My Golden Week Adventure

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Kunming

Every year, Labor Day in the Unites States reminds us that summer is coming to a close and once that last dog is grilled and the last beach volleyball is spiked, Autumn along with it the monotony of labor rears its ugly head once again. In China, the Mid-Autumn Festival falling on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month reminds us of the same thing. This traditional festival, also known as the Moon Festival, is not too dissimilar to the customs of Thanksgiving in that it emphasizes family unity and the act of giving thanks. Moon cakes (representing unity because of their circular shape) are given out like rapid fire to family members, teachers, coworkers, friends and everyone in between. During this season, I end up eating my fair share of moon cakes, but when I reach that tipping point and can no longer stand the taste, I do what everybody else does and recycle these small gifts – unless its one of the new ice cream moon cakes from Haagen Dazs– I always have room for those. By the time someone actually eats a moon cake I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it had already changed through half a dozen hands.

Since this this one-day holiday gave us a day off on September 15th, I took this opportunity to take a 4 day vacation and fly down to Kunming to chill with a good friend (and his friend) who had been backpacking through China and Southeast Asia. I wasn't expecting to do much sightseeing but rather relax with my buddy and let the spontaneity of this lovely southern city take us for a ride. Kunming lies high in the foothills of Yunnan that eventually lead up to the plateaus of the Tibet. Although the city is not known for its attractions, it is well regarded as a base camp for some of the most spectacular treks through the mountainous regions in Northwest Yunnan (home of Dali, Lijiang, and Shangri-La). Kunming is also regarded as the gateway city to Southeast Asia considering its close proximity to the Vietnam in the South. Lying on the border of a country known for its jungle warfare and unruly inhabitants, however, makes Kunming notorious for being the premier gateway city for China's drug trade. And by judging from the hostel that I was staying at (The Hump), the aroma of Afghani ganja was all too present.

This holiday was unusual for me in the sense that my only priorities were to lounge around the hostel, explore the city, and rock hard all night. Actually, daily we made attempts to leave our beloved Hump Hostel by checking out every morning, but after eating an American breakfast on their patio overlooking the square, we found ourselves checking back in. Hump rubbed us the right way – we met interesting people, we ate comfort food, and we took full advantage of their pool table and free internet. It was also centrally located, in walking distance to most parts of the city, and was perched above a bar that was conveniently names Hump bar.

During our days we would explore the city by foot, walk through the markets, stroll along the Green Lake, and get lost in the back run-down neighborhoods. Kunming is a slow placed city with nothing touristy about it – except for that it is a great destination to just sit back and recline. At night we would explore the nightlife on Wenlin Avenue, visit hotspots like Speakeasy and the clubs in Kundu. Although the local expat crowd seemed a little too burt out for me (I doubt half of them can even locate their passports), they all seemed gregarious enough.

The people we met during our days spent in Kunming really helped characterize the whole experience. A French backpacker named Phillipe who I had actually bumped into at the airport ended up accompanying us during our first night of charades – a mixture of live music bars, beer bars, street food shananigns and hard-edge clubbing. A Scotsman living in Chengdu but in town for weekend was staying at the hostel and had a nack for telling jokes like “what do you get when you cross a kangaroo and a sheep… a wooly jumper”- its much funnier in a Scotish accent. After hanging out with a heavily intoxicated Chinese group at one club, a Chinese girl who fancied my friend followed us back to Hump Hostel, and again the next night. One of the more peculiar encounters of my trip took place at 4 in the morning at the Hump bar while listening to this scruffy guy free-styling to the beat of a Chinese guitarist to his left. After suffering through a few minutes of deja vous, it hit me… I went to school with this guy back in Philadelphia. It was completely random – apparently he is the official Captain Morgan (hence the scruffy beard) for their Kunming launch – a dream job of his he claims.

On the last full day I was in Kunming, we decided to take an afternoon trip to the famous Stone Forest a few hour to the south of Kuming. The three of us, the Scotsman, and the Captain Morgan got on to a bus right next to the train station and made the haul out of the city, past Dianchi Lake, and into the Stone Forest. At first I was a expecting to see fields of petrified wood similar to the national park in central Arizona, but I quickly learned that the forest actually refers to the tall and jagged rock formation covering this beautiful area of land – however, one wrong step and you may find yourself impaled by a sharp rock. The landscape was so dreamlike and the weather was ideal that it took great efforts to head back to town… only to discover that the last bus heading to Kunming had just left. No worries – we ate a menial dinner, drank a few Dali beers (a local brew) and hitched a ride back in a van.

After four days in Kunming, I boarded a plane and returned back to normalcy.