in the real rural part of china, most daily transactions are of small amount, so people (especially the small street traders) do not like coins because coins are heavier to carry around. :-)))))))) yes, i had seen people pay for a motorbike in dollar notes in guangxi.

Interesting! Salvador is still popular eh? Thought once somebody planted a bomb outside of it.

I lived there for 8 years and now really miss it. Great thing is my parents live there so I visit every year. It is considerably cheap but getting more and more pricey. I wonder whether salary would be any good in Kunming??

Xiaochi should be very good there. They may not be the same as street food but all those little popular local places serve good and cheap real yunnan cuisine!!

[q]Imagine a one cent note back home!!!!!!!!![/q]

Not sure if quote tags work here, but whatever.

I'd much rather have a ten cent bill than a one cent coin. That ten cent bill will stay in my wallet until I have enough and can use them. Over time I'll collect enough and be able to spend them. Any ten cent coins will stay in my pocket for a day or so, until they inevitably fall out, and I won't be able to accumulate them to spend. Same goes for 10, 25, 1 and 2 dollar coins. It all adds up!

I know it's not a lot of money, but like someone said, in rural China most transactions are small, and bills are easier to reserve than coins, I think.

Kunming definitely has street food.

You just weren't in the right places.

Kunming also has tons of demolition going on. And Kunming has plenty of skyscrapers. Not quite sure how you missed that. They're also building a subway system so streets are all ripped up. There's not a whole lot of "Old Kunming" left these days.

Not sure which "foreign" bars you're talking about. All the true foreign bars (that is, owned by foreigners) have English-speaking staff.

Not only are paper 1 yuan notes ubiquitous, but so are 5 jiao and 1 jiao notes! You apparently didn't receive any of those, but they're common.
I don't see what's so great about coins. They're heavier and jangle in your pocket.
I go through 1 jiao notes pretty quickly. Public bathrooms, bike parking, paying exact change at the supermarket...all quite handy.

Some places in Kunming have beer cheaper than 10 yuan. Local Chinese places you can still get a 660 ml bottle for 5 yuan.

Sounds good. I'll be there soon. Just hoping to make some friends, learn Chinese and teach English :-)

Great post, Craig.
But I for one love the notes. Coins are heavy, make noise and make your pocket look ugly.

I hate coins. I throw them all away (except 1 rmb). Same with notes. I don't like the small size ones. Toss em too.

Nice comments about Kunming. After recently moving to Xiamen, hard to go back to Kunming.

I hate those small jiao notes too...1 Yuan notes are fine, but I'd rather see more 1 Yuan coins. In Shanghai, all I ever got were jiao coins and most of the time even 1 Yuan coins, especially as change from taxis (which made me very happy). The problem with jiao notes is that they tend to be ripped and basically only useful as toilet paper. I usually just throw them somewhere as I can't be bothered keeping them in my wallet...they take up too much space.

I even know someone who actually used jiao notes as toilet paper in a public toilet...just in case you're not sure what to use them for...