Hmmm, so in the past when I said that "I love China" I really had no idea how much more I could love China. what this past week in Kunming taught me is that I do not love Shenzhen, but I love China and especially the China that is reflected in the city of Kunming. Friday Sept. 30 I sprinted out of the gates of school after a confusing morning of where I was told another teacher would pick up my last classes because I taught 2 full 60 person classes in the morning due to lack of a spare room to split the classes, only one foreign teacher was needed per class. Well in paranoid Kristen fashion, I waited around until the last classes were to start to make sure Barbara showed up in the room as discussed to teach the students. I waited and even after the final bell had rung, she wasn't there. Thus, even though my brain had already departed from work mode and was sailing into vacation mode, I taught two more classes, as per usual.
I then ran home just before noon, jumped into my jeans, tied my sweatshirt around my waist, picked up my hiking backpack and set off for downtown to complete my mission of procuring the last missing piece of my vacation necessities.....the passport. Yes I realize this is an incredibly tight time frame, but there was no other way. The Bureau had only returned the passports on Thursday and I could not go and pick them up that afternoon b/c I had a 'surprise' English Corner that never actually took place, funny how that works, TIC. Hmm, so I get on the bus, hop off downtown, walk 25 minutes (closest bus stop) to where we meet for Chinese class on Fridays and pick up the passports of the 4 members of the Kunming travelling group aka the smartest people in the world b/c we picked the best city in the world to travel to. At this point I was sweating b/c I was wearing 100 times too many clothes for 95 degree weather, but this was how I needed to dress for the forthcoming city....plus I didn't have room in my backpack for jeans and a sweatshirt. It was really a matter of space. I raced back down to the main downtown street, hopped on a subway and headed out west to meet Jenny, Julia and Tim by 2:30. We then caught a bus from Windows of the World (Epcot Center-like theme park in Nanshan) up to Bao'an district, where the airport is. We arrived in plenty of time. In fact, we couldn't even check in yet. That gave us plenty of time to procure a snack...for Jenny and me it was a Diet Coke and Mentos (my new sin of the moment....they're sooo addictive...esp. the red-orange kind).
When we finally got up to the counter, people were shoving in front of us, apparently we were throwing enough elbows. The man at the ticket counter couldn't find Tim or Julia's reservation and so all four of us were pointed over to another counter. Minor panic among us ensues.....we just want out of town...yeesh! After talking to another lady it is found that their names were put in backwards and the man was looking up their first name and not their last. It was all straigthened out, but it led me to think....what kind of nut job is working at the counter such that he doesn't think to try flipping the name order around, esp. when we had paper tickets and proof of reservation. Hmm, whatever. The Shenzhen airport is rather nice and I was surprised to learn that South Eastern China Airlines actually flies to Paris from Shenzhen. The flight was really one of my most pleasant flying experiences I think I've ever had, and I'm honestly not exaggerating. The plane was well kept, instructions were in english and chinese, the dinner served was actually much better than what i am served at school....what more could I have asked for? Nothing you say? Oh but there was more. When we were about to land, the flight cadets (that's what they're called here) passed out free duffel/shoulder bags with the airline logo on them. These were perfect, I mean totally perfect for us psuedo-backpackers, who by the end of the week had acquired more stuff than we had space for. Thus, last night on the train home from Guangzhou, four tired, slightly dirty (30 hour trains will do that) foreign teachers could be found toting the Eastern China Airlines bag. Even more funny was that the fellow in the bunk across from me on the from Kunming to Guangzhou had the very same airline bag with him.
Ok, back to the beginning of the trip. Upon arrival in Kunming we had to shove our way through the arrival hall and the people who thought it appropriate to walk -2 miles/hr in a zigzag fashion out of the airport and hold up all pedestrian traffic. The taxi driver understood my Chinese and in a mere 10 minutes we were at our hostel, which was attached to a hotel. The hostel was actually wonderful. The bunk beds were far better than anything I had at boarding school and except for the hard mattress would have been better than the ones in college. They were even extra long. So, for a mere $3.50 each per night, we had a room for four to ourselves for as long as we wanted. The showers we hot, there was even a dryer attached to the washing machine...and all the ladies working there spoke English. It was a huge backpackers hostel and while some were nice, there seems in general to be a mutual disdain between foreigners in China. It's like I should be the only one travelling in this country, not you. Haha, oh well. We live here. They don't. Oh back to the dryer comment. Julia and Jenny and I almost paid the 2kuai to wash our pants b/c in Shenzhen there is no way to shrink pants back into shape, everything is washed in cold water and hang-dried....thus pants and jeans just keep expanding and stop fitting. I think we ultimately forgot about that initial thought as we were enthralled immediately with the city.
As soon as we stepped off of the plane and onto the tarmac, we knew there was something wonderful about this city in Yunnan. The air was cool and crisp. Tim had made the thoughtful point that there is something great about not walking on a gateway to the airport and instead actually walking and placing your feet on the tarmac after getting off of the plane.....it makes you feel comfortable with the place you're visiting.
That first night, even though it was 9:30, we were all eager to explore. Since we were staying downtown, we decided to peruse the streets a bit. I was immediately struck by a huge difference between Shenzhen and Kunming. In Kunming there was a generation spread. There are old people in Kunming, and I don't mean people who would just qualify for AARP, but I mean 85, 90 year old couples walking around with the most pleasant of expressions on their faces. In Shenzhen, everyone is young....it's a city devoid of old people. In the parks at night in Kunming, people go dancing. There were vendors pushing carts of food standing at every corner. One could buy satay, fried potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, peeled youzi, kettle corn, boiled corn and fried tofu from vendors near the park or the river that ran parallel to Qingnian road (yes we got to know all the streets of downtown in a mere matter of hours). As we walked along the river we saw little bars with groups of people huddled around umbrella-ed tables, drinking beer and playing cars. We vowed to do the same one of the nights we were there. In one of the parks, fountains were lit up with magnificant green lights. It took us all, oh maybe 20 minutes to fall head over heels for this southwestern China city.
....and after a week, the feeling didn't change. More to come.
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