Weekend in Beijing/Trip to Yunnan - Happy Week

Yunnan and Beijing

13.12.13

Today Carola and I took the train from Chengde to Beijing, it took us about 5 hours so we arrived in Beijing at noon. We went to the apartment left our suitcases there and went shopping :D

14.12.13

Today was the culture day. We started with the Forbidden City’s Bei Hai Park, went to Tian ‘An Men Square afterwards and then to the Olympic Stadium.

15.12.13

Today was our flight to Kunming (Yunnan Province). We flew to the AFS trip there. About 150 students took part in it. I was pretty excited to finally see all of the other Afs’ers again and meet new ones :D

Because of the snowstorm in Kunming our flight was 4 hours delayed. But we were lucky to even land there, some others couldn’t make it to Kunming L We arrived pretty late, at about 10 o’clock in the hotel. And it was sooooo good to finally speak german again and meet the others <3

16.12.13 – Kunming-Chu Xiong

Today we went to the stone forest by Bus because of the cold the highway was frozen and we had to wait for 2 hours. After 8 hours of driving and waiting around we finally arrived at 石林. This was my second time there and it was amazing – again.

Because of the long delay we couldn’t make it to Dali and spent the night in Chu Xiong.

17.12.13 – Chu Xiong-Dali

Today we drove from Kunming to Dali, which fortunately isn’t that far!

We visited an ‘ancient city’. This ancient city was a pretty disappointing Tourist-Shopping Area. After lunch we went drover to another ‘ancient city’. On the highway we met some AFSers from Changzhou, they couldn’t fly to Kunming because of the snow on the 15. I was soooooo glad they could make it J  The next ancient city was as boring as the first one and we had to watch some kind of Chinese performance and tee ceremony. That was ..special. The Hotel in Dali was the first hotel that was nice! The others were pretty terrible! A girl even found a rat in her room…

18.12.13 – Dali-Li Jiang

Today we drove to Li Jiang. I think it took us about 6 hours. We drove straight to the ‘ancient-city’ :D I must admit I’ve become pretty fond of ancient cities during this trip. They are so.. inspiring. And full of shops were you can buy bracelets, bags, paper cuttings, Chinese paintings… typical Chinese stuff. But none of us wanted to see more of these shops so we decided to spent the 2 hours freetime in KFC and Mac Donalds haha..

19.12.13 –Li Jiang

The first day with no change of the city! We started the day by visiting a village of one of Chinas minorities. Those people dress differently, speak a different language, have different characters and live in an pretty old-styled way.

After this we went to Li Jiangs ‘Dragon Mountain’. It was snowing there! We had lunch and watched a performance on the mountaintop. This performance was pretty huge and impressing; also led by a minority. We spent the night in the same hotel as yesterday

20.12.13 – Li Jiang-Kunming

Today we had to drive all the way back to Kunming. These few days passed far too fast!

The bus driver told us it was going to be about 8 hours. But I think it definitely was longer. After about 10 hours we reached Kunming. This was the last night, so nobody slept, we just were up all night talking and celebrating :D

21.12.13 – Back Home

Today was the worst day ever! We left the hotel in different groups, depending what time we would leave Kunming. I was lucky to leave at 7:30, i got at least 1 hour of sleep:D Everyone was crying when saying goodbye and in the airplane.

I never wanted to leave this place. Never again.

This week was so awesome. So much party fun and talking. And people that understand you, non-Chinese people. We didn’t see much of Yunnan tough, just all of these ‘ancient cities’ but the trip was definitely worth it anyways! Not for sightseeing, but because of all the others. I miss you all so much <3