PART 1
My trip was an interesting few days. I kind of regret going on this trip but there are specific moments that made it worth it and it's not everyday you can live on a winery and visit minority-ethnic villages to talk to its villagers. The trip consisted of Lily, Hoan, Annaleen, Veronika, Professor Niou, and the Professor’s brother in-law and the in-law’s girlfriend, also Veronika’s friend, Cecilia, from Italy joined us later in the trip.
Lily, Annaleen, Veronika, and Hoan on the KCR up to Shenzhen
Started off the trip with a bad start, we go to the airport only about an hour before take-off and we had still not picked up or paid for our tickets yet, since we had booked our tickets at CTRIP, online, and my friend Lily had booked them but CTRIP had said we could each pay for ourselves at the airport. Now here’s my biggest complaint, in China they apparently lack the idea of ‘customer service’. Also I didn’t understand how airline workers, which worked for an international airline, did not speak English? But because of the fiasco of actually getting the tickets printed, because they couldn’t find our records, and then they told Lily that they had charged her credit card for all three of the tickets she had booked. But after we had finally check in, the flight had already started boarding, before we had already gone through security, so we had to rush to the gate.
Arrived in Kunming and Cecilia picked us up and brought the Americans (me, Hoan, and Lily) to this hostel near her apartment. IT WAS GROSS. The mattresses had blood stains, the toliet was not only outside but had no doors or locks with brown shit everywhere and smelled, and the showers were outside with just a curtain. It was dirty and totally unsafe. Now I've stayed at hostels before and nothing was nearly as bad as this, but when we ran into Cecilia, Annaleen, and Veronika later on and told them about our plans to move into a hotel, Cecilia wasn't happy. She didn't understand why, because she had friends stay there before. Sorry Europeans and Americans might have better standards then.
Bunk beds in the 12-person mixed room at the hostel .. Hostel International
Hotel we moved into later, Wen Cheng Hotel
The hostel cost us each 25kuai + 25kuai deposit, so 100kuai and we managed to get 60kuai back when we canceled our room. The new hotel we got only cost 108kuai and well so much cleaner and safe.
That night was just cruised around the area, near the University area. We walked around the pond full of neon lights but oddly romantic and got some food at a bar.
Next day we visited this cultural park that showcased the different ethnicities that live in Yunnan. In all Yunnan has over 26 different miniority groups. While we waited for our professor to arrive from Hong Kong, he ended up with an eight hour delay.
It was some kind of water festival so everybody had water guns and was getting everyone wet .. I ran like a baby!
Umm.. look like anything? I SWEAR I didn't see it until Hoan pointed it out.
Little kids everywhere on a field trips .. I heard the words "laoshi" (teacher) the most that day.
Hoan doing some cross-bow .. I managed to hit the target!
While waited for Professor Nious to arrive we went into the city did some shopping and got some street food.
Stinky tofu Yunnan style, it still smelled horrible.
Fruit on a stick for $1 KUAI, which is around US$0.12
Satay meat on a stick, $1 KUAI for two sticks
Our professor didn't get to Kunming till 9:30PM that night, so we had to drive over night to the wineary. We were staying in an area called "東風 (dong feng)" .. aka "East Wind" and in the village of "雲南紅 (yun nan hong)" .. aka "Yunnan Red".
Where we lived, trust me it wasn't a chateau at all but cost only $80 KUAI per a room/per a night .. US$10
The 80kuai a night included breakfast + lunch + dinner everyday too .. they fed us extremely well too, all I can say is TOO MUCH food. But after a night of much needed sleep we went on a tour of the wineary and of course drank some wine.
Post more about the rest of the trip .. visiting the local farmer's market (which was pure mayhem), visiting a local village, me chasing after all the village children, me wanting to kidnap a kid, and well yeah.
