Kunming 昆明, the City of Spring

12:38 AM

It's been a while since I traveled for holiday, This time I traveled to Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan Province in China. This would be the second time I traveled to China after spending a holiday some years back in Beijing.

In Yunnan, there are three main things to experience.

1. Mountain - comprise significant landscape of the province.

2. Water - surround by river valleys, rivers run through most part of the land

3. Rich local culture - there are 50 over minority ethnic group in China, and over 90% is in Yunnan.

View from the plane, so awesome, all I saw was series of mountains

After about 4 hours flight, we finally touched down. The Kunming Airport is not bad at all.

Kunming Changshui International Airport

~Stone Forest 石林~

The first place I have visited is the Stone Forest. To save some energy so that can walk further today, hop onto a battery car is a great option to get the park entrance (3km from the ticket booth to the entrance)

At the battery car stop

The ride was about 2~3 minutes, the car has got no windows, so it's fun and refreshing as the cold breeze blowing over me.

These blooming flowers at the park entrance welcomed the visitors.

We need not walk far to get a picturesque view, just a few steps away from the entrance, already able see this beautiful lake.

Just like the name of the place, Stone Forest, here we can see the most miraculous natural phenomenon karst formation. This is said to have begun taking shape around 270 milion years ago and was once under the ocean. With the movement of the earth crust, the land rose and broke through. The limestone left behind went through the harshest weather and earthquakes, finally developed into the beautiful stone forest.

Stones everywhere... the size is super huge

Started exploring the area...

Need to be cautious here, this area is large and like a maze if took the wrong way.

The local people called this piece of rock the evil rock. No one knows if this rock would ever fall, but the myth says it would fall on people who have done bad evil things.

Awesome view from the top ヾ(＠＾▽＾＠)ﾉ

A group of "Ashima" dancing. Ladies of the Yi ethnic minority group is known as Ashima, which means pretty lady who shines. Men are called Ah Hei Ge (literally means black guy), for Yi ethnic group, men who have black skinned are more hardworking and be relied upon, where as those who have fairer skin are deemed to be lazy.

Never ever call the ladies there as "xiao jie", it is considered very rude. If they were being called "xiao jie" either they will scold you or ignore you.

Don't know what kind of plant is this, is this edible? lol.

This are the handicraft items from the ethnic minority group.

Bottle gourd with face :D

I love the grass... I feel like wanna roll myself in the green green grass

Everywhere is so scenic

So relaxing and peaceful <3 <3

Lake in stone forest

Another shot of the stones before we get to the next stop... Jiu Xiang Scenic Area

~Jiu Xiang 九乡风景区~

In the morning I saw stones; in the afternoon I saw stones again, but in another form - caves. In this area, there are over 100 karst caves of different sizes. Jiu Xiang has the biggest cave clusters in China, it has the greatest number of limestone caves and one of the most wonderful in-caves scenery. Jackie Chan's movie - The Myth, was filmed here too.

The main entrance

Entrance Ticket RMB120

Before we enter the cave, we went for a boat ride to see a short section of the gorge.

Getting ready for the boat ride

cruising through the water

the name of the small valley

Just a short ride, now only the real journey started. It takes about 1-2 hours to complete the whole cave tour. One thing awkward this tour is it let you enjoy first then hardwork later. There is an elevator for us to get down, but when getting out the caves, there are 300 overs steps to climb up. <('o'<)

walking in now

As we were walking in, it was so cooling.

Well constructed walkway above the river.

Inside already, no more sunlight

An interesting fact that I learned. There used to be river flowing in this caves. Later don't know how many thousand million years, the river flow changes its course and left behind many different caverns.

At a large area in the cave ヽ(〃＾▽＾〃)ﾉ

There are many travetine terraces, known also as fairy's paddy fields. So excited to see these. (*・∀・*)人(*・∀・*)

fairy's paddy fields

One of the main attraction of the cave - the twin waterfalls, which cascade to the terraces. One of the scene of the movie "The Myth" was shot here, where Jackie Chan did some stunts here.

More Fairies Paddy Fields...

The water cascade to one of the largest terrace pool

More pleasant surprise while I was climbing up the 300+ steps, this is beyond imagination. For people who don't want to walk up the stairs, they can choose to pay to get guys to carry you up.

It was super tiring but very well worth it!
After getting out from the caves, we have to take the cable car to exit. Getting on and off the cable car was abit thrilling though.

It was a short ride but fun. (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

Shangrila-Dynamic Yunnan

After a long day, we went for a show "Shangrila-Dynamic Yunnan" at the National Centre for the Performing Arts - Opera House.

The performance exhibits essence of the classifcal folk dances of the Yunnan ethnic minority.

Dance of the moonlight #1

Dance of the moonlight #2

Yi Ethnic Group performing

Peacock Dancer

All the performers on stage

Grand View Pavilion 大观楼

This is a park located in the suburb of Kunming. There was Chrysanthemum flower exhibition and we were lucky the flowers were still blooming. (◠△◠✿)

mid autumn chrysanthemum

More flowers....

The Grand View Pavilion building. At both side of the entrance, there were the longest couplets of 180 characters written by a scholar during the Qing Dynasty. Apparently it describes the beautiful natural scenery, the history of Yunnan and the expression of thoughts and frustration of the writer.