kunming. yunnan. china. december 1st - 2nd

a 20 hour overnight sleeper train gets us from chengdu to kunming, capital of yunnan province in southern china. the weather, a little warmer, but still nice and cool. kunming is the hub of yunnan, you need to be here in order to get almost anywhere else in yunnan. for us it is on to lijiang from here, but first a night and day in kunming before departing. we stay at a very warm and inviting hostel called cloudland and quickly book our sleeper train to lijiang for the next evening. our late afternoon involved a stroll and visit to greenlake park, home to thousands of pigeons that are constantly being fed by humans who are seemingly fascinated by the birds ability to swoop through the air to catch falling pieces of crusty bread. it is also on the way to a vegetarian buddhist restaurant by yuantong temple, where laurel has her dinner. i eat at an "across the bridge" noodles restaurant (a famous dish in yunnan province), which ended up being a little disappointing for me. if you're interested, you'll have to google to read the story behind the name of the noodle dish, as i don't feel like explaining it all here (it is an interesting story!). a nice walk back to the hostel in the late evening. by the lake again, the bread throwing humans are all gone, thus the pigeons have all gone as well. until it all starts up again tomorrow i guess. along the way we find a smile in the sky looking down at us :)