Kunming Continued- better late than never

Ok so we are home now for a few weeks but just really getting back into the swing of things and not too tired to do some typing and photo arranging...(about 3000 photos to go through between Maggie and I)....But, I do need to keep a record of the trip for Maggie so I am going to continue to blog the rest of the trip.

 

I finished with the orphanage visit.  From there we went to a lunch show with David our guide, and our friends Jen, Brian, and Leela from Denver.  We got front row table at a Yunnan Minority restaurant that celebrated the different minorities of Yunnan.  IT was a lot of fun, the food was good, and when it is all over the cast comes and has a drink with each table.  The costumes are always awesome.  Maggie laughed very much at two large wooden statues on the stage that were overly exaggerated anatomically correct.  She kept saying..."Its so big!"

 

From there, we went to another tea house.  Jen and Leela hadnt been, so it was fun.  The girls get a big kick out of this little clay statue the chinese use to guage the temperature of tea water.  When you pour hot water on this thing, which is in the shape of a little boy, it shoots "water" out of his you know where.  The farther the water shoots, the hotter the water.  He is called "Pee pee boy."  So we drank lots of tea and bought Pu'er tea and Jasmine tea.  Jasmine for nerves, and Pu'er for high blood pressure and better sleeping at night (? who knew!).  More to carry home! 

 

Jen and Leela and Brian had some dinner to go to at the university that he works at so we split before dinner.  Mag and I found a western restaurant across from our hotel that had good pizza (we had to stay away from the seafood pizza, however).  From there, David picked us up and we went to a very well known show called "Dynamic Yunnan"  the show has traveled internationally and was absolutely amazing.  We paid around $45 us per ticket and were in about the 7th row center.  It was so loud at times!  The show, once again, celebrated the minorities in Yunnan, and told stories of their village life, dating rituals, genital appreciation (in a non sexual way), etc.  A famous dancer, Yang Liping, is the central figure and she is in her 50's but an amazing dancer.  She does this peacock dance thing.  The crowd loves the show.  Thankfully, they tell the stories in english and chinese on a screen next to the stage so you can figure out what is going on.  We met some more english speaking people there too, from Great Brittan we think.  Sometimes there were 50 drummers on the stage at the same time.  We bought one video for us and one for Maggie's class at school we loved it so much. 

 

The next day we went to "Minority Village".  Colleen( my adoption travel partner) , Maggie and I were there nearly 10 years ago but I wanted Maggie to see it.  It contains mini villages of all of the minorities in Yunnan (who make up a majority of the people), and how they are /were run, the customs, the costumes, and of course shopping.  It has a backdrop of beautiful mountain region and the main attraction for Mag was the Elephant show.  IT is rather cheesy and we felt bad for the elephants but otherwise it is fun.  We got photos of Mag feeding elephants and being picked up by elephant trunks.  They sell carrots by the truckloads to people to feed the elephants.!

 

I found some awesome artwork at one of the villages..the Nazi  (nazee) village.  They had an artist that carved wooden plaques that are superb.  We bought two...a great deal for hand carved work at under $150 for both.  We did some negotiating, of course.  Will post some pics of them soon.

 

From there we went to lunch at a nice restaurant.  David and our driver ate somewhere else.  David helped us order, as usual.  And as usual there was too much food.  From there, David convinced Maggie and I to have foot and body massages.  He says that kids start getting massage at about 5 or 6 years old.  So we go to this warehouse type district with some shopping around it.  It was a chinese medicine clinic!  The massage experience was not as it is in a spa in the US.  they had us soak our feet in basins, then did foot massage (they took it easy on us whimpy americans) for about 30 minutes.  Then David asked me if I wanted to see the "doctor" for a brief health exam.  Let me preface by saying that I had had a major headache for about 1.5 days at this point, and I was feeling rather hefty with all the food we had been eating.  So I was a prime target for this "opportunity."  So in walks Jackie Chan's brother (or shall I say, a very good looking chinese doc in a very nice suit).  He takes my hand and examines the palm and pushes around the skin a little bit and starts talking.  David starts interpreting by starting with  "To be honest Diane, you are fat."  (Well who the hell didnt know that.)  I am sure the doc didn't mean anything offensive, but sometimes the translations are very hard.  He says I need to cut down on sugar, salt, and watch my "blood fat" which I think means cholesterol. He also said something about my liver but I was getting lost.  I told him about my headaches.  Sooooo, he prescribed several hundred dollars worth of herbal medicines that are going to make me skinny, bring down my bp, lower my cholesterol, and stop my headaches! I will be new person in 3 months!  So watch out world.  In addition, Mag had gotten pretty bit up in Xi'an by mosquitos and had large lumps all over so he prescribed a topical camphor style cream for her that can be used for other skin ailments too.  After the doctor visit, we had hour long massages, sitting in our chairs fully clothed which was wierd.  But hell, after that, I needed a massage!