User profile: Alien

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > Flying the frugal skies

Thing to do is to return to the idea of TRAVEL, not waste time and money on so much teleportation, avoid 95% of air travel, save natural resources, see something of the world as she is on the ground where real people live, pollute the air less, etc. You'd be surprised, if you've never tried it, just how much you can learn and experience from traveling and staying off airplanes - the world may be inconvenient, but it's really quite interesting. Take the earplugs out of your ears and get off the music haze too.

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Forums > Food & Drink > Over-Charging Foriegners; Slave Labour

Back to the point: if you were overcharged at either the Wicker Basket or the French Cafe it was a mistake by the staff, not an attempt to rip you off. The price of coffee is what it is because those who own foreign-oriented cafes etc. in Kunming can get it. And yes, staff of such places are usually underpaid, though less underpaid than plenty of other restaurant workers here. Underpayment of staff is a product of competition in private enterprise, which often produces what in the short run appears as 'efficiency'.

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Forums > Food & Drink > Pizza Hut,McD,KFC

What Tommann said. And why would anybody help concentrate the world's wealth in the hands of the people who own McDonald's, KFC, etc.?

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Is it just me, or?

Perhaps some of you folks need to clarify differences between discrimination and racism. Take Brazil - there is prejudice in favor of light skin, but there is a great range of terms to describe skin colors, but no single racial dividing line. In North America, however, people imagine 2 different 'races', and then talk about race mixing, mixed bloods etc.

Recommended: The Race Concept, Michael Banton and Jonathan Harwood, pub. 1975.

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Comments

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And in addition to the actual amount raised there are the benefits that can occur inside people's heads (getting people to think, etc.)

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@atwilden: well, flying smarter is something, anyway - flying less is better. Anyway,m what interesting things usually happen to you on an airplane? Virtually nothing, would be my guess. People shortchange themselves.

@tallamerican: Of course I can't stop people from driving/flying all the time, at least not by myself, but I can slow the damage by limiting my engagement in it myself, and perhaps at least make others aware of the problem and hopefully awaken them to their responsibility for what they do - many people will, in fact, take some responsibility for their actions once the consequences are pointed out to them, it's the avoidance of conscious thought, about issues that are not all that hard to make objective judgements about, that constitutes the human lemming instinct that gets us into such trouble, and that is manipulated by those who couldn't care less about us or anybody's future, for what they see as their own short-term advantage.

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I don't think you guys get it - air travel, as practiced since the great increase over the past 15 years or so, is simply environmentally unsustainable, full stop.

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Always a problem with this sort of thing, which I thoroughly support - seems many people have the attitude that they have a right to keep 'their' wealth.

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People never used to have enough time either - the solution has always been to TAKE it. Failure to do so leads to the development of a tourist industry, with all its disgusting accoutrements. But hey, I figure we're all guilty.

Thanks for the tips on Shibaoshan, I plan to go stay up there & go around the whole place one of these days, when I take the time.

Reviews

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Not quite what you'd call a jumping place, but not bad at all for rather standard US-type meals, not overly expensive, and with a really good salad bar that's cheap, or free with most dinner dishes after 5:30PM. You can get a bottle of beer or even wine if you really want to, but I've never seen anybody do it - maybe that's just to take out. Chinese Christian run, and they hire people with physical disadvantages, who are pleasant and helpful. Frequented by foreign (mostly North American) Christians and Chinese Christians - was started by a Canadian couple associated with Bless China (previously, Project Grace), who are no longer here, but no religious pressure or any of that. Steaks are nothing special, and I avoid the Korean dishes, which I've had a few times but which did not impress me.

As a shop and bakery, it's very good bread at reasonable prices, of various kinds (Y18 for a good multigrain loaf that certainly weighs well over a pound. Other stuff too, like granola and oatmeal that is local, as well as imported things, including American cornflakes and so forth, which some people seem to require.

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Large portions, seriously so with the pizza, which is Brooklyn/American style, I guess. Convivial, conversational, good place to drink with good folks on both sides of the bar, especially after about 9PM.

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Really good pizza and steaks. The wine machine fuddles me when I'm a bit fuddled, & seems unnecessary. Good folks on both sides of the bar.