Get me outta here!
Woke up at 7am today and we had breakfast. Today was the last day. Looking back on the trip, I had a blast. The tea shop and medicine shop were a waste of time though. I feel we could have more time at the real sites if we didnt have to attend these government forced stops. Hopefully today we see some real cool stuff. I am not sure of what the agenda is today. I will have to wait and see.
We hopped the bus at 800AM and headed out to a Common Old Town. Basically, this is an old town/village/city that was very common in the past. Its not like Lijiang or Dali which were ancient...over 1000 years. I would have to say this was more like 500 years or something. It was very differnt thats for sure. It reminded me alot of the city area and locale of the movie "Iron Monkey". If some of you haven't seen that movie, find the original version before Queinten Tarantino and Miramax got there slimy hands on it and butchered it. Its my favorite Kung Fu Film. Its also regarded around here as one of the best. Donnie Yen rules. Anywho. It was very pretty and we were there about 830AM. The place was empty. No shops were open and as we left people started to set up little tourist stands. The place was still waking up.
I walked thru the very large and pretty gate. On each supporting wall of the gate entrance was a picture of an animal the chinese love. It also had one lotus blossom.
I walked down a long dusty main street. It was lined on either side by, what I figued, are restaurants, bars, shops, and a hotel. There may have been a whore house there too, in the past. At the end of the road, it widens up to the large town square that has much to look at. On the right corner at the end of the street there was a three leveled building which I think was the hotel. As you turned the corner you get a major modern day shock. On the right side of this new street/path is the old traditional fancy hotel on the right and the path then turns into a road thru the modern living quarters of the residents. It was mind boggling to have all these gorgeous old time buildings right next to these new(relatively) run down shacks that lined the street. These places were falling apart and the place looked like a war zone. It just was a kick in the face pretty much. I grabbed a couple fotos, here. Well, if you look at the fotos, you may disagree with the war zone bit, but that was my first impression. It doesn't really come thru on the foto, but it sure seemed like one in real life. Maybe it was the moment, seeing gorgeous old chinese stuff then ugly new stuff. That must be what it was. Anywho.
I walked back into the town square. There seemed to be two squares. First there was the religious square then the town square next to it. In the religious square was a big grey stone shrine with four entrances. I walked in and Ying Ying followed me in so i started to chase here around. It was pretty low ceiling. Once in the middle if you look out the four entrances you can see the main gate thru the opposite opening you could see a building before the Buddha temple. The other two openings, one you saw the street of the new living area I talked about before, thru the opposite opening you can see the town square and the Taoist temple across the town square. After that I headed to the Buddha temple. It was kool. I am starting to get templed out in China. There are so many, they are so pretty, but alot are just the same. I like them though. The buddha they had here was the fat buddha. As I walked to the temple I had some ladies try to sell me incensce sticks. No thanks. They kept pushing it on me as well. NO! The female doctor that gave me the medicine got the same treatment. The ladies were chasing her. It was bizarre. She would say no and they kept coming after her. Man, these people don't let up.
After checkin that shizzle out I headed over to the taoist temple across the square. This was a real kool looking place. Lots of ornate stuff in it. I got a couple of "waz up" nods from some staff workers as I entered and left. They seemed nice there. No one pushed anything on me. Took some fotos and headed out. Then next to the taoist temple was (what I think was) a congregating area for like banquets n stuff. I think. I dunno. The red wall was all scraped up. It looked neat and old. I then headed back to the main street and everyone was heading back to the bus. We grabbed the bus and headed out. It turned out that this little visit to the Common Old City was the best part of the day.
We arrived at this shopping center and everyone which was made for selling tea and selling crap that goes along with making and drinking tea. It also had some really cheezy souvenirs. They had this really funny looking purses made from coconuts. They took coconuts, cut them in half, and polished them up n stuff and put a lining inside. The put a zipper on them and then gave them faces and bodies with leather. There was a goat, a bull, a pig, something else I could figure out, and a lion.
I spent about 20 minutes just walking around doing nothing. Totally bored. Walked out and they had people missing limbs begging for money on the sidewalk and of course, they saw the white man and instinctively thought that I had tons of cash, not true. They hobbled over to me and were beggin. Sorry pal. I walked around the area. There was a construction site underway. A giant building kinda like Cobo Hall for veiwing shows n stuff. I then headed back to the bus, still no one. So i just sat there until people came back. Chen and Spaz's Dad came back and they headed out back around the junkyard where we seemed to be parked at to relieve themselves. They got back and I asked, is there a bathroom over there? They said, "No." Just be careful. Crap. So, I went and found a nice little area and didnt find out to afterwards that it was a place where very poor people lived. I found this out when a small shitzu chained to the wall tried to attack me. He was out for blood man. The fotos are in the Kunming section, here.
The place looked like a demilitarized zone and then I saw doors. Whoa. Totally not expecting that. Sorry folks. I headed back to the bus.
We drove to a jade/diamond shop. Oh man, not another one. At this point, I was like, screw it. Lets just go home. Get me outta here! Let's make like a tree and get out of here. This place had two floors. I went looking at stuff. Again, very pretty, but nothing really speical. And since it was a shop, you know it was way overpriced. I was looking for souvenirs, but nothing called out, "PICK ME!" After the jade shop, we drove around in a cicrle. We started to go somewhere and then the bus turned around and we headed back towards the diamond/jade shop towards a restaurant for lunch. Lunch already? Its only 11AM. Jeez. Oh well. Across the street was a resturant that still had Christmas decorations hanging up. Sweet! Well, i shouldn't laugh. We still have our tree sitting up in the living room. Giggle.
We headed in to have hot pot. I didn't eat much and I wasn't in the best of moods because so far the day was pretty friggin' lame.
After lunch we headed to the Flower Market. It was pretty lame too. Lots of flowers. Some of it was pretty for about 10 minutes, then it just got boring because we were there for about 1.5 hours. Ugh. There was some really strange art hanging on the wall. It had to be a local thing to a certain person in Kunming because I didn't see it anywhere else in this area. Also, alot of the art in this area has a Native American feel to it. After we finally left, we headed to the airport around 230pm. I had some much junk that I bought here that I had to put my backpack as luggage. The plane was for 4pm, but it was delayed 40 minutes. I spent the whole time writing stuff for my jounral. And I spent the 2 hour flight writing in my journal as well. Koolio. It was a good flight home. Grabbed luggage around 7pm and we got our bus back to Shiqi at about 730pm.
On the bus ride we watched Kung Fu Hustle. That movie rules. We finally dropped everyone off and I got a taxi back to Xiaolan. ZTG paid for it. This taxi driver was terrible. He got lost in Xiaolan. Figures with my luck. He asked about 5 people directions to the same place and they all differed. What is wrong with you people! Ugh. I finally got home and got some sleep. It was a great trip despite the last day of boringness. Good nite all. Hope you have enjoyed these entries.