Any foreigner in Hubei, Hebei, Hunan, all that central and norther region, would relocate in an instance.
The Good ....
Much more food options here than most places, weather is very accomodating, flights easily available to nearby countries, some fine cities nearby (Shangrila, and Lijiang were both in National Geographic's top 100 places to see)
For the size of the city supermarket import isles and specialist import shops are abundant.
There are real, live birds in the city centre (not just seagulls) which you don't see in most Chinese cities, showing it's green enough to support city wildlife.
Close enough to get skysport signal via satellite from Burma and watch football in English.
The Bad ....
Bad points are it takes 5 hours on a train just to get to Dali. From Wuhan in 5 hours you're in Shenzhen. From Shanghai, 5 hours you're in Amoy.
Rush hour traffic and not much of an underground.
They're obsessed by rice noodles.
Some entry ticket prices are extortion.
Supermarkets seem to get things in, sell out, then you never see X,Y or Z again and lots of empty shelves in the shops, sometimes you'd be mistaken for thinking there's an immanent apocalypse.
The amount of idiots on bikes and in beat up cars who hassle you for a ride at ridiculous prices.
And the ugly....
Architecture.
@Napolean, architecture isn't that bad in the center of town, certainly better than most Chinese cities. While it's true that we've lost a lot, we still have some heritage stuff preserved from all periods, plus some ultra-modern iconic sites (Wuhua District Government comes to mind). Most of the new malls/apartment farms/car-centric districts are shocking though, I agree there. I think China-wide there needs to be a reassessment of the cookie-cutter approach to temple 'restoration', however this is not a local issue and many of our temples are unique/historic enough to get some special consideration when such projects are proposed, eg. Yuantong Temple, Golden Temple, Bamboo Temple, Xishan.
The city planning office are the biggest problem, they should be put in prison.
Originally Kunming was built according to feng-shui. They invited a feng-shui Master from North to design a city South. He was measuring energy points and what not. The old city with 6 gates was designed to a turtle - symbol of longevity. There was the City God Temple too on the most active "yang" point. I tried to locate it once, and its behind bird&flower market. I was thinking about waking up the City God by pouring on the ground some baijiu and test if he will in shock - of what he would see around him - create an earthquake.
'Any foreigner in Hubei, Hebei, Hunan, all that central and norther region, would relocate in an instance.'
Obviously they wouldn't or we'd be up to our necks in the buggers!
I 2nd the rest of your post though
Green Lake is worth a look and wander if u have not been there b4
Great sunset tonight
It can take up to 2.5 hours to get across the city, depending on your route (say for example from the south of Dianchi to the west), and changes. It used to take that long before the traffic got worse.
The population has also grown significantly, putting additional strain on the bus services. Not just crowding, but taking longer to load and unload pax.
I disagree that it used to take just as long to cross the city before the traffic got worse.
I like food. The food here is not that good compared to other cities I've lived and the amount of restaurants here are lacking.
@ goldie: you don't think there are enough restaurants in Kunming??? Offhand, I can't think of a single block without at least one.
alien agree withy youl you shoulnt be on the busses anyway. nasty dirty smelly things. get on yer bike and work off some of that mixian. and these small entry level business to feed the shift to consumer bases exonomy are bad. should be banned with the buses and cars and electricity and urbanisation. all bad for the environment. lets go back to the pre industrial revolution era.
