Yes, PerNordin is totally right. Enjoy the street vendors at night, their food is great.

Usually the meat they sell is deep frozen and starts defrosting on their carts. This is actually good, it keeps the bacteria count low.

This is one point where I have to say "Don't listen to what Chinese people will tell you". Very often when I told somebody that I ate out last night on the street they put on a shocked look and asked me how I fell. After telling them that I felt good they immediately told me that I am so lucky not being sick and recommended strongly that I never (!) eat on the street again.
Now I don't really know where this is coming from because our local night BBQ is packed with people (up north on BeichenDaDao).
My guess is that a lot of people use eating on the street and getting sick as an excuse not to turn up in their offices and do a day off. So they have to play shocked in order to use the same excuse next time for themselves (anybody seconds?)

I wouldn't worry too much. Let's say that standard rules apply: Wash everything before you eat it. Don't drink unfiltered tap water.
If you are not on a special diet just eat a well balanced mix as you would normally do.
Really, the less you care the better. You're here for only one year and if you don't forcefully damage your body (like 3 meals at McD or KFC every day) there is nothing to worry.

Organic vegetables: I can't tell you if they contain more or less vitamins but for me they taste better. Check out Haobao-Farm and Salvadors as suppliers for green veggies.

You will also quickly find out where to eat what. Let your stomach and your fellow eaters guide you. The busier the restaurant, the better the food, at least that's what the Chinese say.
Then, if you fell good after eating, great! If not, try another restaurant or admit that you ate tooooooo spicy (or drank 12 bottles of beer) and give it another try.

Also find a safe spot where you can eat when you stomach is turned upside down (note that I didn't use the imperative and though I am not a fortune teller I can make this prediction).

If you really feel a need for more vitamins, eat fruits. There are plenty of markets all over town (wash before eating).

So, as much as I *** to admit it, Bucko has a point here. The less you worry the better off you are.

As we are going off topic here anyways, I'll give you two more cents of mine.
Apple or PC? Easy answer: Pc's are easier to use (did I just started a flamewar?) while Apples are just flashier. Or, lets put it this way (and I speak out of my own experience here, I have an English version of Win7 and Dualboot it with Linux for the day my windows goes dark).

Do you want to drive a a lowered Porsche 911 in the bumpy streets of Kunming or would you rather take an old Landrover to cruise through town. Of course you could always take the girlie (sorry, flashy) NewBeetle with your pink seat covers which you think are sooo cute (flashy) that you show them to everybody (and everybody is so annoyed by the second time) or go by bike and be the fastest everywhere; Though you'll sweat a little bit before you're trained enough.

Think about it.... it sounds strange but I honestly advise everybody reading this to use a 10 (ten!!!) year old piece of software rather than Windows 7. Not that it's not good... China is just not compatible with this Windows 7 yet.

And now you can it me... :-)

On the one bigger computer market which is on the corner of Yieryii Dajie and "the street that goes towards the zoo" (sorry, forgot the name) you can buy copies of windows which looked very legitimate. I saw at least Windows XP home (around 300 rmb) and professional (800 rmb) there, so you would need to check out if they sell Windows 7. The shop is on the the top floor.
On the other hand, while beeing in China I would not use Windows7 again (recently put it on my computer), as there are several compability issues with: Vpn Clients and Chinese software (which is written for Windows XP).
My two cents: Get an original Windos XP /OR/ Get a so called "vanilla" copy of Windows XP (NEVER!!!! this GhostXP they sell here and almost everybody uses on his computer) and get your hands on an original Windows XP license key. Check your laptop or the back of your computer, maybe there is one taped under there, ask a friend with a laptop to use his key (as these are volume keys a lot of people actually use the same key). Then you need another key from the internet to be able to install it (as you version will probably won't work directly with so called "license volume keys") but after that you will skip this illegal key and change it to the "real" key with an official tool published by Microsoft (aren't they kind?). And voila, you have an official Windows which can update to every service pack without any flaws and for 100% will pass every WGA.

PS: New Ubuntu 10.4 is also nice if you wan't to go OpenSource. If you need your computer for browsing the internet, writing emails, Word, Excel... (but no Adobe software -even not through wine-), it's definitely worth a look!!!

Good luck

Less people, faster speed - Check
Service people don't know anything - Check
Distance to switch determines speed - Check
Kunming is about 4km in diameter - errr...

- Kunming is about 12km in diameter (give or take one).

And let's talk about the term speed: Speed in Kunming is good and China Telecom delivers 400-420 kB/s downstream as promised (for most times of the day) and my upstream reaches 50-60 Kb/s too.
BUT!!!!!
Responsiveness for international pages sucks. If I want to open a foreign page it feels likes ages for it to build up. For me, this is because of my Ping of 500-750 milliseconds (some part is the Chinese monitoring service, the other part is the crappy electric cable that stretches like 40 meters through my backyard, compared to a time of 20-60 ms you get in Europe. The lowest ping I get is on HK servers with about 50 ms, whereas Baidu tops out at about 160 ms, but this is another topic.
See, when you open a page, your computer send several requests a) to a central directory (like a phone book) b) after that to the page itself and c) to advertisements or embedded items to the page.

So, what can you do?
Basically hope to be on a good cable to get a lower Ping, accept that the internet gets really slow around 10 in the morning and, hmm...I'd say 8-10 in the evening. Check with every service point close to you to find out if the 4M network is available in your area, and if so, get it! It is included in the E8 package for 188 rmb a month.

On the other hand there are supposed to be alternatives like fiber optics but I honestly don't know how to get these. What I do know is that it's very (!!!) expensive and time consuming (if not impossible) to order. Then we have China Tietong and China Unicom who are supposed to offer ADSL here (but everybody uses the same infrastructure here, so don't mind them).

I'd go for China Telecom's ADSL 4M.

Good luck!!!