Golden week is definitely a busy time of year. There's some places around Yunnan that used to be good for avoiding the crowd. Shaxi is one of my personal favorites, in Dali.
I'd recommend to book your train tickets a couple of weeks in advance for those days.
It is now indeed! For more information on the new train connection, check out GoKunming's latest article:
Linda, that's a lot of questions. Let me answer a few for you.
You can travel Yunnan by yourself, which is very safe, also for 2 girls, but China does pose its challenges.
You want to connect your credit card to Alipay or WeChat pay. Cash is accepted, but it makes things much easier.
We also recommend to use apps like Trip.com for train and plane tickets and hotels. They're pretty foreigner friendly.
Specific locations of train stations vary. You can look some of them op on the website or in map apps.
Places will be open. Just expect that many people are traveling during the Spring Festival holiday, which will make your trip more expensive and hotels and trains a bit harder to book.
I hope this helps.
Best regards,
Yereth
Yes we do. Feel free to send me a private message.
We just published an article with the official announcement yesterday:
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Yereth
Xizhou is one of Dali's gems, only about 18 kilometers north along the lake from Dali Old Town. The old town still feels authentic and is like a living gallery, showcasing the impressive artistry and culture of the Bai people.
It makes for a great stop on the way up to Shaxi Old Town too, which is perhaps my favourite place in Dali prefecture.
Yereth
I've been to the Stone Forest many times and although when entering the park it may feel a bit like a tourist trap, there's areas in the back that, even during high season, are usually extremely quiet and can be explored without being surrounded by the crowds.
The landscape is unique and different from many nearly areas that also feature karst rock formations. Definitely worth a visit for those who haven't been yet.
Yereth
Five stars for focussing on healthy foods. Homemade live sauerkraut, lots of dishes with quinoa, chia seeds, avocado, and tons of other superfoods mixed to create a tasty and healthy cuisine. I hope this is only the beginning of a new wave of alternative food options in the city.
Yereth
One of the better options in Lijiang for a western meal. Had a set menu through meituan for only 99 yuan that included a very decent steak and onion soup. The environment is spacious and nicely designed with the restaurant being conveniently located in between the InterContinental and LUX hotel inside of the old town. We were not drinking, but they looked like having an impressive wine collection. 5 stars if they improve on speed and service level.
Yereth
Sofitel is easily one of Kunming's top hotels now, featuring one of the best locations, in between the city center and the popular Dianchi Lake area.
The views from any of its rooms, as well as the buffet restaurant are quite stunning, offering previously unseen panoramas over the whole of Kunming.
There's a bar on the 50th floor, although currently it still has some work to do to be able to compare itself with similar 'skybars' in Shanghai or Beijing.
Welcome to the new GoKunming!
Posted byA global search function is coming soon.
@debaser: The search disappearing when changing sections is related to our top-down approach of how information is ordered. Does it feel unintuitive?
We are considering different views for the article section, with an option to see larger images. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by how Kickass Torrents arranges their forums. Could you elaborate?
@redjon77: Avatars will follow later as well.
@Ocean: We feel generally the search function is delivering more relevant results now. We'll keep testing and improving it though. Forums are tougher, because sometime threads may come up in top due to posts within the thread getting 'high scores' on your particular search query.
Kunming: A New Perspective
Posted byAlien: Each section has an improved search function in the top left. A global search function is coming soon!
Welcome to the new GoKunming!
Posted byBlobbles: Thank you for your constructive criticism. The listings will be back new and improved in the form of a homepage box later. We're also working on exactly the kind of search function in the top you are suggesting.
Regarding the search mechanism: We're partly performing searches as you're suggesting – ie combining full text searches with matching literal phrases (especially for titles). This means that if your search phase exists in the title of any entry it will be the top result. Breaking things down as you describe is definitely something to consider, but I tried to keep a reasonable balance between performance and relevance. I'm sure there's more optimisations to be made.
Regarding your sidebar design suggestion, I believe we're on the same page. We're working on a series of improvements and it may make it to the next update. Initially I was inspired by the usatoday.com website regarding sidebar design, but finally we decided to remove all shadows (flat design), which makes the sidebar look a bit 'off' to some.
Welcome to the new GoKunming!
Posted by@Tigertiger: I'll add a link to a thread's latest forum post in the thread lists. Most forums show the oldest post first so that the link/url to that post will always stay the same.
The classified ads in the overview are 'cropped' to make it easier to scan through ads. It ensures that if there's a particularly long classified in the list that doesn't interest you, you don't have to scroll through the entire text to get to the next post. It gives each ad an equal chance of being seen, disregarding the size of the post.
Welcome to the new GoKunming!
Posted byOcean: I hope 'navigating around' is mostly related to getting used to the new look and feel. Time will tell. We'll keep working on improving the site.
About the search function: It currently sorts by relevance, which means entries that fit your search query the best will be in top. We'll add different sort options as well later. The problem with sorting results by date is that they are not necessarily relevant (the search term could for instance be mentioned only once in whatever content you're searching) and only show in top because they are recent.
We're trying to find a open API for pollution levels, but the websites we know of don't offer the information unless you include heavily styled (and not necessarily well integrating) widgets.