Here Be Dragons

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We woke early, well, we tried to wake early but we all struggled to get out of bed. I found it difficult as Ed had been fiddling with his bedside alarm last night and sure enough, it went off at 2.19am... Cas chose a western friendly hotel to help with the language and Hotel Grand Park did the job.
We spent most of the morning in Green Park which is a large open space in the heart of Kunming. The Pool of Nine Dragons was where much of Kunming's population used to come to collect their drinking water. It was drizzling as we strolled around and people looked at us curiously as we were a) dressed in shorts and flip flops to their raincoats and b) we had two children and it was forbidden to have more than one child here as recently as October 2015. Kunming is 6,200 ft above sea level, so the weather was pleasantly cooler than Laos.
We saw a goodly selection of symbols that we would associate with China: Lotus pools, traditionally tiled buildings with the upwards sweeping corners, green tea houses, calligraphy, camellias, carved stone dragons, pagodas and lots of older people taking tai chi in open paved areas. It had a tranquil and harmonious feel and the ancient Chinese certainly seem wise in the concept of balance, leading them to develop lots of systems and practices to maintain or restore the body's balance.
We stumbled upon an old Military Academy which had an exhibition and was interesting for its unexpectedness.
There was also a small market area and some small purchases were made including a red patterned Chinese top and skirt for Hat and a black Katana sword (wooden) for Ed.
Back at the hotel Hat thought the wifi was broken as YouTube wasn't working. We explained to the kids that China is a communist country and the state controls the media to shape the general publics views and perceptions. Part of achieving this means banning websites like Youtube, Google, Facebook etc as the public would get a very different version of the news. It gave us pause to reflect just how much we take for granted our basic rights such as freedom of speech and freedom on the press.
We left the hotel at 12.00 and headed back to the airport for our 2 hour flight to Kathmandu, Nepal. Bob and Tom arrive tomorrow afternoon and we're all very excited.

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