Kunming's Second Ring Road open to traffic
After one year of demolition and reconstruction, Kunming's second ring road (二环) is now open to test traffic and will officially open to the public on Wednesday.

Local media is gushing about the completion of the ring road, which will serve as the linchpin in the city's "four rings, 17 spokes" traffic plan, in which expansion of the city's traffic system from two ring roads centered around Green Lake Park to four ring roads – the fourth encircling Dianchi Lake – will shift the center of the city's traffic structure southward, coinciding with the development of "New Kunming" in Chenggong.

According to government traffic officials, once on the second ring road, it will be possible for cars to reach destinations including Chenggong, Anning, Jinning, Kunyang, Haikou, and Songming. Travel time from to Yiliang, Luquan, Shilin and Xundian will be reduced to one hour.

Dali – Lijiang rail line open to public tomorrow
Beginning tomorrow, the new Dali-Lijiang rail line (大丽铁路) will officially open to the public, linking the two popular tourist destinations by rail for the first time.

The Dali-Lijiang passenger line will operate daily, with hard seats on the L9016/7 (Dali to Lijiang) and the L9018/5 (Lijiang to Dali) costing 34 yuan. Total time for the journey is approximately three hours and 45 minutes.

The L9016/7 Leaves Dali at 9:26 am, stops for two minutes at Shangguan at 10:51 and arrives at Lijiang at 1:12 pm. The L9018/5 leaves Lijiang East Station at 1:45 pm, stops in Shangguan for two minutes at 3:59 pm and arrives in Dali at 5:26 pm.

Southwest China's first IMAX theater to open in Kunming
At the end of this month Kunming will become the first city in Southwest China with an IMAX Theater, according to government-run BBS clzg.cn.

The theater, which features a 12 meters high by 21 meters wide screen, is located in the new Shuncheng Shopping Center on Dongfeng Xi Lu. The shopping center, which will also be home to retail outlets including Zara and Papa John's, is built on the old Shuncheng Muslim quarter, which prior to its demolition in 2004 was a dilapidated but vibrant neighborhood filled with Hui and Uighur restaurants.

Image: news.kunming.cn

The end of the year is a special time in which editors and writers around the world recycle content from the previous twelve months and repackage it as new content. We at GoKunming are not above this practice, so here's our look at the people and events that shaped 2008 in Kunming and Yunnan.

January
The year began with the Yunnan government shelving its plans to dam Tiger Leaping Gorge, while not necessarily sparing the Jinsha River – the headwaters of the Yangtze – from several new hydropower projects. Kunming banned the use of car horns and the city seemed to be getting a little less horn-heavy for about two weeks. A few days later the city – which is adding an average of 560 automobiles per day to its streets – issued its 900,000th license plate.

Pretty much all of southern China except for Kunming was at the mercy of a winter storm that paralyzed domestic travel and left thousands of travelers stranded in Kunming. Shangri-la (Zhongdian) was hit by heavy snowfalls that destroyed much of the area's livestock and crops plus telecommunications and power networks.

February
Yunnan was hit by a rash of sulfuric acid spills in late January and mid-February with more than 70 tons of the toxic chemical spilling near rivers and most likely entering local water supplies.

Kunming Municipal Party Secretary Qiu He was making waves a few months into his new post, ordering local newspapers to publish the names, titles, responsibilities and phone numbers of local officials in early February and firing a Chenggong investment official who fell asleep during a meeting.

Hong Kong director Stanley Tong signed an agreement with Dianchi National Tourist Resort to build a 3 billion yuan (US$418 million) television and film base that would become 'China's Hollywood'.

Yunnan's first international highway opened, connecting it with Vietnam's Lao Cai province.

March
Construction of the 'turtleback' flyover at Xiao Ximen commenced, throwing Kunming traffic into chaos. Work on the flyover – which is mockingly referred to as 'the newly added slope' (新加坡), or 'Singapore' in Chinese - was finished four months later.

Tens of thousands of bottles of counterfeit beer were found in Kunming's Majie area. The beers are expected to be the tip of the iceberg in terms of the amount of fake booze being sold around the city.

China played Australia's Socceroos in a World Cup qualifying match in Kunming that ended in a 0:0 draw. The match looked like a sure victory for China when it was awarded a late penalty kick, only for kicker Shao Jiayi to kick a slow roller into Oz goalie Mark Schwarzer's waiting hands. Team China went on to fail to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

April
The old standby F visa option disappeared for foreigners living in China as visa restrictions tightened in the runup to the Beijing Olympics, while protestors vented nationalist anger at Kunming's Carrefour outlets.

