A Walk in the (Green Lake) Park

Here's a scene from the park. Notice the musicians in the background. The park is teeming with impromptu jam sessions, costumed dancers of all ages and many, many foursomes of mah-jong.


We have been slowly exploring Kunming. We're doing it at a snail's pace, because with two kids in tow, we really can't move any faster. On Sunday, as on the previous Sunday, we spent a little bit of the afternoon at huge Green Lake Park. We took a slightly different way there and discovered a delightlful street of shops, tea houses and to Carlos' delight - a panda bear toy store! The different route also took us to a different park entrance. At that park entrance we saw 3 "strange" sights. The first one was a funeral procession. At first glance I thought it was a wedding procession. The first car was decorated with many red flowers and had a white box sticking out - not a trunk, but also not a hearse. The next car (the immediate family?) had a huge flower arrrangement, mostly of roses, attached to the hood, and the next 3 or 4 cars all had small (real) red flowers attached as we would see on wedding cars. The second sight was an old lady (90's??) with the small, bound feet that was common long ago. What caught our attention, was her shoes - (colorful, almost round balls) and how she was walking (painfully). The third sight was much happier - a young couple with TWINS! In this one child centered country, twins are a rarity. The babies were very young (under 3 mos maybe), one each strapped and wrapped to a parent's back with matching bright rainbow knitted caps (so no hint of the gender(s)). As we were leaving the park, we spotted bumper cars! I love the bumper cars at amusement parks. Guess what we'll be doing next Sunday?

The kids really liked these animal-themed plant/flower holders.




The weather has been up and down this week (so unlike Michigan, right?!). Earlier in the week, it was cloudy and cool. We wore pants with jackets or sweatshirts. On Sunday, it started out cool, by afternoon it was sunny and hot, so we returned home and changed into shorts and t-shirts.


This is a typical Chinese breakfast. An egg with nuts/or other protein item, 2 types of "bread/rolls", a bowl of rice and water with hot milk and another hot or cold bowl of noodles. This is 2 orders which would satisfy the four of us by sharing. The kids love the hot milk.



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