Chinky

08/06/06

"China Part 2"

Click here to start from the beginning.

Day 2

Everyone got up earlier than they had to.  The wake up call we received was at 4:30 am.  My grandmother woke up at 3 a.m. my mom and my dad at 3:30 a.m.  They all got sleep on the plane.  I didn’t wake up until 4:35 when my mom woke me up and told me to get my stuff ready.  I had apparently slept through the wake up call too.  Man, I probably shouldn’t rely on those things in the future.

The next morning I had discovered that I had made a new friend.  The little boy of the family that we basically had all our meals with had taken a liking to me and decided to play with me all morning and most of the rest of the day.  That’s fine; I don’t mind playing with little kids.  This one was particularly durable and would head butt me when I got hold of both of his hands; a boy after my own heart.  His parents however are not like mine in that they don’t quite keep him in line.  I would have been beaten bloody if I did most of the stuff he did.  Oh well, he’s their kid they can raise him however they want.  They’re nice people too so I’ll take him off their hands for a while so they can enjoy their vacation.

We arrive in Kunming and yes it sounds like "coming" even in Chinese.  This city here is far nicer than Guang Zho.  I don’t feel like I’m walking in the slums wherever I go.  The roads here are the only negative thing here.  They are building a new network of highways and expressways and therefore have entirely ceased maintaining the old roads.  The result is basically a bunch of dirt roads with an occasional bump which is the only evidence that this road was actually once paved.

The first spot we go to is a mountain of sorts.  I don’t know why we’re going up and down a mountain but here we are.  The interesting thing about this particular mountain is that all that paths are carved from the mountain.  Every step, every path and cavern is carved from the mountain.  It’s really pretty in some parts, but in others, it’s quite literally a pain in my neck.  You see in some of the more cavernous areas it’s basically a tunnel that’s been dug from the mountain.  Well the diggers were little Chinese guys who probably never imagined someone as big as me would come and visit so nearly every step of the way I have to walk hunched over, leaning to the side or crook my neck a certain way.  By the time I got back down from the mountain I was walking funny and had a terribly sore neck.

Next up was a trip to a mushroom restaurant with a delicious soup/meal made from mostly mushrooms.  Right after we ate, we headed back to our rooms so we can have about two and a half hours of digestion time before we go to an all you can eat buffet for dinner.  After dinner my mom and grandma went to see a show of some chick with supposedly really pretty fingers.  I don’t pretend to understand.  My dad calls up an old childhood friend and we hang out with her and her husband.  You know, I didn’t know my dad had female friends.

Boy am I glad I went out with them!  I was really starting to worry for a while there.  There just simply wasn’t that many attractive people in China so far.  Sure there were a couple of pretty attractive people here and there but the highest they got was an eight and on my scale the average starts at 7 (I account for the horrifically ugly on my scale).  But when I went out with my dad’s old friends I saw a whole different world.  I saw the night life in Kunming and it really gave me hope for the rest of the trip.  I guess the pretty people only come out at night here.

When we got back I decided to go to the Chinese massage parlor that was located in the hotel.  That whole experience deserves its own little section.