Kunming
I am having great difficulty downloading photographs so I don’t think you are going to see too many.
I was tired on Monday and didn’t go out until late afternoon and only for a walk around the block of sorts. There were numerous tiny rooms at the front of buildings holding a couple of tables where enthusiastic locals played majhong. One room had a a gorgeous white dog tied to a chair. When I asked to take its photo someone untied it and took it outside for me. There were even many tables under tarpaulins alongside the wall of the hostel in the residential compound next door.
These are some of the players from next door. I can see and hear the rattle of tiles as I work.
Nearby I came upon an enormous wet market, ie fruit vegies, meat and prepared foods. Definately full of colour and noise.
This is a small section of the market. Just noticed the tails hanging over the counter, have close ups of 2 others. The stallhoilder is crocheting. I am acquiring a collection of photos of such people knitting or embroidering while they wait for trade.
There was even a pet shop although the only livestock were 2 rabbits in front of the next door shop, a hairdresser. It consisted of a cage housing a friendly rabbit and a smaller one. Don’t think they were on the menu although everything else with a heartbeat was; snakes, frogs, crustacans, fish, turtles, chooks and ducks.
I returned via the pretty park near the hostel. It had its its complement of diehard card players and others just enjoying a respite from the city. I also encountered 3 little girls running in an annex to that park a bit closer the hostel. One was clutching an adult rabbit which didn’t seem fazed by running up hill and down dale in a less than firm grip. It was more worried about me patting it later in another part of the park. In that area a stretch limo station wagon was parked. It had the name of a KTV company on its wondow. KTV is karoke and is very popular in China.
The next day I walked the streets to try and get my bearings and see what there was to see. Not that I could get too many bearings in a city of 6 million. And I got lost a couple of times, but not until the very end when I turned left instead of right but eventually realised my mistake and had to retrace my steps.
There is a tree lined street near the hostel where the trees totally canopy the street. It seems to be the street specialising in army surplus just like the street it runs off has numerous musical instruments on one side and and motorbike shops on the other apart from one cycle shop which snuck in on the wrong side.
I found a park where many people were gathered for the obligatory games of cards and mahjong.
Others both young and old were just hanging around chatting. A couple of people were playing musical instruments with vocal and dancing accompaniment. I saw a few young men wearing white jackets and holding combs and scissors in their hands walk through it. I thought they may have been itinerant hairdressers and if they were they wern’t doing it in the park as I didn’t see them again.
I entered my first Carrefour department shop and found a couple of items I needed. When I was returning to the hostel I passed in the street one of the saleswomen who had served me. She recognised me while I was a bit oblivious till I saw the spark in her eye. I was getting to the stage of working out how long it would take me to return to the hostel and it was still a bit of a trek.
I headed towards a mosque where I found a small dog asleep on the stock of the neighbouring multipurpose seller. The owner was sitting on the step and woke his dog for a photo op. The foot peeping out from the doorway of the neighbouring shop was so small I thought it was a childs. When I went in to buy water the owner was a tiny very elderly lady.
When looking for the next nearby mosque I found some streets containing very old buildings. Some were being rebuilt in an original style, some in a modern style but the vast majority were extremely old and dilapidated.
This is at the crossroads of some old streets. This is a pharmacy. The upstairs is definately in use and the upper stories are in better condition than others.
One extremely long street of old buildings consisted solely of shops doing printing work. One of the modern street sections contained a tiny shop selling handmade paper products. There were some beautiful and interesting lampshades, blank books, postcards on handmade paper, a couple of books printed on handmade paper etc. The quality was excellent in design and execution. Was tempted to buy but as I am going north and might encounter some of it closer to the source I decided to return in the future if necessary.
The colours and shapes in the architecure in the dilapidated buildings were very interesting and I took many photos. At times it was possible to see the materials and method of construction.
Some of the old buildings.
It was also possible to buy a pup literally off the street. About half a dozen people were ranged around a stretch of street with containers of very young pups. Numbers ranged from a couple of women with 1 each to a couple including a rather cranky appearing man with a whole crate of them. He was none too gentle with them either and he wasn’t the only one. One similarly inclinced woman wasn’t interested in me photographing hers but the two women with 1 each pushed their pups close together to make it easier for me. I asked the price of one of the pups and was told about $9. Not sure if that was a foreigner price, a local price or one available for bargaining.
Most had small shops in the bottom and some definately had people living upstairs.
There were some pedestrian areas complete with Chinese sculptures and gateways.
One had a couple of ponds of goldfish, one of which had fishing rights. Small stone stools were ranged around it and a couple of kids/fathers had tiny rods which they were holding in the water. Both had buckets complete with a few fish swimming in them. There were enormous numbers of goldfish in that pond.
One of the differences between Kunming and Xingtai is the dominant form of bicycle. Xingtai has vast numbers of small electric bikes, along with many other sorts. There were few such bikes in evidence in Kunming with the majority being much larger scooter/motorbike size. There are very few tricycles here too.
I had intended to stop off at a famous restaurant for its famous special noodle meal. However, I walked past its location and found myself beyond where I wanted to go. As it was getting very late I left the noodle shop for another occasion. However, when negotiating a strange under/above ground walkway junction/confusion I noticed an extremely tall pagoda on the skline. It is unusual and worthy of future investigation.
