With the virus under control in China, people are now able to get out of Shanghai for a bit of a vacation. We had to limit our options to domestic destinations and were excited to make the trip to southeastern China where we started in Kunming, the City of Eternal Spring. It was as advertised, with gorgeous weather and flowers blooming. We feel fortunate that we got to see a variety of beautiful landscapes.
The girls were happy to show off their improved swimming skills after practicing in PE. They managed to swim 6 times in 4 short days at the hotel and we were happy to sit, rest, and watch.
Our first stop was right next to the hotel to see Dianchi Lake, where the seagulls in the country migrate to spend winter. They were everywhere and it was pretty funny to see what other travelers were doing to get close or feed the animals. Pip, of course, took part.
Kunming is the most diverse province in China, home to 26 different ethnic groups, and so one village is set up to highlight the history, traditions, and stories of each group. It was very interesting to see the vast differences in some groups. Although the place was a tad touristy at times, we had fun and learned a bit.
The following trip took us to our favorite activity, the Stone Forest. The Limestone and Karst formations were an amazing sight and we loved wandering through, getting a bit lost, and enjoying a walk in some crazy nature.
Afterwards, since we were already outside of town, we wandered north to the Jiuxiang scenic region to explore the Sanjiao cave. Despite being 1 of over a hundred caves in the region, it was humongous and took us an hour to walk through (even though the girls took a shortcut slide). The scariest part was probably the gondola ride back to the parking lot.
On our last day in Kunming, we took it easy and just visited Green Lake, went to a nearby mall, and enjoyed the hotel. We got some rest before all the hiking we were planning for our next leg of the trip in Lijiang.
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