a little coffee

Within minutes of our first walk around Yunnan’s capital city of Kunming, we decided this was a lovely cosmopolitan city with lush plants and trees and bright sunshine unlike the perpetually bleak look of other cities we were familiar with.  The city also eschewed much of that godawful white tile architecture favored by so many other cities.  They even made notable attempts to organize the city- pedestrian bridges and separate bus lanes on the busiest streets.  

While searching for Western-style cafes our Lonely Planet recommended, we stumbled across a neighborhood loaded with funky shops, cafes and a variety of restaurants ranging from Western to Indian to Korean that reminded both of us of Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood.  Also here, we made the happiest discovery of our trip: Mandarin Books.  This bookshop enticed us first with English-language newspapers and upon entering, a stack of English guidebooks and upstairs- MORE BOOKS IN ENGLISH!  We had been deprived so long… the university has only a random smattering of books- most of their fiction are the old “classics.”  It’s been difficult to find contemporary fiction and here we stumbled across it!  They only had a small selection but we each disregarded the bloated pricing because of glee and desperation.  As we would do twice more- at their sister store in Lijiang and again on our return trip to Kunming. 

We spent several hours hanging out in this neighborhood, sipping tea or the delicious local coffee in one of the cafes- soaking in this cafe atmosphere while we could because Anyang has yet to get on the cafe train (the KFC is a poor comparison). We also saw a couple Buddhist temples in the area and strolled through a gigantic park that was swarmed by birds fighting for the bread little kids chucked in the water for them. The highlight of Kunming, for me, was our day trip to Shilin: the Stone Forest.  

 A two-hour drive up and into the mountains around the city and we began to see giant hunks of smooth stone appear leading up to the forest of towering rock.  Chris, the map-keeper, had us plunge deep into the forest and I began to feel like my 12 year-old self pretending to be an explorer as we wound around and climbed up through the slippery stone, eventually leaving the main crowds of Chinese tourists and vendors dressed in the colorful costumes of one of the local ethnic minorities for what we hadn’t experienced since we arrived in China in September: quiet.  

We found little crannies here and there, low stone tools and tables, passages between the soaring pillars so narrow it was difficult to squeeze through and we wondered if we were going the right way?  But true explorers care not!  And away we climbed, seeking views of the forest below and the little ponds hidden within the forest.

We emerged from the “little forest” onto a road that led through the forest, but we didn’t have enough time to explore the “big forest” before our minibus back to our hotel left.  So Chris and I took this easily navigable way back into the tone of Shilin.  Here the road took us within mere feet of several giant, muddy bulls led by their masters by a rope tied to the ring through their nose. It was both sad and frightening to see these giant animals controlled by a thin rope- I envisioned them tearing after us as Chris snapped pictures of them. I am not ashamed to say I used Chris as a shield as we passed these hulking, muscular animals. The road also took us past several small homes that had roosters, chickens or goats just hanging out in the shade.  From the outside, the homes appeared to be in good condition, but I wondered if these people were so poor they were forced to share their intimate space with these animals.  Or did it just seem so to my American, city girl eyes? I had no way of knowing for sure and this would be only our first of many encounters with the proximity of dirty barn animals to humans.  (I think Bird Flue every time).

Next stop: Baoshan and Ruili