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After a boring, lonely week in Dalian and a mad dash to grade exams and submit them electronically on the university's finicky server (a minor nightmare), on January 15th I was finally free! I boarded a plane for sunny Kunming in Southern China to meet up with my friends Nick, Kim, and Sarah. I even overlapped with Tae for a day, which was great. We sat outside on the deck of our hostel and had a few beers and attempted to catch a glimpse of the solar eclipse.
The next day, we boarded a bus for Dali, farther north. A popular backpacker's haven, I had heard a lot about this place and how cool and funky it was - but it ended up being a bit too touristy for my liking. I also associate it with Sarah breaking her arm and so perhaps that has tainted my memory.
Nonetheless, it's a beautiful area.
The Old Town is filled with little shops...
...and markets
...and mushrooms
...and peaceful parks filled with old people playing Mah jongg
...and adorable children doing potentially dangerous things
Overall, we had a pleasant few days there, punctuated by the stress and trauma of a broken arm. Kim has some fantastic pictures of our hospital visit, which I'll have to insert into another blog post. Next stop: Lijiang!
So I literally just laughed out loud at that picture of the child playing with a gasoline tank. Also, your camera is amazing! What kind is it? These photos look so crisp.
ReplyDeletei agree with freya about the pictures - they look so good. also the picture of the mushrooms look like a piece of art!
ReplyDeleteAw, thanks guys! It's one of those Kodak Easyshares, nothing too fancy. It takes great pictures in the daytime, but for some reason the night ones come out really poorly.
ReplyDeleteEm, mushrooms are a delicacy of that area! Glad you enjoyed the photo :) And F, that's not the end of children doing terrifying things in Asia...