IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

We have made the decision that we will not make a move to China.  As we started getting answers to our questions, we realized that it simply brought  out more questions and more uncertainty.  It was a hard decision, but the Institute director and others have been extremely gracious and kind.

We have changed our flights home to leave on Tuesday so we are spending a few days relaxing here.

Day of waiting

We were supposed to be looking at more houses today, but the timing didn’t work out, so Michael and I ended up with most of the day to ourselves. 

We started out with our world themed breakfast.  This morning I had the noodle soup, followed by toast and bacon and Michael went with toast and a sweet roll.

We went for a short stroll around the park and enjoyed seeing the groups of people doing various forms of exercise.  I have taken some videos of these and will try to post them soon.

We had been told that there was a “flower and bird” market not far from the hotel so we asked the concierge where it was and how to get there.  He suggested taking a taxi and then proceeded to pull out a little card that had all of the hotel information (including a map)  on one side, and a place on the back to write the names of where we wanted to go.  He wrote the name in Chinese characters and then sent us out. 

The market was a series of stalls that had everything imaginable, including animals and flowers.  The bird stalls were really interesting and had lots of other animals as well.  I desperately tried to talk Michael into letting me buy a small pink cage with a little bunny in it!!  I especially liked the cages of parrots with all of them sitting in a row on a piece of wood.  All of the colors of the bird seed was also fascinating.   They also had plastic bins full of little mice.  There was also a bin of meal worms and scarab beetles!!!

We spent about an hour just walking around the stalls and observing life there.  There was one food vendor that had all of his ingredients in a glass case with tiny “ceiling fans” blowing on each level to keep the flies off.

We are not sure exactly what this food was…..

In one area we could hear a singing class…..one woman would sing a phrase and a group of other women would repeat the phrase. 

I was interested to watch a group of men as they loaded a baby grand piano onto a truck.  There were no dollies or other mechanical devices, but just 5 men and a truck.  They had harnesses around their shoulders that were attached to the piano.

 

I remain enamored with the tea shops here.  You can buy tea in two different forms….either loose or in a disc.  Many of the shops also have various herbs that can be made into teas as well.  The shops are always colorful and exciting…..

 

As we walked out of the market area we ended up in an area that Cecilia and I had visited on our last trip.  It was fun to see an area that I had been to before and I was able to point out different things to Michael as we walked.

I loved this statue and especially the close ups of their faces…..

 

We have enjoyed seeing the way that much of the liquid “take-out” food (such as noodle soups) is served.  The owner puts a plastic bag inside a bowl and then prepares the noodle soup inside the bag.  When everything is finished, she removes the bag from the bowl and hands the bag to the customer.   We even saw one man drinking Chai tea from a little bag, using a straw inserted in the bag.

We returned to the hotel for a short period of time and then went walking to the Buddhist temple that I visited in March. We got completely lost and then realized that we had been on the right street but had turned off and headed another direction.  Anyway, we finally found it and enjoyed walking thru.  There was a lot of construction work when I was there previously, but it was going at an even faster pace this time.    We did see several new things from the last visit……

In the area where the incense was being burned there was a huge blob of a red substance.  Michael figured out that it was melted wax.  Candles are used to light the incense and obviously they had just cleaned out the candle pit.

 

Praying before entering the temple….

Also, there was a room to one side that was filled with people praying.  As they were coming out of the room, they were all carrying mats and pillows that had been used for the kneeling and bowing.

We got a call while we were there saying that we had a meeting at 5:00 so we hurried back to the hotel and were picked up by Jialin and taken to the Kunming Institute of Zoology.

For the quilters…..I love this design that was over a drain…..

I have so many photos of my toes!!!!!

More to come……

One other thing….well, two actually

First of all, here is a photo of the baked fish from the first night……

We have a mystery in our hotel room......there is a bowl of something that is apparently edible, but we cant figure out what it is AND it seems to be growing!!!!  I assume that it is supposed to be here since the hotel staff have cleaned our room and didn’t remove it, but instead put it in a place of prominence on our table.   We did open the lid and Michael lifted out one of the objects....we think that it is a form of tofu, but neither of us are willing to have a taste.

