- If eating at home, Kunming has loads of delicious vegetables, and we are lucky enough to have some organic vegetable, dairy and egg options now.
- There are plenty of fish options in Kunming, ranging from unimpressive bony little fish on sticks to fat imported salmon steaks.
- When eating out, make sure you know how to tell staff in Chinese that you're vegetarian, which should also convey that you don't want any ground meat, ham or soup stock made from meat to be in your food.
- Even if it seems like a menu item should be vegetarian, it is worth mentioning to staff that you don't eat meat. Sometimes seemingly vegetarian items on menus here may be stir-fried with bits of ground pork or ham.
- Kunming does have a few vegetarian restaurants and many restaurants have encountered vegetarian customers at some point, so it's not as foreign a concept as it used to be.
All in all, being a vegetarian in Kunming (or anywhere else in China for that matter) can occasionally be inconvenient, but it shouldn't be a dealbreaker if you're thinking about moving out here.
@mehnyaa: The forum section is not a restaurant review section.
Please feel free to say all the nice things you want about Saramati (www.gokunming.com/[...] or any other restaurants or venues in Kunming on their listings pages.
There's a train that leaves from the main station (Nanyao) at the south end of Beijing Lu at 7:30am.
It costs twelve yuan and takes six hours. I think one may be able to cycle there at the same speed.
Heijing sounds like a cool little town though. Kunming Information Hub just put together a list of the best unknown old towns in Yunnan, they put Heijing in at number 10:
I went there a year ago. It was much more theme park than museum, but the dinosaur fossils were still pretty interesting despite being a small part of the experience.
Overall, I'd say it's a good place to take kids but if you're an adult and a dinosaur/fossil geek, don't expect to have your mind blown.
@Elfin: I do believe it was a little foggy the other day. I flew out on the 19th without any delay. No idea what the weather will be like on the 23rd, but if it is foggy, a delay is likely. Not sure what you mean by "staying overnight situation", it's easy enough to cab/bus between the airport and the city. If flights have been canceled or delayed I'm guessing the tiny 'hotel' in the airport will be full. It's a ripoff anyway, you're better staying at a hotel in the city.
Two friends and their infant were flying in from eastern China last night.
Ten minutes before arriving at Changshui they were rerouted to Guiyang, where they spent the night.
Now my friends say there is fighting at the Guiyang airport and they were hurried onto a plane that shows no signs of moving. I'm flying out of Changshui tomorrow, I half-expect to run into them then.
Nice bit of info from Global Times, the FOX News of China:
'A journalist from the Kunming-based newspaper Yunnan Daily, who declined to be named, confirmed to the Global Times that the airport, which went into operation just six months ago, was short of ground crew and not equipped with enough support facilities.
"There is no large hotel close to the airport so stranded passengers are sent back downtown, 30 kilometers away. When passengers complained about the low temperature inside the airport, they were told that the heating system was not fully operational."'
I didn't see anything resembling a heating system in the airport. Even if there is one, one would think it might be nice to have it operational by January.
Of course, GT has to be "fair and balanced", so it includes this chap saying that people had no right to lose their cool in the face of incompetence and indifference:
'"These passengers' actions were radical, and violated laws," Zhang Qihuai, a researcher from the Institute of Air and Space Law under the China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times.'
Turns out that my flight that I gave up on last night was canceled, and I was refunded my money without having to get a flight cancellation certificate like two days ago, which involved fighting my way to the counter and vying for the attention of the overwhelmed staff.
A friend of mine went to the airport today and her flight left on time at two, so I decided, just for a laugh, to try for the third day in a row to fly out of Kunming. Heinz's comment above suggests that the chaos from less than a day of fog two days ago may still be an issue.
It seems that there is very little in the way of contingency planning at Changshui International Airport for emergencies or even normal occurrences such as cold weather. I truly hope the loss of face for the airport and Yunnan Airport Group spurs someone in charge to make sure that the airport is more prepared for emergencies and other mafan in the future... if something like this happens during Chinese New Year it may take ages to get things back to normal.
Hope that service and preparedness at the airport will improve may be misplaced for the next few years, it appears expansion is the priority for the foreseeable future: centreforaviation.com/[...]
My favorite Tengchong-style restaurant in Kunming. Their ersi and erkuai are trucked over from Tengchong and are the real deal — Kunming ersi and erkuai do not compare.
The restaurant itself is a bit jumbled, but there are a couple of tables outside in the courtyard that are nice to sit at when the weather's pleasant.
Don't believe them when they say they don't have lufu.
Fog shuts down Kunming airport, strands thousands
发布者@Elfin: I do believe it was a little foggy the other day. I flew out on the 19th without any delay. No idea what the weather will be like on the 23rd, but if it is foggy, a delay is likely. Not sure what you mean by "staying overnight situation", it's easy enough to cab/bus between the airport and the city. If flights have been canceled or delayed I'm guessing the tiny 'hotel' in the airport will be full. It's a ripoff anyway, you're better staying at a hotel in the city.
Fog shuts down Kunming airport, strands thousands
发布者Two friends and their infant were flying in from eastern China last night.
Ten minutes before arriving at Changshui they were rerouted to Guiyang, where they spent the night.
Now my friends say there is fighting at the Guiyang airport and they were hurried onto a plane that shows no signs of moving. I'm flying out of Changshui tomorrow, I half-expect to run into them then.
Kunming has a shame, and its name is Changshui.
Fog shuts down Kunming airport, strands thousands
发布者Shanghaiist put together a gallery of Xinhua photos too:
shanghaiist.com/2013/01/06/kunming-airport-chaos.php
Fog shuts down Kunming airport, strands thousands
发布者Nice bit of info from Global Times, the FOX News of China:
'A journalist from the Kunming-based newspaper Yunnan Daily, who declined to be named, confirmed to the Global Times that the airport, which went into operation just six months ago, was short of ground crew and not equipped with enough support facilities.
"There is no large hotel close to the airport so stranded passengers are sent back downtown, 30 kilometers away. When passengers complained about the low temperature inside the airport, they were told that the heating system was not fully operational."'
I didn't see anything resembling a heating system in the airport. Even if there is one, one would think it might be nice to have it operational by January.
Of course, GT has to be "fair and balanced", so it includes this chap saying that people had no right to lose their cool in the face of incompetence and indifference:
'"These passengers' actions were radical, and violated laws," Zhang Qihuai, a researcher from the Institute of Air and Space Law under the China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times.'
Full story here: www.globaltimes.cn/content/753920.shtml
Fog shuts down Kunming airport, strands thousands
发布者Turns out that my flight that I gave up on last night was canceled, and I was refunded my money without having to get a flight cancellation certificate like two days ago, which involved fighting my way to the counter and vying for the attention of the overwhelmed staff.
A friend of mine went to the airport today and her flight left on time at two, so I decided, just for a laugh, to try for the third day in a row to fly out of Kunming. Heinz's comment above suggests that the chaos from less than a day of fog two days ago may still be an issue.
It seems that there is very little in the way of contingency planning at Changshui International Airport for emergencies or even normal occurrences such as cold weather. I truly hope the loss of face for the airport and Yunnan Airport Group spurs someone in charge to make sure that the airport is more prepared for emergencies and other mafan in the future... if something like this happens during Chinese New Year it may take ages to get things back to normal.
Hope that service and preparedness at the airport will improve may be misplaced for the next few years, it appears expansion is the priority for the foreseeable future: centreforaviation.com/[...]