Kunming
3/7/07

On Monday, our first day here we visited a park with many steps and Doaist temples. The bus ride over was pretty brutal due to my fatigue. Jet lag is a real factor in this kind of trip. I doubt that we will be here long enough to complete adapt…

Apparently Kunming is at a higher elevation than Denver so there is a possibility of the effects of thinner air and whatever else high altitudes do to you.

I took some photos at the temple park. I was kind of interested in one statue of an old man with two attendants. He had flowing white hair. He may have been Confuscious. Still not totaly sure after looking on the Net. [Note: Jeremy later decided that this was Laotzu]

Jeremy and Elizabeth’s apartment is a seven floor walk-up. This means every time we return to the aprtment we must go up seven flights. Tuesday morning was the first time I felt the altitude at the end of the climb. I think this was because I did not pause [to rest] on the way up.

Monday evening after the meal of squirrel fish [so called because the boned chicken looks vaguely like a flying squirrel in flight…] mint beans, soft tofu in sauce, corn and other dishes, we ended up at the apartment.

At this point, I believe we had already booked our Monday evening room. Jeremy was unhappy with our choice. He thought 200 RMB [about 25.00 US dollars] was too much. Eileen and I insisted on taking it because we were all tired. If we had searched further, it would have been hard on all of us…

On Tuesday morning, Eileen called Elizabeth on the cell phone around 8 AM (actually Eileen just told me she was up but still sitting and didn’t answer at first because it was Jeremy’s phone ringing).We had an excellent breakfast from a street vendor. She would crack an egg on the grill, break the yolk, put a tortilla like thing on the grill, spread child sauce on half the tortilla as it heated, quickly heated some fresh green lettuce, put the egg on the tortilla, then the lettuce, and wrapped it. Eileen’s had some chicken [in it. MMMMM. Good.]