Day 1: Planes, inedible food, and Room 1501
Excerpts from my notebook:
13:45, China Souther Airlines Flight CZ 8050 - Have left behind a cloudy, grey Hong Kong. Am quite high, Theer are fluffy cottonwool clouds floating in a muddy grey fog, and it's frightfully sunny up here...I wonder when dinner will be served??
13:48 - There's a small kid behind me. He keeps poking my butt with his foot. Help.
13:50 - Turbulence! Cool.
14:28 - Breakfast (brunch?) has just been cleared away, consisting of an inedible croissant, an inedible hamburger(?) and orange juice, followed shortly by a quiche (eggtart with salmon in it?) and fishfingers (breadsticks?). No butter, jam or margarine to go with croissant. I ate it anyway. I must say, this sure feels like a fat camp.
17:15 - Have descended into sunny 27ºC Kunming. Am happily installed in Room 1501 of the Holiday Inn. Somewhat dazed. But the hotel room ain't bad - and I have it all to myself, which is a good thing at any time. Am feeling rather hungry, but am remembering that this is Fat Camp. Going down for dinner in a few minutes.
22:25 - Back in hotel room. Have just taken bath. I have eaten a dinner consisting almost entirely of mushrooms, and then watched a dance performance about the Yunnan people, which was quite good. Am coping quite well with the altitude so far, haven't noticed a thing - except for my stomach, which I suspect is having trouble with all that fungus. So far I have only taken 25 photos. I'm off to Mom's room now...I reckon these complimentary slippers are quite useful.
Kunming is a two-hour flight from Hong Kong. We arrived at the airport early, at around 10 am, and got on the plane with no problems. Lunch was served on board, and it was terrible. The little kid behind me turned out to be on the same tour as me. He's...er, a handful. Very hyperactive.
The plane trip was alright, apart from the lunch served. I had a window seat so everything was fine. Kunming was hot, extremely hot. At least it was dry. I hate humid hot, but dry hot is tolerable. The Holiday Inn is in town centre, opposite the oldest hotel in the city - Kunming Hotel, which was built early last century. By a stroke of good luck, I was assigned Room 1501 on the 15th floor - the 'Executive Club' floor. It was comfortable and I didn't have to move for the entire stay, so I would say this was one of the best rooms I've stayed in. The best, of course, was the Conrad in Auckland, New Zealand, when the tour guide swapped me a queen-size bed, personal writing desk, large (bigger than my bedroom at home) bathroom with shower and tub, and all the five-star stuff just because it had a door connecting to the room next to it which happened to be my parents'. Mmmm. The view from the hotel room is good. At night, Kunming Hotel is lit up and it's quite pretty from our rooms.
Mushrooms, along with salted ham, are apparently the area's special local food product. I ate so many of them. They taste like...well, mushrooms. But there are many different kinds (even when they all taste the same). There was a hot pot thing in the centre of the table, and the waiters dumped the mushrooms in, boiled them, and shared them into bowls.
The Yunnan dance performance thing was by a group of dance students from the local university. They introduced some of the many different minority people in Yunnan. Dad took a video of them. We returned to the hotel at around 10:30, feeling rather strange as we had just spent the whole day doing nothing in particular.