Kunming. Dinosaurs, fireworks and villages

After arriving in Kunming we went to our apartment which was owned by the cutest old Chinese man. He used a translator app to talk to us even though we replied using Chinese and he even brought us a weird potato plant one day.

Our apartment was situated right next to the ancient style area of Kunming which compared to Tianjin’s ancient style area was a lot more open and wide spaced, whereas in Tianjin it is much more twisting side streets and small alleys. The ancient style area was fun to explore and had lots of cool things to see.

We also spent Valentines day in Kunming but they don’t tend to celebrate it in China so it wasn’t as much of a big thing as it would be back home. Robin and I spent the day exploring a park in the centre of town which had loads of seagulls covering the water. In Kunming this is some sort of celebration and there was Chinese families out in their hundreds to take photos of the migration. It was difficult to comprehend. In Scotland seagulls are seen as a nuisance but here there was even stalls selling bread to feed then!

We were in Kunming over Chinese New Year so one big downside was that everything was shut, shops, restaurants, and tourist attractions. We had little choice in our diet when the only available food was McDonalds, Pizza hut or a BBQ which ended up being too spicy for some of us.

There isn’t much in the way of regulations for fireworks in Kunming, street sellers sold everything: fireworks, sparklers, firecrackers and even bombs! We bought loads and set out to make our own firework display. We had a great time with the massive sparklers and fireworks, the bombs were incredibly loud but it was really fun! We were walking along towards the ancient street when it turned midnight and the display was huge! There were fireworks all around us in every direction and people setting off confetti bombs in the street. As I’d never heard of Kunming before I came to China I never expected it to be so spectacular! It wasn’t just one display rather hundreds all around. If you go to China during New Year Kunming is definitely recommended.

One of our most exciting days in Kunming was travelling to the Yunnan Ethnic Minorities Village. This is a massive complex featuring a village for each of Yunnan’s most common minorities which is constructed to look the same as their traditional village. The workers worked at the correct village of their nationality and dressed traditionally, there was lots of activities such as elephant riding, archery and dress up to take part in. It was really interesting seeing the different ways of life of the people of China and I really enjoyed dressing up.

Another day I enjoyed was visiting the Museum! Many of the exhibits were closed but we enjoyed a paper cutting exhibit and a room about the second world war. By far my favourite room was the dinosaur exhibition. We stayed in there for quite some time!

Kunming was very enjoyable as it was much more relaxed and we spent about 8 days there making it less of a hurry to see everything. I really enjoyed having the apartment as it felt more homely and was fun to imagine staying in for real.

Our next (and last) adventure was Thailand…