Kunming China, random pictures - part 1, the streets

As usual in China, in Kunming you get a mixture of the old with the new, though the new seems to be winning.

In the distance you can just see a little bit of a mountain.

..The new does seem to be winning.

But an entire area is being preserved, or so it seems, as a tourist destination. When Isay tourits here I mean Chinese tourists.

Watching TV in front of a store.

Kunming, China - Green Park and the visible ethnic minorities

Before Guilin I was in Kunming. I landed in Kunming and took the train to Guilin, and then to Chengdu before flying out of China again.
I really enjoyed Kunming. I originally landed there purely because I was just leaving from South Africa, it was October and I didn't want to go somewhere too cold. Kunming fitted the bill. But it is much more than that.
Kunming is the capital city of the Yunnan Province which is a part of China with over 26 ethnic minority groups. If you go to Green Park in Kunming you can often see people performing their traditional dances, sometimes in their traditional costumes. These people are not performers, they are regular people dancing their dances for the enjoyment of it. Just for this make sure that you do not miss Green PArk if you are in Kunming.

Dancing in the park is very normal in China but Kunming is the only place where I have been in China where you see a lot of dancing from ethnic minorities... Of course not many places in China have so many ethnic minority groups and this is why you do not see them in.

The woman below is not wearing a costume it is just the way she dresses. I wish I knew more about the various minorities and could tell you hers.

After I took these two photos I asked her if I could take her photo and she said "no". I felt bad that I had already taken 2.
It is weird the way Chinese will take your pictures all the time. They will ask you if they can have their picture taken next to you, or just on your own. I don't mind but still I can see her point of view.

Chinese Restaurant Menu

I love China, and I love Chinese food. I always wish I could eat more than 2 or 3 meals a day when I am in China so I could try more dishes.
I normally eat in small "hole-in-the-wall" restaurant and try to stick to one or two of them so I can work my way through the menu.
This is the menu from the restaurant just around the corner from my hotel in Kunming and where I tried to have my meals.

Here is a close up of the end of the menu just so you can see how many item there are on the menu.

 .....Yes indeed 129 items. Even eating 2 different items per day you would have to be in Kunming for just over 2 months to try them all, and if you repeat an order because you really like the dish you could easily spend 3 months just trying to finish the entire menu. And you can also see some of the prices, though in the second column of the menu some items were up to 10 RMB......still very cheap. Just the same I don't want to waste food and order more dishes that I can eat so there are only so many I can try.
Everything I tried was great! (sorry no photos of the meals)

Guilin, Guangxi, China - part 3

Along one arm of the Li River, near the art gallery, there is even a small community of people living on barges.

Guilin, Guangxi, China - part 2

The people of Guilin make the most of the river. It feels like the heart of Guilin.

Guilin, Guangxi, China - part 1

Guilin is a very nice city. I was there in November and the weather was quite pleasant. I suspect that by shear luck I probably was there at the best time of the year.
Here are some photos of Guilin.

As mentioned on previous post the Li River goes through Guilin. This is one of the main feature of Guilin.

 ..... This and the mountainous landscape. Guilin is literally built in between these weird mountains.

The two together, the river and the mountainous landscape, make Guilin a truly beautiful place.

 This was the view from my hotel room.

Truly a beautiful place with a great feel.

Li River cruise

I know I have blogged in a long long time, first it was because it is not easy to blog when in China, then I just didn't feeling like it in Malaysia and Australia.... Today I want to show you just one thing, the landscape along the Li River not far from Guilin.
You know the tall pointy mountains you always see in Chinese restaurant. I always assumed that they were a style, a way to represent mountains. The same way that antique Egyptian paintings do not make me think that people used to walk around with their head sideways, I never really thought that the mountains in China looked the way they are represented in those cheap paintings. But here you are. I let you judge for yourself.
These I took while on a day cruise (in the tiny boats you see in the photos) on the Li River, not far from Guilin where I was staying. For the record, the Li River does go through Guilin and the landscape there is also spectacular but the cruise took off from Yangshou, a few miles down river from Guilin.

I truly was a wonderful day. I was the only foreigner on the trip and I had my picture taken so many times, on my own or with people next to me, but over all it was great, and the scenery was well worth it.

One other thing I saw on this "cruise" was this interesting hungry cow....well, not hungry anymore.

Happy New Year from Brisbane Australia

I've been terrible at blogging I realize. In fact the all the picture I have taken are still on the camera memory cards (what ever they are called).

Right now I am in Brisbane, Australia. Once I get blogging again I will be able to show you some stuff from China and Malaysia, especially Tioman Island which was awesome.

In the mean time Happy New Year!