User profile: blobbles

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Do you also willfully ignore expats you cross in the street?

I think the amount of ignoring fellow lao wai is directly proportional to the distance from expected locations to find fellow lao wai. For example, if I am on Bei Chen walking street, in Metro, on Wen Lin Jie, I will probably ignore lao wai. But... if I am in a place like Xi Shan, Yuxi, Anning, even parts of the city where I don't normally see lao wai, I will smile while passing and even say "Hi!". There is no reason for us not to celebrate human interactions with our fellow humans, particularly ones we can identify with in some way - asia should teach us that this is where western culture is in error. It seems to me most Asians will talk to each other or interact in some way based on the smallest of commonalities, which leads to a more fulfilling day to day existence and greater sense of belonging. We westerners tend to fall into a trap of "don't interact with anyone, act unimpressed by everyone/everything, don't show any emotion" type of existence, where we go to work, interact with computers which separates us from real human interaction, go home, watch TV and wonder why we feel unfulfilled with our lives. I can tell you this - compared with my home (whose people are particularly notorious for their desire to avoid interaction), I have a greater sense of belonging in Asia, even if I can't speak the language so well. Why? Because Asians tend to listen to their base desire that human contact brings happiness so will try to interact with you and others easily. Shouldn't we learn something from this?

I do note however that most laowai in Asia do feel this too (maybe it just comes from travelling?) and I tend to have more genuine interactions with laowai friends here than I do with most stay-at-homers in the west...

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Forums > Living in Kunming > The Mountain Bike Thread

I have the same issues bro.

Changchong Shan - Closed
Baozhu/Qipan Shan - Closedish. I rode down some trails there about 1 week ago, but had to go under a lot of barbed wire near the bottom. I would call this closed, but open to those with keen eyes! Have you been down any trails surrounding it?
Up behind the Expo gardens (can never remember the name) - Closed

I have been hitting my yoga mat and doing road rides. Hopefully it rains for about 5 days straight and soaks the soil/trees then we should be right for a bit.

I might have to put some of the time I usually have for mountainbiking into mountainbike washing and dreaming at the moment :-(

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Forums > Food & Drink > Bread in Kunming

I totally agree, Barbaras bread is best, but I am a biased kiwi :-)

However, I live in the North, and up here is quite far away. So what do I do for bread? Believe it or not Metro actually has some quite tasty baguettes and fresh bread. Don't try anything else though and buy on the same day its baked (fresh everyday, they pop out at about 10-10:30am... but if you arrive at 9:30, you may be able to get them straight out of the oven if you ask nicely).

Strange, I know, I couldn't believe it either. But I aren't complaining...

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When I saw the preview for this I thought "This has a 90% chance of being unwatchable". Now that it's been sent back for re-editing by (likely) the Chinese government, I revise my estimate to 99%.

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Think you will find the Wifi is local to the train (travelling with the train) and if implemented may or may not allow internet connections. Wifi is different to mobile internet (GPRS/2G/3G etc) laotou, conflating the two is inappropriate.

Theoretically they could provide local Wifi which is only local, but could connect to an on train server which allows movies to be watched through the server, much like a plane but each connected device becomes a screen like on the back of long haul flights.

If they were to also provide internet they would likely need to run another cable along the train line with some pretty high tech devices to detect the signal. Alternatively (easier) is to use the power line itself as a medium to also transfer data. On board internet though is difficult and expensive to set up/maintain, my guess is it will never happen.

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I have been in a few bike and running races with Chinese people before, I know exactly what you mean about them not racing smart! Funny because they also have the rabbit/tortoise story as one of their common idioms...

Reviews

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Wow, just wow. Possibly the best Chinese food I have had in Kunming. And in one of the nicest, traditional courtyard style restaurant I have been in. A woman dressed in traditional qi pao playing a gu zheng just adds to it.

We had okra, mushroom soup, dried beef and chou dofu. All top notch with the bill coming in at just over 250 kuai. But we could have fed 3 people for that so not too bad at about 80-90 kuai each. Not the cheapest but for the quality, it's damn good.

If you have people visiting and want to take them to a traditional Chinese style restaurant with Yunnan style food, or want a romantic night out with a gal, you can't go wrong here. Close to Green Lake (down a little alley) for a romantic walk... Just perfect.

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Pretty good place for getting all your documents translated and/or notarised. Note that there are a number of notaries in the building which you can find by going up the stairs (the elevators are impossible). But you have to find the stairs to do so... go in the door, head over to the right, go up the big wide stairs which head up a floor, turn right then right again into the elevator area and right again into the stairwells. Whew!

One point off for the elevators never being available and having to hike 7-9 flights of stairs (not good if you have to go 3-4 times a day like I often did!)

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This does not stop at the Jinanya hotel at Da Shang Hui as the flyers state (and is on the images tab here). They need to have another stop in the same area or else they are missing out on covering a big chunk of the city.

You can take another bus, the 919C, I believe, if you are nearby Da Shang Hui, which leaves from the bus station on HeHong Lu, nearby the Qianxing road intersection. This bus goes every hour and is white, found at the western end of the station. It is operated by a different company and takes about 1 hour 10 minutes to get to the airport due to a large number of stops especially near the airport.

Great bus though if you can catch it!

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Friendly people, even got to the talk to the vice consulate, who told me she had done a stint in Malaysia's Siberian Consulate!

English is spoken by some of the Chinese girls working at the desk who are pleasant to deal with. I assume they do Visa's as well but I wasn't here for a visa, this time!