Since we have been back home for 2 days that  means that it is time to finish up this trip AND this blog

Our last 10 days in China were fairly quiet.  We enjoyed several relaxing days in Kunming after the Dali debacle, although I caught a cold and didn’t feel wonderful.   We had ideas to do a bit of sightseeing while we were relaxing, but the weather did not cooperate so we mostly stayed inside, although we did enjoy a morning of shopping at a local Antique market.

We bought a few fun pieces but our favorite was this metal monstrosity….

We stood in the shop looking at it for a long time and finally the shop keeper picked it up and indicated that it was a pipe!!!   Well, it had to come home with us!!

On Sunday we flew to Beijing for Michael to do his last work session.  That evening, his hosts took us to a “traditional” hot pot restaurant that used Copper pots with coals in the center to heat the water…..

The menu was a huge book and JiangFeng and Chaoqun spent several minutes trying to decide exactly what we would cook in our hot pot…..

….but eventually they decided and the food started to arrive.   First came thin sliced meat…..

….and trays of mushrooms and greens…..

All of these were put into the pot to cook……and then “chop-sticked” out, dipped in a Sesame sauce and happily eaten!!  It was a fun meal and the one mile walk back to the hotel was good for our swollen tummies!!

Unfortunately Michael woke up very sick the next morning….probably from the food he ate on the plane to Beijing.  We spent a tense Monday with me force feeding him crackers (1/4 at a time) every 15 minutes.   The people at the Beijing Forestry University were super sweet and told him to take all of Tuesday off as well!!  So, since he had yet to do any work for them, we changed our plans for the end of the week and stayed an extra day with them.   On Wednesday he was able to spend the entire day at the University and the day was celebrated in the usual way…..a banquet for all the dignitaries…..

I spent all that day in our room working on a hand-work project that I have been enjoying!! 

On Thursday we moved to the Grand Hyatt in downtown Beijing and spent our last two days in sheer comfort…..

The only time that we left the hotel was to do a bit of shopping at the Beijing Pearl Market, once again visiting Lynn’s shop on the 4th floor, coming out with full shopping bags and empty wallets.

There were two or three “quilty” ideas that caught my eye at our Beijing hotels.   The first was a light in the elevator…..

When I first looked at it, I saw the inset circles and thought that it looked interesting.   But, when I looked again, I realized that the circles were not just lines but had depth as well and that, when you looked at it from different angles, the design changed…..

Every time I stepped in it to travel between floors, I was madly taking photos trying to get different angles on the shots!!

I also liked these “walls” in the dining hall….

….and this carpet in the last hotel…..

We left on Saturday morning and made the 11 hours  flight into Seattle.   It was a super easy flight and went really fast.  We enjoyed a meal in Seattle and caught our last Delta flight to Atlanta.

Our sweet Son and Daughter-in-law brought our car to the airport and dropped it off so we were able to hop in and make a fast no-traffic trip home!!

Now let me say that this trip has been different from previous ones.  We had more time to ourselves and had some really fun times, but also had some near disasters.   We have learned more about how to travel in China and will be sure to follow these new “guidelines” in future travels.

Right now, we are enjoying sleeping in our own bed, showering in our own shower and eating our own food!!!

Thanks for traveling with us!!

Friday was my last day to walk around the Gardens and I realized that I had mostly taken “tight” telephoto pictures and that I hadn’t looked at the wonderful views around me so I  replaced the telephoto with the normal lens and off I went.

While walking in the shade garden, this man-made fog came rolling in…..

I was instantly reminded of Harry Potter in the maze during the Tri-Wizard Tournament!!   Fortunately I didn’t turn upside down when I walked into it!!

There are some low mountains around the garden and I loved this photo from early in the morning…….

…and this one from after dinner one evening….

They have done a wonderful job of building structures that fit into the garden atmosphere, including this walkway across one of the ponds…..

I remember this pathway from our previous visit and it was still exciting to walk thru….

The palm trees formed a wall along the path but you could look thru the trees to see the beauty beyond….

I hopped into a small museum and laughed when I saw the wall outside of the building.   The vine had obviously attached itself to the painted wall and then left it’s imprint….

Of course, I kept seeing things that I wanted to take closer photos so I decided to just run a test and start switching lenses whenever I want to.   The bottom line is that it only takes about 20 seconds to switch from the telephoto lens to the regular lens.

In the afternoon, I completely changed direction and went out with the close-up lenses and played for a while in the shade garden next to the hotel.  These lenses are some that came as part of the camera kit so are not wonderful quality and I found them hard to focus.  I got a couple of good photos…..

….but was honestly happier with the ones that I took using the telephoto!!

On Saturday, we were supposed to visit a couple of Dai (a local ethnic group) villages but it rained ALL day so we decided to just spend time working at the hotel.  On Sunday we returned to Kunming to prepare for our Dali trip….but you already know THAT story!!

Since the last two posts were a bit “angst inducing”, I will now back and finish the photography around XTBG…..

Both Wednesday and Thursday were very similar in schedule and content so both are included in this post.

