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Forums > Living in Kunming > For you Chinese medicine people

Kunming Ju Hau Chun is the wholesale market for medicines. Try there. There are, I estimated, about 200 vendors there. Mostly for raw herb, but not exclusively. Shop around there

If you are an expat, and worried about paying over the odds get some little old lady to buy it for you. But there are so many vendors in this area, and it is a wholesale market, I doubt your order would be that big to them.

I would imagine that granules are always going to cost a lot more, as they are a factory processed product. But they do take the bother, and the smell, out of your life.

I don't know why cooking at home is a problem, but we have bought a thing like an electric kettle. Apart from the smell, it just sits on the kitchen worktop and bubbles away quietly.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Pollution in Kunming

Chatting with a local today.
There is a lot of dust being kicked up by the subway/metro construction that is making things worse downtown.
This can only add to the more car thing. One good thing about Kunming is the prevailing inshore wind from the south, blowing clean air into the city. Unless of course you live below the mountains in the north.

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > Travell kunming-Dali-Shaxi-Lijiang-Shangrila

If there is 7 of you, I would suggest hiring a 9 seat mini-bus and driver. If you can haggle in Chinese, there are loads of husband and wife driver guides and you can negotiate price. However, the guide will be a Chinese speaker.

If you organise through a travel agent they can do it all for you, especially if you need an English speaking guide. Try several agents, but I think the margins are pretty tight as competition is high outside main holiday seasons. I would not do any research now, as you will get the now price (Spring Festival). I would wait until a week or two after the hols. However, almost anything in China can be organised on the spot, as you probably well know.

However, there is a risk that if you buy a package they will drag you around all the markets to earn some commission from market owners. And so don't get sucked into a package deal. And avoid the cheapest deal, as they will have to make up the money somehow.

Seeing as you are travelling so far, it is unlikely that you will find a guide who knows all the sites. As such the most effective would be to find a guide in each location you go to, if you want in-depth interpretation. Or look at wiki-travel, lonely planet, etc before you go, and print stuff off.

We tend not to use tour guides. If they are from the site, they will often whisk you through quickly to get the next customer. Unless it is a very quiet day and she is a nice girl. My wife then acts as interpreter.
A good guide we will tip. This then makes it easier for the next family who not just focussed on price.

If the guide is not from the site, they will not know much more than you can find in half an hour on the Web.

I am not an expert, but that is how we have handled things when we travel. We hire a bus and driver, and look at a book for travel info. Only at some sites do we hire a guide.

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Comments

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You don't understand why the good students need so much attention.
What I am saying is the good students don't get attention. And they are often the ones who could return that attention in manifold ways. Other students will just not do that to anywhere near the same level. Some of these disadvantaged smart kids could really make a difference to their communities and DESERVE every opportunity. Others will just squander the opportunity. You talk about the world class football players who started rough, but even the coaches could see potential. But for every Ronaldo there are a million or more wannabes who could never be. Imagine if Ronaldo was never given the encouragement or coaching, because the coach was spending all of the time on the weakest players.
If we could divide our time and effort equally amongst all the students, that would be at least egalitarian, but if we allow the no child left behind philosophy to rule, then all we are doing is nurturing the weakest at the expense of all, and limiting the potential of those who could be excellent, and thereby denying excellence to some students.
Some students, like Twain, will not let there schooling get in the way of their education. But for others, well meaning thinkers, will.

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I work in a school that delivers a full curriculum, to larger than ideal class sizes (a normal pattern for most schools in the world). Each teacher gets the students, for class time, for just a few hours a week. In the hours that we do have we barely have time to deliver the basic content. There are lots of extension activities we would love to do with the students who get ahead because they are more able. Sometimes classroom management then becomes a higher priority, because dealing with students of mixed levels in a class of 20 or more requires more attention (to the group). However, we don't have time to nurture every individual student. Time is a resource you cannot buy more of. This is a big part of the frustration. There are also meetings to go to, and developing lesson plans for the differentiated group of students in a blended classroom setting. Then there is admin, and meetings. Some of us get to go for lunch, and have a family on the side as well. This is the reality for many school teachers around the world.

If we had small classes, in a tutoring type environment, we would have time to coach and encourage individual students. But there are few such ideal opportunities in larger schools, although it might be possible in smaller establishments.

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Fixit, if you have carved yourself a niche and a personal style, good for you. However, not all teachers who don't do that are bad teachers. Additionally, some people would consider adults in positions of authority, building personal relationships with young people, inappropriate. In your case I am sure it is innocent, but missionaries use if for their own purposes, and other people use it for grooming. Some schools even have a policy against teachers forming personal relationships with students, that goes so far as meeting off campus.

Reviews

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A reasonable choice of lumber that has improved over time. Fancy hardwoods like walnut, and mahogany are in abundance. There are some plywood and rubber-wood boards available. There are also some kiln dried imported softwoods and merbao available. Some of the lumber is very green, so look for the kiln dried if you need stable timbers.

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Echo everything said by others.
Breakfast great and the serve from 8am. Most other places say 9am and they still are not ready.
Sandwiches are cheap 22-32, and really packed full of filling. We got some sandwiches for a day out, the only mistake I made was ordering two, as this was too much. These are seriously good sangars, and they are wrapped in alu foil.

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In fairness to Metro, they are a wholesalers, and not really a supermarket. Hence the need for a card, which can be got around.

They have improved in the year I have been away. They now carry a more consistent range of imported foodstuffs and they also seem to have sorted out the mported milk supply.

They have a wider range of electrical appliances now, there is a coice of more than one toast. There is also a better range of seasonal non foods, like clothes, shoes, garden furniture and camping gear.