(groan) A nod to Chinese ingenuity and an admirable recycling habit. Perhaps also inspired by this week's almost spring-like weather, my neighbours have taken to their trowels to produce some impressively mounted flora. ...and some joy in pun heaven! I'd be very interested to know how many puns we can come up with. Please add yours: "........................................" |
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One afternoon after my usual 口语 class we decided we had time to go for a short walk up the mountain behind my house to look for the small contemporary art community I'd heard about where a young Australian artist's exhibition was in its last days. Our expectations were a little disappointed, however we were not let down by the larger than life street signage in the area. I dubbed the North Jinding Mountain Street sign adornment the 'Yunnanosaurus' only to return home and find that such a creature did once prowl the region just northwest of Kunming in Lufeng county where the remains of 20 incomplete skeletons have been found[1]. In fact according to another source[2] since 1938, 24 categories 33 species and hundreds of complete dinosaur fossils have been unearthed in the area.
From conversational Chinese via bad art to early jurassic period prosauropod dinosaur remains in one small leap: life seems to be always thus here in Kunming. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yunnanosaurus [2] http://www.toptrip.cc/destination/spot/yn_lufeng.htm [Animatronics thanks to Paul Hider - Kunming friend, classmate and resident, blogger and science fiction nut] Days 1 and 2 [see earlier Kunming in 5 Days notes] had been all about exploring a little of Kunming and the nearby Western Hills. Every opportunity was seized to also explore some of Kunming's simplest and best street food: the local Muslim barbecue stand for some spicy lamb and spectacular barbecued mushrooms, a bowl of 卤面 at Kunming's best noodle bar, a pot of Kunming's famous hot and spicy fried potatoes, and not forgetting those delicious grilled veggie parcels wrapped in a very fine dough to be found at the Bird and Flower market, all finished off with the not so edible but equally delicious blind massage at day's end.
* Thanks again to John for some of the photos reproduced here without his permission.... welcome to China.*
After Sunday's prowling through the streets of downtown Kunming (see Kunming in 5 Days: Day 1) we opted for a day close to, but out of town and made our way to Dianchi Lake to catch the cable car across the lake and up to Xishan (Western Hills) for a day of walking in the hills above Kunming and almost-crawling through the grotto-like tunnels and cliff face paths of Dragon's Gate. [Click on photos to enlarge.] [Click here for more summertime shots of Xishan] * Thanks to John for his photos * Kunming switched up a gear for me last week with the visit of my (you-can-sleep-when-you're-dead) brother John. Some glimpses of our 5 cracking days in and around Kunming. [Many of these shots are worth a closer look: just click to enlarge] Sunday: Kunming Bird and Flower Market
Ling Xing Gate Confucian Temple 文庙棂星门
华山西路 Hua Shan West Street (West Magnificent Mountain Street) Madly excited by the news that my English mates (and Kunming tennis buddies) Laura and Ben have decided to buy some bikes and ride to Cambodia ("oh just going home for christmas"), I leapt out of bed this morning with the camera readied and raced down to the Daguan bike shops to see them off. The departure had to be marked with at least a little fuss, so I took it upon myself to be press corp and send off commitee. While I've been using the "bite-sized pieces" approach to China and Chinese language study, Laura and Ben have hungrily devoured the language, the country and the endless challenges in monster-sized chunks. I bow deeply in admiration to them for their courage; a few days ago they landed back in Kunming and in that time they have prepared from scratch their first big cycling road trip and have given themselves two months to cycle from Kunming in China down through Laos to Cambodia. So while they attended to final brake cable and pannier tweaking as well as repair kit checks we concocted a cute and vaguely romantic blog note about memorable journeys, leaping-into-voids (and flying of course). A gorgeous sunny Spring City morning - the perfect day for a bit of void leaping. Now sadly I have to say goodbye to them after only a very brief reunion. Waving them off, and choked with not a small dose of adventure-envy, I snapped madly as they disappeared into the early morning diesel fumes. [News from the road 24 hours later: all well and happy] [Mon Oct 29: More good news from the road: a safe arrival in Xinjie after a memorable but huge 7 hour all uphill climb to the capital of the magical Yuanyang rice terraces region. Tired, but again very happy.] Desperate for some cheap winter clothes I started digging around on the internet and blog sites to see if I could find any cheap markets away from the main street boutiques and clothing franchises. I struck gold! There's a huge second hand clothes market up on the northern second ring road and there is a bus on my street that goes past it. Perfect! Having finished with the latest batch of exams I saved a sunday for my excursion. The bus driver understood my terrible chinese and kindly let me know when it was my turn to get off (although I confess to doubting his alleged kindness when I saw the industrial wasteland in which I was to be abandoned). I ducked and dived in my newly acquired fashion of ambling casually across ten lanes of huffing, chugging, honking, screeching streams of traffic ignoring the traffic lights as much as they do. (I am still unsure why I think I can win at this game. But it's fun.) A dusty track under the overhead freeway, some warehouses, a bike and car parking area and... gold. Lanes and lanes of warehouses and shacks full of the most incredible array of rubbish, junk, treasures - whatever you'd like to call it - imaginable. It's all dusty, dirty, chaotic and half the stuff is broken. There are stall holders arguing amongst themselves, playing cards or chess, drinking tea, spitting and smoking. Kids are riding bikes and scooters round the place, or climbing through the tv and washing machine graveyards. The women are mostly knitting on stoops with the ever present rice cooker, tea urn or wok within easy reach. The lanes and warehouses appear to be divided into sections. The second hand clothing in one, old building materials (antique doors and windows for example) in another, tools and machinery in another, books in another lane, and white and black goods' "graveyards" in another. I love these kinds of markets! With my shopping list memorised and my camera on hand I spent the afternoon exploring and trying on stuff and tweaking all kinds of gadgets and just mucking about with the kids. I came home with all the boxes ticked on the shopping list, my excursion yielding 4 wool winter coats, 2 woollen scarves, a dinky plastic fantastic Mickey Mouse alarm clock for my friend Nathan, and a "Giant" brand pushbike with Shimano gears, lock and rack included all for about $90 (less the 12 cent busfare I saved on the return trip having loaded all my goodies onto the rack of my new trusty steed for the homeward trip). Happy days! For the junkyard fossickers among you, here's some goodies for you to salivate over. |
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