Each morning started out with a walk around the garden….before all of the tourists hit!!

I am very much enamored with this Giant Lily pond…..

The big lily pads are mesmerizing to watch as they slowly drift from place to place.  Many of them don’t seem to move at all, but one was  moving around a lot….maybe it has a submerged motor on it….or a fish nibbling on the stem???

The pads are strong enough to hold a human being, as evidenced by the brisk trade that the “lily pad operators” are doing each day…..

You can pay to have your child sit/stand in a lily pad while you snap photos!!  They put a green plastic disk inside the pad which I assume protects it and keeps the child’s feet from going thru it.

Once the child is properly stationed, the posing begins…..

I sat and watched for about 30 minutes one day and it was fascinating to see the required poses…..they HAD to be required because EVERY one did the same thing!!

It was interesting to see the underside of one of the Lily pads that had been damaged and removed from the pond…..

I came back and asked Michael about these plants and he reminded me that the pads are the leaves for the plant and the blossoms and seeds form in the normal way…..

The really nice thing about going out earlier is that you are not accosted by huge crowds of people.    One of the mornings I was able to get to the Distinctive Plant Garden before ANYONE else…..

It was quiet and peaceful and oh so wonderful!!!   I was even able to take a photo of this special tree…..

I had tried the day before and there were so many people in front of it that you couldn’t really see it.  It reminded me of the Mona Lisa or the Venus De Milo in Paris…..completely surrounded!!

I did have one laugh while I was in this area….. a couple (I assume husband and wife) both walked up to exactly the same spot, aimed their phones at exactly the same scene and both started snapping away.   I could hear the shutters clicking in unison.

On normal (ie…not early) mornings, the buses lined up at the Distinctive Plant Garden were my signal to keep on walking…..

As the loaded buses would pass me on the road, this was my normal view….

These were some of my favorite flower photos for the day….

As I am walking around, I try to be sure that there is a smile on my face, especially as some people tend to stare at me, and I eventually get tired of smiling and my face starts to seize up.   I am continually afraid that I end up looking like Sheldon on Big Bang Theory….

In one of my wanderings I ended up in a deserted forest area and had fun taking more photos…..

I had numerous interactions with young people but one young boy said “hello, what is your name?”  I told him and asked his name.  He told me and I shook hand and said “nice to meet you”.   HUGE grins followed.

i loved the colors in these gorgeous leaves….

….and have always loved these really funky flowers…..

This white plant was gorgeous.  Be sure to look for the anther tips in the second photo…..

These last two photos were taken in a garden very close to the hotel…..

The  garden caretakers were out in force on one morning…..

 

Each of our evenings ended in a banquet of some sort.   Some were more formal…..

….and some leaned more toward the fun side…..

The heart in the center was made out of different types of Sticky Rice and was an excellent addition to the meal.

Speaking of food, I had bought a jar of Crunchy peanut butter when we first arrived in Kunming and I would have it with crackers on the days that Michael was working during the lunch hour.   I had run out of crackers so I bought another package of them at the hotel store in the Botanic garden.   When I first opened them I noticed little black seeds in the crackers and was wondering exactly what they were.   My  questioning was answered with the first bite….they were Anise seeds!!!   As long as I put the Peanut Butter on one cracker (as opposed to making a sandwich with two crackers), the peanut butter to Anise ratio was palatable and I enjoyed every bite!!

One more day from Xishuangbana to come…..

When I left you yesterday, we had taken refuge in a $25 per night hotel.  We both slept fairly well and awoke to a set-in rain and no place to find breakfast.  I had brought some cheese crackers from the US and we had two packages left so we each had half a package of crackers for breakfast and a bunch of pain killers to take the place of the caffeine in our lives.

I walked back down to a store on the corner and bought more water, a Coke (for a little caffeine) and two bags of potato chips, which we had for “Morning Tea”.

We stayed in the room until noon but felt that we should go ahead and check out.  The proprietors were super sweet and were always smiling when we saw them and, as I said, the room was as clean as I have ever seen.  They had a sweet little boy (maybe 2 years old) who was often in the waiting area, once excitedly blowing bubbles with his bubble wand. They had taken 20 Yuan too much when we checked in and we were told that they would return it when we left (probably as a deposit for the key).  We tried to wave them off and leave the extra $2.50 with them, but they would have nothing of it and motioned for us to take the money!! 

I know that this place doesn’t look like much, but it sure saved our bacon….

….and if I knew the name of it, I would write an amazing review.  Of course, no one would be able to read it but that isn’t the point!!

We walked back to the train station, were greeted by a smiling identity checker, and fortunately were allowed to go in this time, although we were 6 hours early for our train.  We are not unused to layovers, having once spent the night in the Newark Airport McDonald’s and 17 hours in the New Delhi airport, so we settled down with our computers and Kindles and waited it out.

Eventually we started getting hungry so we pulled out what we have now named the “Dali Diet”…..

