This is the 3rd time tat I'm on a tour package trip.... it was booked by my sister.... coz she got a voucher from her recent co. D & D... so she decided to use it for this trip. in fact wanting to get my parents away from s'pore for a short period... hahaha.... its easier to get rooms for 4 pple rather than 3 pple... so she asked me if i'm interested to join them. I've got intention to visit Yunnan province (云南) since last year... in fact my trip that I planned with another colleague was susposed to b a backpack trip... but we did not head up after planning... so i joined my parents and sis.....
U must be wondering why do i want to visit Yunnan province... simple enough... coz I like to see pple in their ethnic clothings, their culture, food, nature sights etc. i muz say that places like yunnan, sichuan, silk road, mongolia, peru, Laos, cambodia etc. are more fascinating to me than places like england, france, USA, canada etc. coz in these places, their ethnic culture are still intact rather than those metropolitian places. in fact in Yunnan itself, there are lots of minorities. there are 25 minority groups living in Yunnan province. Yunnan itself has it own dialect and it's very similar to the one in Sichuan and Guizhou but using much less third tone in Chinese.
when we reached 昆明, Kunming, it was almost time for lunch... but becoz our tour package did not include lunch... we thought we'll be heading out to visit one of the sights.... but the tour guide, Xiao Li, wanting to indicate to us tat she is nice & thoughtful....by arranging for our dinner segment up to become a lunch so that we'll not be hungry while visiting the sights later on....arranged for us to have lunch 1st. in fact on this trip... all the meals we had were chinese meals.
Kunming City - hahaha... sight of solar panels at roof-top. (taken from our hotel)
during meal time then i got to see the other pple who were with us in the tour group. i muz say 90% of them were all old folks... except me, my sis another and another lady (who was travelling with her mum). its ok.... as along as the trip is going to be good for me.
after lunch we went to visit 大观楼 (da guan lou). it was a nice sight... coz u see the chinese pavillon, lake full of lotus plants and all over u see different flowering plant species.
parents with sister posing in front of the flower dragon
Lake with lots of lotus plants
it was a nice and refreshing sight... and the wind was also cooling... really a great change from singapore.... (hahaha... time to take a break) in the middle of the park, there was a large lake known as the 滇池, (dian chi). is a large inter-land lake. Its nickname is "Sparkling Pearl Embedded in a Highland," and it was the model for the Kunming Lake in the summer palace in Beijing. Juz in front of the centre of the lake there is a large pavillon.
'Da Guan Lou' (大观楼) u can see the blue column. that's where the poetry is written on
The pavilion, with a history of more than three hundred years, is a three-floor square structure with flying eaves and golden-lacquered ornamentation. The top floor of the pavilion provides an all-embracing view of the vast Dianchi Lake and the peaks of the Western Mountains. A 180 character couplet is hanging down the pavilion, which is lauded as the number one couplet past and present. The Park is the most fascinating garden in urban Kunming.
After visiting 大观楼, we headed to another place... this time was to taste tea. Yunnan is most famous for her 普洱茶 (Puer tea). Goodness... its in here... that i got to know how good 普洱茶 is.... hahaha... but u never know is it real or fake... coz the pple definitely want us to purchase it... Anyway it was here that we were enlighten to the fact that the longer the tea was kept, the higher the price... hahaha.... in fact there was a group of 普洱茶 that was already 30 yr old (older than me!!!) and it cost about a few thousand Singapore dollars to purchase it!!! Coz they claim that the older the tea, the better is the tea effects. when we were treated to different types of 普洱茶, u can really tell which is the 1 yr old tea and 8 yr old tea. this gotta do with the aroma, colour of tea and the taste. the younger the tea, the more bitter it is and the lighter the colour. in fact the colour of the tea when its 8 years old was really brown and there was not bitter taste unlike the 1 yr old tea. and juz a few tea leaves u can use it again and agin to brew ur cup of tea. the ladies claim that a few tea leaves u can brew up to 30 cups of tea! imagine that!!!
'Tea' written in different language. Thought this was interesting decided to take a picture of it. But u can see my shadow coz the sun was behind me... hahahaha
Mum & me posing with map that shows how the tea was sold to other parts of the world from China
after the numerous cups of tea, we headed to our hotel. along the way there.... our guide asked if we wanted to go and watch a cultural show that night and dinner will come with the show. only my parents, sis and i did not attend... the rest of the 14 people went. each person had to pay 210 Yuan. (expensive... luckily we did not attend coz the performance was not that good and dinner was so so) after unloading our bags in the hotel.... my family and I explored the streets near where our hotel was. we headed to some shops that was opposite to the hotel where we were staying... one of the shops was having a changing season clearing sales. my mum managed to get a pair of jeans for just 20 Yuan (that equilvalent to S$4). as we walked further down, we came across 2 very nice looking ancient gates... hmm... u can say that they are the gates of kunming.... we crossed the road to a hugh shop that was named as 牛肉米线. over here... we tried the famous Kunming 过桥米线 (gou qiao mi xian). I must say it must have been an interesting sight to the locals...
coz when u want to enter the eatery..... u've got to tell the cashier wat u want to eat and buy the tickets that came in the form of pogs of different colour to indicate wat food u want. then once u got the pogs, u gotta enter the eatery and head to the cook noodle, soup counter. where u're susposed to pass them the pogs. then after that u gotta give the receipt to another counter that is further down the line. and this counter is where the meat, soup, noodles are being collected by the waitress to bring them to the customers. 过桥米线 has a way of eating it... in fact all 4 of us had no idea what do we got to do.... 1st a super big bowl of super hot soup was brought to us. followed by a large plate wit raw meat, egg, veggies. then another bowl of cooked white noodles, which is the 米线. so we stared at the different platters and bowls wondering what we've got to do. we asked a couple of girls who were sitting at a table beside us. they told us to dump all the meat and veggies into the soup, followed by the noodles. stirred it a little before eating. however, when we eat, we've got to make sure that we do not touch the bowl as it was super super hot and we can get burnt. indeed, the meat and egg were cooked after putting them into the hot soup. and i must say this 过桥米线 is indeed very delicious! hahaha... even the soup tat was quite oily was really tasty... and we were really full after the meal. this meal cost about 12 Yuan coz we also had another bowl of beef broth besides the 过桥米线.
after our dinner we walked around the small alleys. all the stalls were selling silver & tribal jewellery, clothes, chinese medicine etc. it was really very crowded. we came across a push-cart and bought a necklace which the lady claimed was made of real silver... we told her tat i'll wear it and after 24hrs i'll kno whether it was silver or not... coz i'm allergic to all metals except silver... coz rashes will pop out in the region that non-silver is placed. but tat necklace was pretty cheap... it was 20 Yuan. after walking around the alleys... we crossed the road and went to the other side where all the big shopping malls were... and as we walked... we happen to see lots of pple wearing lab-coats standing or sitting with chairs. or pple sitting in front of them.
Street with pple in white coats
these were the blind messeurs! i went up to a blind messeur and got massage from my head to my waist... and it cost 20 Yuan! my parents and sis also got massaged. after our massage, we headed back to the hotel to call it a day. coz tomorrow we had to wake up early to head up to 大理, Dali. the next city.
In kunming, the girls are being addressed as Ah Shi ma (阿斯馬) and guys are known as Ah peng ge (阿朋哥)
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