kunmingtom, can you elaborate on your problems with rick zhao? when i arrived in kunming i also stayed with ic holidays in the centre of town for a few weeks. i dealt only with rick and i really didnt have a problem with him. of course he wanted me to pay some extra for giving short notice of moving out, but nothing i would not expect expect from any business person. if you have a specific problem maybe you can state it. if not, why are you trying to ruin this guy's business? he's not a personal friend of mine but this website seems to becoming a place for kunming business people to try to trash their competitors business.

Does anybody know any good places to buy second hand or good value mountain bikes? I'm looking for a decent quality bike but most new ones I have seen cost more than in my home country. If anybody has any tips I'd greatly appreciate them.
Thanks

i am currently studying gu zheng at a music school in xiao xi men. im sure you can probably do guqin there too. my classes are 50yuan per 45/50 mins private class if you pay for 15 weeks together. i like my teacher. as a beginner i decided to go for the cheapest lessons i could find and if i like it i might get a better/ more expensive teacher later. a lot of chinese people told me the more you pay the better the teacher.

you could also try to find a tutor by going to a shop where you can buy the gu qin and just asking. a lot of local people seem to do it that way.

Does anybody know anything about bird watching here? I am living in Kunming and I would love to get into bird watching. Yunnan is supposed to be an excellent place for it. I am a novice so I would really like to meet some people who know what they are talking about or get in touch with a group. Please let me know if you have any ideas/ leads.
Thanks