A Wonderful Headache

Reid here. I am sitting out in the courtyard of the Cloudland youth hostel, sipping on an Americano (delicious, made with Illy coffee). People are just starting to wake up and there is a comfortable bustle around. There's a vine covered in small purple blossoms covering the wall opposite me. As I wait for my breakfast to arrive, I am enjoying the remnants of the best headache I've had in years.

It started last night, as all good headaches do, when Dyanne and I dropped down to the courtyard for a beer before an early bed time. We got into a bit of conversation with Peter, a German who has traveled to the area several times. He gave us more information on Vietnam, then gave us his lonely planet Vietnam - very nice of him! He was sitting with a group of about 10 people from various countries (South Korea, China, Sweden, Germany, and Australia). They were all very friendly and, after learning that I was from Chicago, I learned that Sue from South Korea loves Al Capone. I then learned that she was much better than me at ping pong, and her Chinese friend from Shenzhen (near Hong Kong) was even better. Dyanne had the good sense to go to bed at a reasonable hour. I, on the other hand, stayed up with this international group drinking until about 1am. At that point, the situation was beginning to deteriorate rapidly, and I judged it past time for bed.

I woke up this morning to sunlight and noises in the street. It was very early and my head hurt. Dyanne was sleeping soundly. We had a long day ahead of us that would end in a long trip on a sleeper bus. I weighed my options. I tried to sleep more. That failed, so I decided to go for a jog. I only made it about three blocks before I came to a little park that was just filled with activity. There were several groups playing the most vigorous badminton I've ever seen, a few people doing calisthenics, and a big group of people doing tai chi. I was the youngest person in the park by at least 20 years. I started following along with the tai chi from near the park entrance. After a few minutes, a couple of older ladies noticed me and emphatically gestured to an open space in the square. I joined them and did my best to keep up for about 45 minutes. My headache completely forgotten, I had the most excellent morning getting a free (and very genuine) tai chi lesson in a park overlooking a pleasant pond.

On a slightly related note, there is something very striking about the sense of community I've been seeing in Kunming. Older people doing tai chi (how many years have these same people been getting together to do tai chi every morning?), playing cards and mah jong at little sidewalk tables, etc. It definitely puts the community in communism.

Kunming Day 2

Happy Mother's Day to our Moms.

We decided to spend a second night in Kunming because we were enjoying the hostel and didn't get a chance to explore too much yesterday as we recovered from the long travel night. Because it was Sunday, we decided to head to the park and see how the Chinese spend their weekend. We packed a little picnic--we had already found some peanut butter (much to Reid's shock and pleasure) in Yangshuo and found some wheat ("bean sprout") bread at a local bakery along with some black current jam at a bakery here in town--and headed to the park.

Once at the park, we were surpised to find not the lush green lawn that "park" conjured to our minds, but a lake with paved paths and many many people. There were paddle boats on the lake and I even spied some bumper cars. Generally, it seemed to be modeled after the park on the lake at the Summer Palace in Beijing. It was beautiful and just crammed with couples and
families, young and old to enjoy the beautiful day. We ate our pb&js and just enjoyed the beautiful day.

Tonight we went to a vegetarian restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet. Vegetarian restaurants in China differ from those in the states in that their objective is to make non-meat products taste (and look) as much like meat as possible. We walked in at 8:00 and they closed at 9:00, but it was empty and the staff looked at their watches before they seated us. We asked them what they recommended and ordered mushrooms made into meatballs; sweet,
sour, and spicy mock pork; some kind of buddha's delight. We were also served endless cups of weak tea. At about 8:30, they decided to close up and brought us our bill (the first time this has happened in China-usually we have to go find them to ask for it) and most of the staff left.
Luckily, we had finished our meal and headed out shortly thereafter.

Back at the hostel Reid lost a couple of ping pong games as I drafted this. Tomorrow we'll head to the Flower & Bird market before leaving on the 20:35 sleeper bus to Mohan.