Yeah! I can hardly believe we have made it to kunming. The way we had to fly ( because of our last minute TA) and our airline reservation being dropped Sunday, it was a little daunting. I spent weeks running flights on kayak and because we live in the Midwest we always have to take a flight with 1 or more stops to a port city. Anyhow 11 hrs worth of layovers will do anyone in. Although Tristan is bigger than me, I really was reminded he is just a kid towards the end. I was thankful that he was the only one I brought.
Flying low over kunming I noticed it was less populated or more spread out than jinan in shandong province. Think Colorado vs New York. I had read that yunnan was the last province to join China. Walking out of the airport it brought fond memories of going to see my grandma in Santa Barbara. Gorgeous foliage, a cooler humidity, heehee just on a much larger scale.
It is strange being IN the same city as my son - last time they were 2 and 5 hrs away. Glad I hadn't written down the address in Chinese or I would have been at the gates this afternoon.
We chose not to pay to have a guide Orr driver. We just grabbed a taxi and showed him and the police officer ( who runs the taxi stand) the address in pinyin.
Once at the hotel Tristan wanted to nap but I knew that would be bad so I made him come explore with me. We stopped in at Starbucks - yeah they had kunming cups and have little ones this year! This entailed us to cross the street. We look for either a mom with a child or elderly couple and stick to them like glue. Traffic flow, lights etc are merely suggestions. We also went to their version of a corner store. It is like a newspaper stand in New York City. They mainly sell cigarettes BUT we have found their drinks to be cheap!
I knew there was a huge park around ( I was smart enought to search the yahoo group this time for suggestions and food options). We found it AND it is incredible. Even the middle of winter we could tell that it must be stunning in spring.
We lasted until about 6:30 pm china time ( apparently there are no time zone changes) took our melatonin and slept almost 12 hrs!! I worked nights for years as a nurse which has really helped and poor Tristan is still trying to get over his cold. Luckily some mentioned its near impossible to find cough drops in China. Our last airline warned that for the coughing people they would have to sit and wait for a quarantine officer to come on. Yeah we played dumb American and warned him to not cough through the airport. They had no less than 3 quarantine areas ( mainly unmanned LOL) we had to walk through.
As an aside - those that followed our last trip. I do feel The Lord walking this journey right with us. I had to laugh waiting for our kunming flight out of Hong Kong. I looked at the gate across from us and saw . . . Qingdao - where Fei is from!
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