Kunming Bound…..

This morning (Monday) we wok up VERY early….ie we were both out of bed by 4:00am and had been awake since 2:00!!  Maybe this will be our only bad sleeping night!!!!

My lack of sleeping is more related to getting ready to move into the new house than jet lag, as every time I wake up, I immediately start moving furniture around in my mind!!!   I spent much of the plane flight drawing out “to-scale” drawings of our rooms and furniture.  Now I just have to start putting it into place!

We went down to breakfast at 6:30 and enjoyed a mixture of Chicken Dumplings, bacon, hash browns and lots of Espresso and Hot Tea. 

The view out of our window (and the restaurant) is the Hong Kong Harbor with one airport runway between.  Amazingly a large jet lands on the runway every 3 minutes and even more amazingly, you cannot hear a sound in the hotel…..hurray for insulation!!!!

We walked back to the airport terminal and quickly figured out where to go to get our boarding passes and check our bags.  While we were standing in line, we returned to our favorite traveling past time….watching the locals.   This time they wandered in and out of the lines, trying to find a faster way to the front.

We had originally been assigned seats that were apart from each other, but asked to be moved so we could sit together.  The first two people that we asked told us that the flight was full and that we couldn’t move, but Michael kept asking and, as we have found before, we were eventually told that “yes, it could be done”.  So, thanks to his perseverance we were able to sit together on the two hour flight to Kunming!!

This time we were flying on “Dragon Airlines” and our flight was good, except for one down draft and then the corresponding updraft….thank goodness for seat belts!!!

As we landed in the Kunming airport, we realized that we had actually flown into the new airport which is much larger and allows the plane to pull up to the terminal rather than having to disembark into a bus. 

Our entry thru immigration was fast and easy and our bags arrived quickly.  I was standing by the area where the luggage is dropped onto the carousel and was interested to note that there was a sensor that kept the luggage from sliding on top of the ones already on the carousel.  It meant that the bags came out a little bit slower, but made it much easier to find and retrieve the suitcases.

We were met by Chun-Yu who is our liaison for this trip.  She escorted us to our hotel and then took us out to buy SIM cards for our phones.  We walked down the street to a China Mobil store and she asked about getting a phone that would allow overseas calls but was told that it would be very expensive to do.  Since we were now just looking for a China phone, we could buy one from one of the vendors outside…..

They were all lined up in front of the store and each held a sheaf of papers with cell phone numbers on them.  In this country, numbers are seen as being lucky, so people will select their phone number to provide the most amount of luck. We successfully purchased 2 SIM cards and made our way back to the hotel.

When dinner time arrived, we decided that a trip to Salvador’s was in order, so we “felt” our way back there and enjoyed a very “non-Chinese” dinner!!!

Then it was time to go to bed….perchance to sleep….perchance to dream!!!!