May
The International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences World Congress, originally scheduled to be held in Kunming in July, was canceled - apparently due to Olympic-related security concerns.

On May 12, an earthquake measuring 8.0 in magnitude centered in Wenchuan devastated much of Sichuan province and killed at least 69,000 people. Yunnan did what it could to help its neighbor to the north by treating victims from the disaster zone, taking children into its schools and raising money for the relief effort.

The Yunnan white-handed gibbon was declared extinct.

June
Free plastic bags at retail outlets were banned in China.

The Olympic torch passed through Kunming. The torch was originally scheduled to pass through areas including Beijing Lu, Wenlin Jie and Yuantong Jie, but its route was altered at the last minute, keeping it out of the view of most Kunming residents. The torch continued through Yunnan to the cities of Lijiang and Shangri-la before heading to earthquake-battered Sichuan.

The third hydropower station on the Lancang River – as the upper reaches of the Mekong River in Yunnan are known – went online.

July
Yunnan announced a total ban on the production, sale and use of plastic bags across the province, beginning on January 1, 2009.

Jackie Chan announced that he would open a 'Jackie Chan Peace Garden' outside Kunming in the city of Anning. Meanwhile, Kunming was in the middle of planting 800,000 trees throughout the city.

Two people were killed and 14 injured in double bus bombings that took place on public buses on Renmin Xi Lu. A militant Islamic group took credit for the bombings, a claim which was refuted by local police. The bombings were not declared solved until the suspected bomber blew himself up while trying to plant a bomb in Salvador's Coffee House almost half a year later.

August
After an unprecedented buildup, China hosted the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and several other cities, winning 51 gold medals, more than second-place US (36) and third-place Russian Federation (23).

Kunming unveiled its 12-year development plan, detailing how the city intends to handle a major influx in residents and an increasingly important role in regional trade and transport.

September
It was announced that Yangzonghai Lake, one of the largest lakes in Yunnan, was suffering from heavy arsenic pollution, with the bulk of the blame placed upon Yunnan Chengjiang Jinye Industrial and Trade Company, which allegedly found it easier to pay the relatively low fines for not treating wastewater than to purchase and install the equipment necessary for cleaning wastewater. Shortly afterward, Yunnan established a special court for handling crimes against the environment.

October
A government study of HIV/AIDS infections in Yunnan revealed that that women and gay men had emerged as the fastest-growing demographics for new infections, replacing intravenous drug users. It was also noted that new infections were moving away from ethnic minorities in rural areas to Han Chinese in urban centers throughout the province.

A group of fossilized crustaceans from 525 million years ago found near Chengjiang were said to display the first example of collective behavior among animals.

Citing difficulties with the local business environment, Hong Kong-listed property giant Shui On Land pulled out of its Yunnan development projects.

November
Starbucks announced that it would market Yunnan coffee via its hundreds of mainland outlets.

Kunming Airlines announced that it would launch operations in January 2009, the first step in its quest to become a dominant regional airline.

A delegation of Yunnan officials and businesspeople visiting India asked the Indian government to establish a consulate in Kunming to facilitate the visa application process for Yunnan residents wishing to take advantage of the direct flights between Kunming and the eastern Indian city of Kolkata.

The famed Shaolin Temple announced that it would take over management of four Kunming temples for 20 years, during which time it would receive all of the temples' revenue. Shaolin Temple's abbot was accused of being a 'CEO monk'.

December
A man stabbed three women and took a nurse hostage at the Carrefour on Longquan Lu, before being lured to a door where some rice noodles had been placed for him and getting shot in the head by a police sniper, ending the five-hour standoff.

Ground was broken on the 'South Asian Gate', a 72-story, 316-meter tall building that will be completed in four to five years and will be the tallest man-made structure in Yunnan province. It is expected to serve as a hub for business between China, Southeast Asia and South Asia.

A bomb exploded in popular foreign-owned cafe and restaurant Salvador's Coffee House, killing the man who was wearing a backpack with an ammonium nitrate bomb in it near the rear bathroom. Nobody else was hurt. Police concluded that the man, 30-year-old Li Yan of Xuanwei, had also been behind the unsolved bombing of two buses in Kunming in July.

Direct flights opened between Kunming and Taipei.

The GoKunming team thanks everyone who visited the site in 2008 and wishes all of its readers a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009.