First day of house hunting

We started out this morning with breakfast in the hotel.  As usual, they had a wide selection of Asian and Western selections.  I started with toast, but then added Yunnan noodles and fruit to it.  Michael decided to go all out Chinese and had the noodle hot bowl.  This is a meal that you make yourself by starting with rice noodles, adding vegetables and/or meat to the top.  You then dip up your selection of sauces (Michael did LOTS of chili sauce).  The soup is completed by adding some broth from a pot that is simmering nearby.    He thought that it was wonderful and happily slurped his way thru breakfast.

We were met at 9:00 by our driver and driven to Doug’s house where we were joined by Doug and also a Canadian scientist (Bob) who lives part time in Kunming.

The plan for the day was to look at available houses and see if we could find one that we liked.  We are looking for a townhouse and were confused by the fact that there were so few of them available.  As we talked to Doug, we found out that the Kunming government made a plan to bring a lot more people to the city in the next few years as this helps their status with the national government.  To this end, about 18 months ago, they quit allowing “single family dwellings” to be built and instead are putting in high rise apartment buildings.

We did look at 5 different homes, however two of those were duplexes with the bottom three floors being one house and the next two floors being a second one.  Unfortunately, we did not find one that we both liked and that we thought we could easily live in.  There are two more that we will look at tomorrow.

We returned to the hotel about 3:00 and spent some time talking, relaxing and taking a short stroll around the Green Lake Park.    At about 7:00 we decided to go out to Salvadore’s Coffee Shop which is about ½ mile from the hotel.  We had visited there on the last trip and wanted to try the food.  It is owned by four American’s and the menu is extensive....mostly Western food.  We had a couple of sandwiches and then headed back to the hotel.

Traveling -- part 2

Well, we were NOT on a "white only" row so I guess the other two times were just coincidence. The flight was good, but we both had trouble staying awake. We arrived in Kunming at 8:00 pm and were met by Doug and Jialin. They took us to the hotel and left us with a bag of Thai food. There was a foil packet on top and I was very surprised to see that it contained a baked fish smothered in sesame seeds and chili sauce. It was wonderful!!

We fell into bed about 11:00, meaning that we had been awake for 32 hours and traveling for 29!!!!

Ahhh, the joys of traveling

Well, I am sitting in the Beijing airport waiting for our flight to Kunming…….

Our flight to Newark was uneventful and the flight to Beijing was on time so we were very happy about that. We paid extra money to sit in an exit row and boy was it worth it!!!! We had plenty of leg room and had room for our bags to sit with us as well.

They were having trouble with the reading lights on the plane, so I spent much of my time watching movies. The first one was “It’s Complicated” which was cute. The second one was “Avatar” and my kids were right…..it was great!!! The only problem is that I watched about 2 and 1/2 hours of the show and it was just getting to the big climax….you know….does the main character live or die. Well, the flight attendants come on with an announcement that they are having trouble with some of the monitors and that they are going to shut all of them down and re-boot. ARGH!!! I spent the next ten minutes trying to get back to the place where it stopped and then enjoyed the last 10 minutes of the show.

After we went thru customs in Beijing we made our way to the inter-airport shuttle bus. We started to get on, but it was so crowded and we decided to wait for the next one. One man on the bus motioned to us that there were a couple of spaces at the back of the bus, so we boarded and moved to the back. Then an airport official got on the bus, moved all of the bags and people around and escorted at least 10 other people on the bus as well.

When we arrived in the domestic terminal, we were met by a young man who escorted us to the ticket counter and to the security checkpoint. We must have looked REALLY lost!!!!

We got onto the internet to check email and decided to try out the new VPN (Virtual Private Network). This allows you to log onto the internet and it will look as if you are somewhere else in the world. Michael checked it out by logging onto Facebook and posting a message. When we were here previously we were blocked off of Facebook and Blogspot.

On our last two flights between Beijing and Kunming, we were interested that we were put on a row with another American or on a row by ourselves. We have laughed about the upcoming flight and wondering if we will be in a “whites only” row!!!! I will quit writing on this post for now and go join Michael at a strategic position very close to the gate. We have learned that they do not board the plane in a nice, orderly fashion but instead tend to rush the gate. Not to be outdone, the “Big Noses” (as they call us) will join the rush!!!!

Kunming, here we come

Michael and I are flying out in the morning and will be returning to Kunming China for two weeks.  For those of you who haven’t already heard this, Michael has been offered a job there and we are returning to try to get an idea about whether or not we could live in Kunming.

I will blogging at this site and have even figured out how to post photos AND videos this time….