Chinese New Year in Shangrila

Chinese New Year is officially Feb 10 but lasts for several weeks.  You see and hear fireworks everywhere for days on end.  Sometimes right outside the bedroom window.  Quite a show.

We were fortunate to travel with friends to the NW corner of the Yunnan Province (our Province) which is a county that is designated a Tibetan Autonomous District.  The architecture, customs, culture and language are different there.  On the way we stopped in Lijiang, that has a nice touristy "old town" area, for lunch at The Prague Cafe.

The main city for our time was Shangrila which sits at 10,700 ft elevation and is a huge plateau surrounded by mountains.  At this altitude one does not get nearly the same amount of oxygen per breath as your used to.  And don't push yourself!  We stayed is this area for 5 days.  Don't forget there is no central heating.  You only get hot water if the sun was shining that day.  Lots of yak, pigs, goats and chickens.

On the way to Shangrila we stopped in Lijiang.  The city has a very nice "old town " tourist district

More of Lijiang Old Town with a river running through it

Restaurants and shops running all through old town along the river

We had lunch at the Prague Cafe...they had a western menu

Famous water wheels along the river in Lijiang old town

Scenery on the way to Shangrila

Shangrila....Old Town

Shangrila...This is the largest Buddhist prayer wheel in the world.  People pay a lot of money to go inside and make that lower cylinder rotate.

Linda and friends overlooking the valley and mountains from the village outside of Shangrila

On the way back from the village we saw this waterfall. 

Back in Shangrila...local Tibetan's preparing for a dance on stage to bring in the  New Year.

Tibetan dancer

More Tibetan dancers

On stage

The Big Stage

Linda with a stuffed Yak

And to finish off the day...a nice pot of Yak Butter Tea. 

It has been a while since we updated our blog.   

We treated the students to Thanksgiving Day turkey dinner at the Wicker Basket and taught the Thanksgiving stories from Eric Metaxas' book about Squanto.  Our house helper made some fun Christmas cookies and we all worked to set up a little Christmas tree.  It stayed up until after New Years Day.

Our students helped decorate the tree.  Lots of fun!

Xiao Zhang is an awesome house helper!  Great Christmas cookies.

During our December "visa run", we were able to arrange for our students to experience Christmas with a western family.  This was a real treat for them.  With the help our good friends in Austin, we were able to give them University of Texas caps for Christmas.  They loved them!  

We had the opportunity to unwind over Christmas at a nice little property on the Gulf of Thailand.  

Thai fishing boat on the Gulf of Thailand at Dolphin Bay

What serenity to run on the beach at sunrise!

Christmas Eve at Dolphin Bay

Our nephew David Weber and his wife Allison who live in Bangkok serving with Nightlight International.  They are developing a coffee house to reach out to others as part of their work.

Fried spiders, scorpions, grubs and other delicacies in Bangkok.  Yum!!!

Traditional Thai dancers at a local Thai restaurant.

And Now Back to Kunming!

We decided to include a few pics from our area of the city.

Daguan Park is about a 30 minute walk from our apartment

Linda in Daguan Park

This is the view from our apartment balcony.  This is called a Xiao Qu (shee-ow chu).  1000's of apartments with dozens of little shops on the street level offering every product and service you may need

This woman cuts our hair.

This is the entrance to our Xiao Qu (neighborhood).  Bikes and electric motorcycles use the lane between the cones and the sidewalk

Take your life into your own hands when you cross the road.  This is Linda finding her way.  Do you remember the video game "Frogger"?  It's just like that.  This particular time it was easy.  Most of the time the vehicles are moving and you need to time your "weave" to get across.  We have learned to follow the grandmas with kids.  They really know how to do it well.

This is a Christian owned craft shop.  Notice the name Bezale.  It is taken from Exodus 31 and is the name of  one of the guys to whom the Lord gave the gift of craftsmanship.

Rasa Aroma is a coffee shop operated by friends of ours from Malaysia, Chris and Jooping Teo.

Lots of hand made gifts from various minority groups.  They employ people with physical handicaps

We saw this guy at Nanping Walking street.  Quite a colorful character.  His music was actually very entertaining (as was his get-up)

At Green Lake Park, many vendors hope to sell you something.  This man has a cotton candy spinner that is operated through the rotation of the back wheel of his bicycle.

Linda at Green Lake Park where 35,000 sea gulls have just migrated from Mongolia for the winter.

Other vendor.  A gifted balloon artist.

Green Lake Park installed a high tech laser light water fountain whereby video is shown on the high pressure water spray that forms a "screen" for the laser light.  A fantastic show.

Chinese pagoda in laser light against the water screen

The Chinese Spring Festival (Chinese New year) is coming up Feb 10.  It will be the largest mass movement of humanity on the planet as 100's of millions go to their hometown's to celebrate.  And food is definitely part of it.  Check out the foods offered for Spring Festival in the following photos:

Muslim Chinese make very good food using clean processes.  Their beef is very good.  We will get some of this for Spring Festival Dinner on Feb 10

This produce is offered by the Bai People in western Yunnan Province.   In 2000 they numbered about 2,000,000 people.

Pork rinds anyone??  I have never seen so much pork rind in bulk.

I have never seen so much homemade sausage!

This little piggy went to market......This little piggy.....went to market as well, I guess.

Linda couldn't resist a picture with this Chinese woman and her baby on her back.  This is very common.  

These guys made the best tasting "lamb on a stick BBQ" ever with great spices!  For about $0.14 per stick.

Linda and I hope you have enjoyed getting to know Kunming a bit.  We will update again in about 3 weeks after Spring Festival.