After a while we got hungry again so I went scavenging in the shops and scored OREO’s and Coke Zero for me……

….and sweet, milky coffee for Michael.  He was so desperate for caffeine that he didn’t care about the milk or sugar and even used a straw to drink the hot liquid……

Now before I go on, I know that there was tons of food around us but, quite honestly, we were in too delicate of a condition to try to communicate exactly what we wanted!!  It was simply easier to be a little bit hungry!!

It was interesting watching the train station as the day went on.  It would be empty right after a train left but then people would start filtering in and filing all of the seats.  About 30 minutes before a train was departing, people would start lining up (if a mob can be considered a line) and waiting for the gates to be opened.….

When they were opened, everyone would rush forward to be the first ones on the train.  As soon as the first rush was over, people for the next train would start amassing by the gate.   After about 10 minutes, a railway employee would start talking on a hailer telling people that they needed to get on board and also making a lane in the throng so that those late-comers could get thru to the gate.

It was fun to watch the personal interactions in the terminal, like these two little girls sharing 1/2 of a small watermelon…..

They almost dropped it several times but always caught it before it slipped and then they would laugh and start eating again.

We loved this sunflower seed dispenser…..

By the way, Michael took this photo while we pretended to be taking a selfie….our newest method of surreptitiously taking photos.

And, this is a blurry photo, but I wanted to show the stairways in the terminal…..

This ramp in the middle is designed (as you can see) for rolling your suitcase.   That is fine for going up, but we saw many people trying to roll them DOWN the stairs and invariably the suitcase would get ahead of them and almost cause them to fall down!!

When it was about an hour before our train was set to board, we left our chairs and moved to our waiting area.  Since we had watched so many trains leave before us, we knew the drill!!  When the train previous to ours lined up, we moved to the edge, just outside of their line.

At this point we had the nicest interaction of the day.  A young man started talking to Michael and asked where we were from.  He was in his last year of High School and his English was magnificent.  He told us that he had been on a fun-filled vacation in Dali (so that was possible!!) with his family and then proceeded to introduce us to his Mom, Brother and Aunt.    His Mom beamed proudly as her son talked to us!!

When it was our time to line up, we moved up with the throng to the front of the line and then realized that we were probably in the wrong line….we had blue tickets and this line was for red, but we decided to play dumb American’s (not a stretch for us) and just walk thru.   The ticket-taker just looked at us and let us go past.   She probably thought that it simply wasn’t worth the effort to stop us!!

We found our seats and enjoyed the 2 hour ride back to Kunming but, of course, it was pouring down rain when we arrived.

As we were walking out of the terminal there was a crush of people trying to get their umbrellas opened before we stepped out and it was quite a mess for a minute or two.  We eventually made it to the street and started trying to hail a taxi.

We had previously been told that Kunming Taxi Drivers sometimes don’t want to stop for fairs or will be really selective about who they get.  We must have made a VERY bad impression because we could not get any of them to stop for us!!  We decided to walk a bit down the road and try again when we weren’t as close to the train station so I got out my phone and made sure that we were at least walking in the direction of our hotel.   We tried several more times but could not get a taxi!!!

Finally, we decided that we would just have to walk the 2.2 miles to the hotel…..carrying our backpacks on our front, me with my purse on my shoulder and Michael with the duffel bag around his chest and on his back…and holding our umbrellas against the solid rain that was falling!!

The next hour is pretty much a blur as I think that we have both tried to block out the experience!!   At one point we were sluiced by a car hitting a HUGE puddle and we twice crossed roads without lights, which is tricky in the daylight and almost impossible at night!!

Fortunately neither of us slipped down on the wet sidewalks and we thankfully arrived at the hotel, a sodden mess!!!

We quickly unpacked, laying all of the wet items around the room.  We were happy with how our backpacks performed as only the outside pocket got wet and those only had items that were in Ziploc bags so that didn’t matter.   The duffel bag was soaked and a few of the clothes were damp, but nothing was ruined.

Needless to say, a shower was the first order of business and then to sleep the dreamless sleep of the exhausted!!!

To finish this drama, let me say that much of this fiasco was our own fault…… but not the part with the misplaced reservation.  We did, however, venture out on our own without any language skills and this is what got us into trouble.  Having said that, we have ventured before and have been fine, but these trips were always in large cities were English was more prevalent and the hotels that we stayed at were bigger and had English speaking employees.  We didn’t account for the fact that Dali was more rural and was not prepared to deal with the likes of us!!

Today, after having a nice breakfast at the hotel and a Hamburger and Fries lunch at Salvador’s, we can look back and see our mistakes but can also see the humor of some of our situations.   Again, we had angels who helped us when we didn’t know what to do and we met some very sweet people along the way.

We will always be thankful for Fred (our Taxi driver) who put up with SO much from us!!!  He even tried to reduce the fare on the return trip but we insisted on paying him the full fare, plus a bit more.   We hope that he, and everyone that we met, will have come away from the experience with a good feeling about Americans….even the crazy ones!!!

And yes, we will adventure again….maybe not in rural China, but we will certainly continue to enjoy our travels in the world!!