Arrival in Kunming, Yunnan
Woke up at 4am this morning. Jeez. Proceeded to get ready. I was just about to finish putting on my clothes when the taxi guy called me at 445AM. I had no idea what he was saying. He was just rattlin' off some Beijing Babble. I figured he was telling me that he was waiting for me at the post office, so I booked it out of the house. I was skipping down the street to the post office. Actually, i was walking really fast, almost at a trot.
As I got closer, I thought he seemed to be happy to see me at 500AM in the morning. As I opened the cab door, the roof light showed his grin to be ear to ear...like in that Warrant video for "Cherry Pie". Maybe he has never had a fair fare before. (You like that little play on words? I just thought it up.) He said, "Guo Ji Zuo Dian ma?" which is "International Hotel?" I was like...yuppers. I followed that with a wink of the eye, a raised corner of my smile, a click of my tongue, and a thumbs up.
This guy was flying down the highway...the four lane highway with stop lights. I was trying to sleep, but I was afraid of not waking up. He had to be going 140km/h because we arrived in Shiqi in like 28 minutes. I always fear some chinese kid or adult would be walking across the street and not look both ways, because chinese people seem to miss that concept especially during rush hour.
I arrived at the hotel all in one piece. I gave the guy 60RMB. It was uber expensive because it was so early in the morning. I walked into the hotel and looked at all the Chinese New Year decorations and I tried to ask the bartender/frontdesk dude where I could get some OJ. My throat was giving me a tingling feeling. The Shiqi Tour Leader (future reference will be STL) came up to me after I finished drinking from the toilet and asked, "Are you Phir?"
Yes, I am "Phir". How could she guess that I was her token gweilo for the tour group? Because, I was the only gweilo in all of China signed up to go to Kunming with a tour group. She took me to the bus. I got on and the first thing I saw was a woman with a perm (a major 'no-no' for chinese women btw). She sees me and her eyes widen in shock. I am not kidding. "What's wrong? It looks like you have just seen a ghost."
I fell asleep on the bumpy bus ride to the airport. We finally got there and sat down in the waiting area. When I arose from my lack of sleep induced coma, I looked over and off in the distance I saw two girls wearing those shoes that have the pop out rollerskate wheels. At first, it didn't quite register and I was like, "Hey, the floor must be really slippery. You can see their reflection in it. Oh look! Here comes the Zamboni...oh wait...thats just a baggage car/fat people carrier and those are shoes." It was very elegant, oddly enough. And all this while listening to Ministry's "Thieves".
A chinese guy started talking to me. He seemed about my age. His English was OK. He needed more practice, but I was happy. YES! ENGLISH SPEAKERS! His English name was, get this: Golf. At first I thought he was saying his Chinese name (because his Chinese name is Go Fu), but no, he was saying Golf. He made the swing of a club motion and said, "you know...GOLF". Aaaaah. Gotcha. He said my hair looked very sharp. Um...thanks...dude....i like chicks.
He is here on his own as well. He works in Zhongshan making ducts. Well, that's what I could understand, he didnt know the english of what he does so he showed me. The airport was covered with them. I do know if he designs them or builds them or works on a conveyor belt like in "Lavern and Shirley". He told me that awhile ago he studied Hong Quan in Guangzhou. Kool. He asked if I would teach him. I was like, dude, you're chinese, I can teach you english, but I think you would lose face if a gweilo taught you gong fu. Besides, I think Guo Sifu would be pissed off if I tried teaching it to anyone.
We went thru the security checkpoints and I finally got some OJ. The OJ was uber-expensive, 12RMB. So, I layed into the seller...very polite like. "This is really expensive. How can you live with yourself knowing you are selling junk at this price? Personally, I would shoot myself." The two girls behind the counter did nothing but giggle awkwardly.
I then headed to the bathroom. Some dude left a yellow-green snot rocket on the side of the sink. It was huge too. I went and sat back down in the Gate waiting area, A24. A girl named Shoe...well...Sue introduced herself too me. She said, "You can call me Shoe." -Um...come again? "Sue" Great! Nice to meet you. I am Phir. She offered me a peice of candy. Well, that was nice. Thank you much.
Plane ride was uneventful. We got into Kunming and it was clear skies, well, blue with clouds. It was also 22C. A nice change from the past three weeks of overcast in Zhongshan. They say Kunming and this area of China only has one season, they call it Eternal Spring. It is dry and wet for 6 months out of the year. We boarded a bus and we were off. I noticed dark clouds closing in.
Our first stop was Green Lake. I walk all around for about 20 minutes alone then I ran into a family that sat next to me on the bus. I spent the rest of the time walking and talking with them. The husband and wife have one son, Kevin, who is super adorable. He is four years old and gets really excited when I look at him. Super hyper. I doubt he has seen many white folks. He likes to repeat what I say which is great. Chen, the father speaks very good English. Great! We walked around the lake and there were lots of folks making, listening to, and dancing to music. Bustin' out the jams. I brought out the video camera. You would think the audience would be looking at musicians, but nope, they were staring at me.
We had to be back at the bus at 315pm. Around 3 we headed back and it began to sprinkle. On our way out, the Kunming Tour Guide (future reference KTG) told us that today was the first day it has rained in three months. "That's right, Suckaz!! I brought the gloomy rain! In addition to that, I bring along pestilance, disease, destruction, common courtesy, and manners!" We headed to another park area where they honor the seagulls for some weird reason. Well, they don't really honor them, they just feed these winged rats bread so there are huges flocks of seagulls...with really bad hairdoos. :D
I think this place was called Da Guin since I had no idea what the tour guide was saying. But, it was a pretty park. From there we headed to dinner. It was 5pm. It was across the street from a hotel/tea shop/shopping mall that was designed like a Thai/Indian buddhist temple. I think I had the best sweet and sour pork in my life. Fantastica.
We headed to the hotel. I was on the 14th floor and the view was great. Dirty, but great. The ZTG brought me some chewable medicine tablets because I asked her where I could get some. After taking two, which are just chewable coughdrops, I decided that if we go to another stupid government mandated medicine shop like we did in Beijing, then I will try and squeeze a free treatment out of it. Around 8pm I headed out to find a kodak shop to transfer my pictures to CD. I then stopped at a DVD shop on the way back. I found tons of awesome junk. All the Transformer episodes. No Voltron thought, that woulda been hardcore. They also had some good movies too. But I didn't buy any of that stuff. I did buy "The Story of Ricky". "Arguably the most violent Hong Kong movie ever made...now totally uncut." This is the movie that the Daily Show lifted that guy smashing a head for the 5 Questions intro. Sweet. Can't wait to check it out.
I gots to get up at 630AM, sleep well.