I just got back to Ningbo where I've been living for some years. I spend all of my time in Ningbo and surrounding areas, and it was really nice to get to a "foreign" part of China. I was only in Kunming for 2 1/2 days, but it felt like forever. Here are a bunch of my impressions, in no particular order:

The taxi drivers speak good Chinese. I could actually understand them and hold a conversation.

Kunming looks like an old city, no demolition going on, no skyscrapers. Lots of hills which probably makes biking a pain.

Wow, cheap drinks! ¥10 for a large bottle of local beer? In Ningbo, you're lucky if you can find a 330ml Tsingtao for ¥25...

Most foreigners seem to speak Chinese quite well. And I saw very few of them over 30 years old.

A ton of tiny restaurants and cafes, with great Western food, at low prices. It's great to have so many choices.

The Mexican breakfast at Salvador's was the best meal I've had in months. Why can't Ningbo, a supposedly "developed" city, have a single place like this?

Lots of Japanese cartoons in the bars - sort of weird and non sequitur.

I didn't see any street food! Maybe I was in the wrong place, but I didn't see a single Xinjiangren selling yangrou or even one noodle cart.

No outside food brought into bars!?! WTF, this is China...:D

The city was pervaded with a sweet honeysuckle smell of flowers.

The staff at foreign bars don't speak English? Weird...I thought that was why they got hired in the first place.

I was forced to use my Chinese all the time in Kunming. I was able to do everything, I was rather proud of myself - maybe I'm not so bad as I think! Maybe it's a crutch living in a more developed city, where business is paramount, and all business is done in English. There's only one Mandarin school all of Ningbo, for instance.

I can't use an internet bar...WTF? I had my passport, but no, evidently you need a net card. When I asked where I could get this card, nobody knew. Extremely annoying, thank goodness for the unlicensed free terminal in French Cafe.

My mobile phone didn't work in Kunming. It works everywhere else in China, but not here. When I first got off the plane, I was able to make calls, but after that, it stopped working. When I called 10086 to complain, the lady suggested that I call China Mobile in Ningbo to get them to reconnect my service. HELLO LADY, MY PHONE DOESN'T WORK, I CAN'T CALL THEM. After some badgering, she agreed to call on my behalf, and my phone worked after that. Whew.

What is the obsession with paper 1 yuan notes? I rarely see them these days, and if someone tries to give me one, I reject it and demand a coin instead. But in Kunming, they're everywhere. I even had someone try to give me a 5 jiao note! I haven't seen one of those in years. I used to hate the paper jiaos...totally worthless. At least with coins, you can put them in a big jar, and take it to the bank when it's full. Do you still get the blue ¥100 notes there, too?

Anyway, I had a great time. You folks have got a nice city, I hope you appreciate it. Thanks to everyone who helped me while I was there, you know who you are. No thanks to the clannish foreigners outside Salvador's on Sunday afternoon who did their best to totally ignore me.

Hi Craig!

I've been living in Kunming for 3 years and and you've pretty much summed up the upside and downside of Paradise.

Kunming is like a well-worn couch, not nice to look at but very comfortable. Kunming is considered backward compared to most of China, but that's its charm. Here, you can get a dose of authentic (well, almost) traditional Chinese culture. The staff at foreign restaurants don't speak English is because you won't be able to hire English speaking staff for that kind of money, unlike many places in China where College grads are so hard up for jobs they'll take almost anything.

However, it is sad to say that it won't stay like this forever. Kunming is expanding and looking to modernize. Most of the construction is outside first-ring road. The government is looking to make Kunming the trading hub for Southeast asia and as time goes by will become more and more westernized.

Glad you enjoyed Kunming with all of its good and bad. It is a nice relaxing city once you get to know it.

About the internet bar. I used to go to a I-bar where you didnt need the card.

But to surf in a regular one:

1. You need a net card, you buy it at the internet cafe. To get the net card you have to be chinese or vietnamese(wtf?). So why they said they didnt know where to get it was probably because you are not chinese.

2. Even if you manage to get a net card you can get declined in some internet bars only because you are not chinese.

Nowadays I have internet at home, I am tired of a-holes in the net bars. Though if you do go to Kunming again, you can try the net bar close to French Cafe. The same street but like 150 meters to your right after the fruit shop, in the same area as the small muslim noodle kitchen ( if facing the street outside of F Cafe), there's where I used to go when I didnt have a net card.

More about the internet bar. The problem has more to do with the inexperience of the staff in dealing with foreigners than anything else. The trick is to find a helpful person who will allow you to help them run the data-entry on their computer for a minute (read -'let me see the screen'). I had no problem getting a net-card registered to me, once the 'foreign passport' tab was selected.

Not 100% successful, though. Tried helping some foreign friends do the same later, with the same helpful locals, but the computer system didn't like the info that time.

You made me proud of my hometown after reading your post~

Eventhough the xinjiang Ren selling standfood is everywhere, they are not hiding from you, are they?

No street food? Xin Wen Lu, people.
I've found success at the internet bars by being polite and telling the attendants that "I do not live in Kunming! Give me a break!" (in Chinese). Then the attendant usually pulls her/his card out and exacts the usual deposit (20 Y). Being nice and knowing a little Zhong wen helps a lot.

Great post. Never seen the blue 100's. 1 kuai coins suck. You can also save up and exchange one kuai notes. I love having a big phat roll of them in my pocket and peeling them off to pay. Makes me feel like a pimp.

I hate 1 yuan coins - any coins for that matter. Unless you have a coin pouch in your wallet, you're forced to put them in your pocket and they can easily fall out. Or if they don't you're more likely to spend them all, what with all that change jangling in your pocket.

I'm Canadian and we have 1, 5, 10, and 25 cent coins, as well as 1 and even 2 dollar coins! You can easily walk around with about 10 or 15 dollars in coins in your pockets! Chinese currency is one of the best things about China for me!

Sfunny

I hate 1rmb notes, and I especially hate 5 jiao and 1 jiao notes.

Imagine a one cent note back home!!!!!!!!!

I like the post because it's good to have a view from the outside. But no demolition and no skyscrapers? I must be living in a parallel universe.