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Forums > Living in Kunming > Do Kunming Drivers Know they are Inconsiderate and Dangerous

Ref PLA vehicles.

I don't think the traffic laws apply to them. I don't think the police have the power to stop them.

The don't hit anybody else is the unwritten law. However, when the traffic cop arrives he will look to see if anyone has crossed a white line illegally, or not given proper right of way. Proving someone busted a red light is harder.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Natural Gas versus Electric Hot Water Heaters

My experience

Electric
The electric water heaters are fine, if ugly. You need to make sure you get one big enough for each bathroom. Get separate tank for kitchen too.
If people are a bit thoughtful about water use there is no problem.I.E. Water on, wet body. Water off, soap body. Water on, rinse body. No luxuriating.
The good ones keep the water hot for several days, and they have a speed heat setting (double heaters).

I can see a problem with a pressure booster before the tank, it creates negative pressure behind it that may cause problems for other residences, and may even cause an airlock. They may not be permitted by the water company. I had the same issue in the UK for mains fed water, not permitted.

Solar,
Good solar heat exchangers can reach temperatures of 120 degrees, before heat is exchanged. You get what you pay for.
We have solar heating and it is crap. The biggest issue is that water feeds down into a hot water tank. The tank has a heating element to boost the temperature. However, the thermal lagging seems to have little effect, possible becuase the water is circulating in poorly insulated pipes. The water can drop from 50* to 20* in less than three hours. To make matters worse, the heater cannot be timed, and so the water is on 24/7. We tried to heat the water before bed, but in the morning the water is down to 20*.

I think to get a high quality complete system is going to cost you bigger money. And you need to ensure than having bought the best pipe, the installer does not swap it out for cheap stuff when you are not looking.

Gas
We had gas installed in Shanghai and it was expensive to run. Part of the problem is that even the factory engineers could not get the thermostat to work on the timer setting. And so the water was on 24/7, and the central heating we switched on on demand.
I have not experience with Kunming gas.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Walmart no more

I usally do buy from the wet market.
Most of us do need Metro/Wallmart/Carrefour occasionally.

Yes I miss pie and chips too. I get bisto Gravy Granules sent from home as well.

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Comments

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As for going after the lower level guys.
The fat cats were milking other fat cats.
It is all the little lower level guys that make life difficult for the guy on the street, and expensive for those on low incomes.
It would be nice to think of an egalitarian round up (tigers as well as flies), but most people are plagues by flies, and are unaffected by tigers.

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There are a lot of restaurants in our area. It used to be that there was congestion caused by cars parked at the side of the road. This was most nights of the week. Some places had exotic dishes and high prices.
Now the roads are clear except for festivals, and prices even a middle income family can afford.
You can draw your own conclussions.

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Talking of construction. One solution is to build a new town from the ground up the adequate infrastructure. This was done in Dali and oops, Chenggong. Shanghai has also built a number of satellite cities/towns.

The accumulated debris is a problem and not all of it is trash, a lot of it is leaves, twigs, and dust/dirt. Often this can not be effectively dealt with until it accumulate. You can have teams going around clearing culverts and grids, but not every bit of debri that could potentially reach the culvert.
This is a universal problem.

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There is the same problem in Shanghai and Beijing, the drains are not up to coping with the heavy rains, even though they come yearly.

Urban planning is often about sprawl, without the effort to upgrade the old infrastructure. The norm is to jus connect the new drains to the old. The new drains may even have sufficient capacity, but there is a bottle neck as water reaches the old drains. Until there is the political will to dig up and replace the drains in the older parts of the city (costly and very disruptive to local residents, traffic, and business) we will continue to see occastional flooding. It used to the be same in many towns in the west.

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.