings

Semantics.

The "complicated topic" lies in the interdependence of China’s economy with real estate developers, as JanJal alluded to:

29% of China’s national GDP is riding on the property market.

40% of local government revenue come from land sales. Land sales make up more than half of combined national tax revenue.

30 - 40% of total loans from China’s largest banks/ financial institutions consisted of property-related loans. (Limits are being applied)

40% of household wealth are derived from real estate.

Evergrande, whose CEO was once hailed as a socialist hero and champion of urbanization, is now being thrown under the "common prosperity" train. Yet, the villagers castigating the proverbial evil witch into the fire pit may be complicit in the derailment; the governments, banks, investors seeking high interest rate returns, and homebuyers are all culpable in paving this track for over two decades.

Curbing the status quo property growth model while sustaining economic growth to alleviate poverty would require skillful tempering of the double-edged sword. We will see.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Demolition of 15 Apartment Buildings

@DAWP Without including the ubiquitous, empty apartments that have closed escrow yet collecting dust, there are approximately 3,000,000,000 square meters of unsold housing inventory existing across China.

That equates to apartment vacancies that could house ~90 million "ghost" residents. Assuming there are three friendly ghosts haunting each household.

The result of speculative building/buying decades in the making.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > IKEA in Kunming

The first, maiden store in Yunnan will open next week, August 4th near the west.

According to an old Xinhua article, the Swedish company reported spending over 1 billion yuan on this three-story building. It's huge. Over 120,000 square meters of floor space. They were supposed to open last year, but was delayed due to pandemic.

Expect heavy traffic on its grand opening day.

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Forums > Food & Drink > Best Pizza in Kunming

No pastries, yet. I believe only waffles now. Regular waffles priced at 28rmb, 35-38rmb with ice cream. Whip cream and fruit toppings included.

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I stopped short of naming it "Holy Mountain" as that would carry Abrahamic connotations. Sacred Mountain probably has a better ring for the Tibetan Bon & Buddhism motif.

RIP to 11 victims of Mt. Everest just last month. They need stricter regulations on the south Nepal side.

The gravity-defying, floating Hallelujah Mountains in James Cameron's Avatar film franchise is also fictional, but based off of the majestic beauty of Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in Hunan.

Nature of the cosmos has continuously shown itself more miraculous than our human imagination.

An article titled "In search of the real Shangri-La" on Lost Horizon and Shanghai-la was republished three days ago on the Telegraph:

www.telegraph.co.uk/china-watch/travel/the-real-shangri-la/

"'The place described in the book Lost Horizon has never been disclosed, but we knew it was Muli and the surrounding area' - Xuan Ke, son of Joseph Rock's secretary who organised the translation of Lost Horizon into Mandarin in the 1970s"

Just returned. If all goes well, the high speed rail (HSR) from Kunming to Shangri-La is scheduled to run next year.

In the second to last paragraph, it's difficult to imagine any trains would run through Deqen ["Deqin"] given its challenging mountain terrains and its "godly mountain" (神山) reputation given by locals. Townsfolk are wary of the environmental degradation caused by over-tourism in the event of a HSR station perched along their sacred Deqen mountain range. Although Shangri-La to Tibet HSR is planned which seemingly passes through that NW direction. An update on that would be appreciated.

Between Shangri-La and Deqen is Balagezong Shangri-La Grand Canyon National Park, This 4-starred attraction opened to public just last year with deeper mountainous road accessibility than ever before. The grand canyon view near the summit is spectacularly surreal. FIY, for 70 bucks more per day, local guides will take you further than park shuttles normally traverse by hiking special paths.

GoKunming (or affiliates) should definitely do a piece on Balagezong. The local hero/entrepreneur who spent a decade depleting his entire fortune (~40M) and borrowing hundreds of millions to connect his remote mountainous village to the world ought to be featured.

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