Hong Kong film star Jackie Chan (成龙) was in Anning this past weekend, where he signed a framework agreement with the Anning government for a project entitled "Jackie Chan Peace Garden" (成龙和平园), which will be located in Anning's Taiping New Area.

"I've been thinking of this concept for many years," Chan told an audience which included top municipal and provincial officials. "Today it has finally been realized."

According to Kunming media reports, Chan said he has long wanted to create a "peace garden" that promotes peace and environmental awareness on the mainland. Additionally, he envisions the garden as a base for charitable and philanthropic events.

Chan said that the peace garden idea was shelved because potential partners on the project were only thinking about how to use his name for their own personal gain. He started visiting Yunnan scouting for sites for the project at the urging of a good friend, he said. In the end, he decided on Anning's Taiping New Area, 20 kilometers southwest of Kunming, as the site for the first Jackie Chan Peace Garden.

"Not only do we want to build China's first tree-planting and environmental protection garden, there's also the chance that here we will hold benefits and beauty pageants here as well as television and film events," Chan added.

In addition to outdoor garden space, the 300-mu (20-hectare) Jackie Chan Peace Garden will feature a Jackie Chan museum and a stadium for events. According to the official Jackie Chan website, no dates have been set for the start of construction or the opening.

Early last Wednesday morning, GoKunming met up with a few friends on Jiaoling Lu for a trip out to Anning. Red-eyed and sleepy, we all needed a coffee or two, but none of Kunming's cafés had opened yet. Packing into the van we were to take on our trip, there was a slightly giddy feeling reminiscent of skipping school.

There was also a palpable feeling of nervousness, perhaps even dread, of what was to come. Our minds were on something far more intimidating than Kunming morning traffic – we were all preparing to go paragliding for the first time.

Paragliding – known in China as huáxiángsǎn (滑翔伞), or 'gliding parachute' – is a relatively new sport in China. It first began to be promoted in China about ten years ago but has yet to attract the numbers of die-hard pilots found in the US, Europe or even South Korea and Japan.

"Paragliding is one of those sports like Kung Fu or bicycling that can become a way of life for those that enjoy it," said Mike Fougere, the internationally-certified tandem pilot and instructor who would be taking us up into the sky later that day. Poring over indecipherable (for us) wind charts for the area around Anning's Longsan mountain, Mike seemed pleased with what the glyphs were telling him about what the day had in store for us windwise.

"It's been so windy lately it's almost been discouraging," Mike said, recounting a recent day of tandem flights that he had to cancel due to excessive winds, "But today should be just right."

After making it out of Kunming we stopped in Anning's hot springs area for some bananas and water before heading up toward the mountain that we were all going to launch off of. Nervous smiles belied the churning stomachs beneath the veneer of calm that we were trying to maintain.

After a bumpy ride to the flat top of Longsan Shan, we disembarked and ate bananas as Mike planted a wind indicator and spread out a 43-square-meter nylon airfoil, which he refers to as a 'wing'. After some deliberation, we determined who would be the first to take to the skies.

GoKunming techie Matthew was the first to strap into the paragliding harness, which allows for semi-easy running during takeoff and quite comfortable seating once airborne. Mike, originally from Canada, has piloted around 500 tandem flights over the last three years at a Quebec City paragliding school (aerostyle.ca) and has been logging more than 200 hours annually in solo flights in Asia and North America.

Over the last two springs, he has been exploring ideal areas around Kunming for paragliding – in addition to Anning's Longsan, he has also tried out Xishan in Kunming and Liangwan Shan in Chengjiang, about 50 minutes' drive from Kunming.

After a quick briefing on the finer points of taking off and triplechecking all of the key points of the harness, Mike waited for an ideal wind and then instructed Matthew to start moving forward, toward the edge of the mountain's flat top. Wind direction wasn't acceptable for the pilot, so Mike decided to abort the attempt, which would happen a couple more times. On the fourth attempt all was good and Matthew and Mike took to the sky.

Meteorological knowledge is crucial to being a good (and safe) pilot and understanding how the sun heats the ground and creates hot air currents in specific areas is how you find thermals - and go up. After much fruitless searching, the winds smiled upon the wing, sending pilot and passenger about a kilometer straight up in a very short amount of time. For us on the ground, nervousness was giving way to eagerness.

After Mike and Matthew landed atop the mountain which they had launched off of half an hour earlier, the rest of us took turns making the launch. Your correspondent and another friend both ended up missing the big thermals, but the tour of the face of the mountain was far from disappointing - we were flying, after all.

