Forums > Travel Yunnan > beihai or sanya?

I stayed in Sanya for 3 weeks last year at this time. Because it is low season there, prices are lower. I paid 20kuai for a bed in a dorm at Lost Hostel, about 300 meters from a very uncrowded beach. There are cheap places to eat down the street as well.

Beihai on the other hand, no place that was cheap would accept foreigners, food was super expensive, and the water was oily and gross.

I say Sanya....

Forums > Living in Kunming > Is living in China hazardous to your health?

Hey Brad,

Welcome to Kunming!

No doubt, living in China is hazardous to your health, more so than many countries at the same level of development, with crazy traffic, constant noise, pollution of every kind, food impurities, etc. However, in comparison with virtually every other place in China (Hainan being the exception), the pollution in KM is very minor. All of the other factors (noise, traffic, food contamination) are bad everywhere, and in many places much worse.

But, your question was how to cope with all of it. I suggest you take as many weekend trips as possible to other cities, Chongqing for instance, or even Chengdu (has anyone honestly EVER seen the sun there?). When you return at the end of a frantic weekend, Kunming will seem like the oasis that it is.

And, no matter what, by the end of your stay here, your nervous system will have adjusted. You will no longer see the things that appall you now, you will sleep through horns, firecrackers, dogs, domestic violence and drunken revelry on a rock-hard bed without the aid of earplugs. You will no longer get laduzi. You will cross any street or highway against the light without the slightest fear or hesitation. Not sure if that's a good thing or not...

Be patient, you will adjust.

kml

Forums > Living in Kunming > progressive glasses

Fellow glasses wearers,
I've heard that it's not hard to get an accurate prescription here, but that getting good progressive lenses is not really possible. Has anyone gotten good progressive lenses here and if so where? If not here, have you gotten them in Thailand?

thanks,
kemelin

Forums > Living in Kunming > Secondhand clothes market

Yes, it was torn down. It has relocated to:

普吉路77号 (交通学校旁)
in this market
多尔惠淘宝城

I got this from one of the merchants who was moving her shop and she gave me her business card.

I haven't been up there yet, and I'm not sure which bus to take.

Forums > Living in Kunming > US passport holders needing extra pages...

...should hurry to the Chengdu consulate to get pages added. I just read that this formerly free service will cost $82 as of July 13th. The price for passport renewals is also getting jacked way up.

Gotta balance the budget somehow I guess...