Yunnan
Hi everyone,
Jake and I haven't been very contributing to the blog recently... although we always follow your posts!
Our recent travel to Yunnan is a good occasion to fix this.
Yunnan is a region of south China. It is not very touristic, pretty far from the usual East coast hot spots such as Bejing, Shanghai, Great Wall, Xi'an, etc.
Actually Jake had to go to Chengdu (in Sichuan, just north of Yunnan) for work by the end of June. Since we were taking our 2 vacation weeks at the beginning of July, it was a perfect opportunity for me to join him and visit the region.
I must say I was not really enthused, China wasn't in my top 10 destinations. Probably the fear of the unknown, and a lot of clichés in my head :
- Very polluted over-crowded cities (true actually but discovering China with Yunnan is a good way to avoid that),
- Chinese spit everywhere (totally true),
- Chinese don't speak a word of English (true again, taxi drivers don't even understand 'airport'!),
- Chinese eat dog (we didn''t check since we couldn't understand the menus)
- Chinese have small penises (we didn't check that either personally but there are proofs http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=3073 :-)
- Totalitarism, and all that...
SO everything they tell you about China may be true :-), BUT it is an amazing destination. Beautiful landscapes and old cities, great hikes, new architecture, incomprehensible writing, a whole new world - as Jasmine would say.
We hope everyone is doing well.
Don't forget that you are all most welcome at home!
xoxo
F+J
Jake and I haven't been very contributing to the blog recently... although we always follow your posts!
Our recent travel to Yunnan is a good occasion to fix this.
Yunnan is a region of south China. It is not very touristic, pretty far from the usual East coast hot spots such as Bejing, Shanghai, Great Wall, Xi'an, etc.
Actually Jake had to go to Chengdu (in Sichuan, just north of Yunnan) for work by the end of June. Since we were taking our 2 vacation weeks at the beginning of July, it was a perfect opportunity for me to join him and visit the region.
I must say I was not really enthused, China wasn't in my top 10 destinations. Probably the fear of the unknown, and a lot of clichés in my head :
- Very polluted over-crowded cities (true actually but discovering China with Yunnan is a good way to avoid that),
- Chinese spit everywhere (totally true),
- Chinese don't speak a word of English (true again, taxi drivers don't even understand 'airport'!),
- Chinese eat dog (we didn''t check since we couldn't understand the menus)
- Chinese have small penises (we didn't check that either personally but there are proofs http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=3073 :-)
- Totalitarism, and all that...
SO everything they tell you about China may be true :-), BUT it is an amazing destination. Beautiful landscapes and old cities, great hikes, new architecture, incomprehensible writing, a whole new world - as Jasmine would say.
The 'Stone Forest' in Shilin, on Unesco World Heritage List
Rice terrasses, a classic
Jianshui
Traditional old houses
The Double Dragon Bridge (cult for 90's video games lovers)
Yours truly
The old village of Shaxi, well preserved and rather hard to get to (places like this one are not that easy to find in China, since they raze and rebuild everything)
Easier to communicate with children in a way...
Tiger Leaping Gorge. Great hike.
Tibetan monastery in Shangri-La
Shangri-La is near the border of Tibet, at the foot of Himalayas
;-)
We hope everyone is doing well.
Don't forget that you are all most welcome at home!
xoxo
F+J
posted by François at 8/03/2013 06:52:00 PM
1 comments