The last two in our group ended up catching some major thermals, quickly shooting up to nearly four kilometers above sea level (see video above). Both times the wing was nearly too small to see without binoculars from the top of Longsan Shan, with the pilot and passenger spending around an hour gliding across the sky.

At one point the instrument that measures altitude and rate of climb was emitting a high-pitched noise that meant the two were ascending at a rate of six meters per second. Both of the lucky high-fliers were slightly dazed but happy to have flown upon returning to terra firma.

Should you decide to try paragliding it is recommended to fly with an experienced pilot who is certified by a country with a developed paragliding community. Hiking boots, sunscreen, a windbreaker and plenty of snacks and water are also recommended.

Mike Fougere is a Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association of Canada (HPAC)-certified paragliding instructor based in Kunming. He has been paragliding for more than 10 years and has been involved in various other airsports and windsports since a young age. He is available – winds permitting – to pilot tandem paragliding flights around Kunming at a rate of 300 yuan per person (plus transport expenses). Mike can be contacted at mike4g_air(at)yahoo.ca or (+86) 15825256431.

Dry conditions and strong winds enabled a fire near Anning - 60 kilometers west of Kunming - to burn 200 hectares of forest area during a 12-hour period yesterday before being extinguished, according to an Eastday.com report.

The blaze, which ignited late Saturday night, was extinguished around 1:00 pm on Sunday. More than 3,000 people were credited with putting out the fire, which affected air quality and visibility in Kunming. No casualties were reported.

Reading the signs around the hot springs district of Anning, a town one hour southwest of Kunming, there is a consistent theme: stone-bottomed hot springs, mud-bottomed hot springs, hot springs hotel, hot springs hospital. There's even a hot springs Party office - an enormous, ivy-covered mansion.

Though these springs have existed for thousands of years, Jinfang Forest Hot Springs, opened in 2002, distinguishes itself by being the only Japanese-style hot springs here. Whereas other locales around town generally charge by the hour and offer private indoor springs, these Japanese-style hot springs are outside, with a stronger emphasis on the atmosphere around the springs, not just the water itself.

In the lobby of Jinfang, we are greeted by a friendly legion of xiaojies and pore over the various hot spring packages: 88 RMB for a day of hot springs, 118 RMB to add foot massages, and 188 RMB (notice the price jump) to add something else called 'flirtatious expressions' weight-loss treatment. This is, ostensibly, an oil massage method, by which the masseuse - presumably with flirtatious expressions - will massage the fat out of your stomach or legs. Hmmm.

Successfully resisting such frills, we plunk down a 300 kuai deposit for two and are given locker keys. The facilities at Jinfang are very nice - and not just by Chinese resort standards: clean locker rooms, crisp towels and robes, a sauna, powerful showers and name-brand toiletries.

The first thing you see walking out onto the grounds are soaring pine trees, straight as telephone poles. Stone foot paths weave around the swimming pool and into the forest downhill toward the springs. Jinfang is on the side of a hill, and the varying terrain adds a feeling of exploration to the place.

Though the hot springs at Jinfang are shared, there are enough of them - around 20 - to find some relaxing privacy away from others. The other visitors tended to find their own pools.

Each hot spring can hold a dozen people comfortably. The temperatures range between 36˚C and 46˚C, so finding a suitable temperature is not difficult. The water is constantly being cleaned by the staff. One spring is dyed fuchsia with rose petals floating on the top, another is filled with milk.

There is no shortage of Chinese kitsch: one spring is flavored like sour apple candy, music is piped in from fake rocks, etc. Some of the more curious workers watch a little too closely as you hang your robe on a bamboo pole. But on the whole, the place feels very far from Kunming, very far removed from other Chinese tourist locales.

Despite being far from Kunming, business is good. "Many people come from Kunming, also Shanghai - mostly rich people," said one woman working at the hot springs. "More and more foreigners are visiting every year. The majority of them are Korean."

Back in the water, we're letting our fingers prune. Head leaning back, eyes closed, hours slip by, a few more people arrive, a few people leave and nothing really happens - which is exactly what we were looking for.

Jinfang Forest Hot Springs
金方森林温泉
Wenquan Zhenlong Xi Lu
温泉镇龙溪路
Phone: 0871-8631588
Hours: 10am-2am daily

Getting there:
Buses and small vans leave regularly for Anning from Kunming at the station on Renmin Xilu at Xiao Ximen. Both are six yuan and will drop you off on Baihua Lanlu on the eastside of small lake in Anning City. From here, there are taxis (20-30 yuan) or small vans (three yuan/person) to the hot springs 15-20 minutes north of Anning proper.