Any university will be able to help you obtain this visa once you have paid for your classes.

Hmm...I don't find China noisy at all. Sure, there are many impatient drivers who constantly blast their horns, but the lack of motorcycles, mopeds and inconsiderate idiots that blast their stereos at 5am is a sure sign China is a lot quieter than neighboring Vietnam and Thailand, where people are seemingly oblivious to all that noise.

Unless you are used to living in North Dakota or something, Kunming and China in general are quiet enough; it's rarely noisy in a housing estate where most people live.

Try Vietnam for a while...it's absolutely horrible. The people get up at 5am (to do what?!), they blast their stereos with good morning Vietnam banter, some horrible music, whizz past on their scooters and mopeds all day long (hardly any Vietnamese own cars), the trucks in Vietnam have the craziest horns in the world and the whole place stays noisy until about 9 or 10pm at night. It doesn't necessarily become quiet at night either, just quieter. China is much more civilized by comparison.

Air pollution? Well, Kunming's air quality seems OK to me; I don't think the air quality in Ho Chi Minh City with it's 11 million mopeds could be any better than that of Kunming. Just some food for thought.

Which is why it's usually worth paying a bit extra to fly with a reliable airline! Airline safety is not an issue to play around with, so some careful consideration about who you are flying with and their standards of service makes a HUGE difference. I personally only fly with Star Alliance carriers and a few others and I never make any exceptions for any reasons. For example, flying THAI between Kunming and Bangkok and Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City is always worth it. I will never fly Air Asia because firstly, their ticket prices are often not any cheaper than THAI and once you add on the extra baggage charges, it may even be more expensive than THAI! Also, I have been able to fly for free many times even business class with THAI a privelege you won't get with Air Asia.

While I think that China Eastern is a perfectly safe airline to fly with and I found their service to be OK (on domestic flights; I have never flown with them internationally), why don't you just fly with say, Cathay Pacific? They offer very cheap flights via Hong Kong from Kunming to Toronto and Vancouver.

This is not the complete test, but it does give you an idea of what to expect: the questions and answers are all from the actual test.However, on the actual test these questions will be drawn from a pool of 1500 possible questions I believe:

www.shekouonline.com/drivingtest.html

Also check out the post below:

www.gokunming.com/[...]

I've also been to Dongchuan numerous times always by car...takes about 2.5-3 hours, god knows how many by bus. Driving yourself (or with a driver if necessary) will allow you to see as much as possible in as short a time as possible. 2 weeks in Yunnan just using land-based public transport is possible, but it won't allow you to see everything - you'll either need more time or your own transport...Yunnan is quite a big province and away from the expressways it takes a long time to get anywhere.