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Monday, December 12, 2011

Kunming - Day 1

8 Days Yunnan Shangri-la Deluxe Tour with CTC
Airline: China Eastern
Departure time from Singapore: 3am at Terminal 3
Arrival time at Kunming: 7am (4 hours flight)

The flight was very uncomfortable. It was quite stuffy and I couldn't sleep as I felt that the airplane was very warm. At first, I thought I was the only one having this problem. A while later, I also saw some passengers starting to fan themselves.

We were greeted by the local guide 小善who looks and talks quite like Quan Yifeng. Our itinerary started immediately and we visited 圆通寺, followed by 大观楼. After that, we proceeded to our hotel for lunch and checked in. As we had an early flight, after lunch, we rested in our hotel for about 3 hours before dinner at a specialized mushroom hotpot restaurant. After dinner, we went to the theatre to watch a performance "Dynamic Yunnan".

In Kunming, we addressed the girls as "Ashima" (阿思马) and the men as ”A-Hei-Ge" (阿黑哥).

 圆通寺 (Yuantong Temple)







Next stop:  大观楼 (Daguan Pavilion)


During this winter period, we couldn't find colourful flowers or green leaves in the pond.  However, we saw lots of seagulls during this season.
On the coach, I spotted these signboards which stated that these were shops selling dog meat.
We had our first meal in Kunming at our hotel.

In Yunnan, they only have freshwater fish which means that their fish has lots of tiny bones in them.  Thus, we need to eat the meat slowly.

I loved the way they cooked their egg together with tomato.
Our hotel room at Longway Hotel.  It is a relatively new hotel and it is very clean.

At the dinner venue, we spotted this huge wedding car.  The photo of the wedding couple was also very big and was placed right at the entrance of the hotel.  Our guide told us that it was quite common for a wedding couple to host about 100 tables and normally, they would serve almost all the dishes together at the same time.  Thus, when our guide attended a wedding dinner in Singapore, she was not used to our culture.  The guests would also bring extra containers to "tabao" the leftover food.
We reached the hotpot restaurant in the hotel.
These are all the condiments provided for us to make our own dipping sauce.
I put a bit of everything and this was my bowl of sauce.










Each table had an "Ashima" to serve the guests.  She would pour in all the mushrooms plate by plate and to ensure that they were all fully cooked before she served the soup to our bowls.  They used wild mushrooms and thus, it was important that they must be fully cooked before they could be served.




 My first bowl of mushroom soup.
 The second bowl was served with more veggies.
 The third bowl was served with noodles.
 After a hearty mushroom hotpot dinner, we proceeded to the theatre to watch a performance "Dynamic Yunnan".


 I didn't take any photo during the performance as it was not allowed. 
Finale
This rounded up our first day at Kunming.

2 comments:

Eileen. 静 said...

your trip looks fun! is it very rush coz it's a package trip? food looks good :D

Miso said...

Full 8 days.... Can be quite hectic for elderly. Overall, it was a good trip, the local guides were all very good. Accommodation and food was better than my expectation for this trip. You can refer to my multiply site for more photos :)