The second city we visited in China is a little off the beaten path when it comes to Chinese tourism but it’s one of my favorite places in the whole world. Kunming is the capital of the Yunnan province and is where I spent 4 summers volunteering. I was very excited to see how much the city had changed and to share it with Coyle.
Kunming is in southern China near the border with Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. The Yunnan province has one of the largest concentrations of ethnic minorities in China making it much more diverse. The people are incredibly friendly and welcoming and I was so excited to see that hadn’t changed in the 10 years since I’d been there.
One of the first places we visited was the Yunnan safari park. This was built after I had last been in Kunming. Coyle is fascinated with animals so he was thrilled by it. He got a chance to see lions and tigers and feed bears and most exciting for him he got to see more pandas.
Next we went to the ethnic minority village. I’ve always enjoyed this place. It is a park where many of the ethnic minority groups found in Yunnan have model villages and homes set up. Many of them put on performances throughout the day in their traditional dress. Coyle loved feeding bananas to the elephants and thought it was hysterical that they even ate the peel!
We got the chance to eat cross bridge rice noodles which is a traditional Yunnan dish (and one of the few I like!). Coyle was a master slurper and was amazed at how long the noodles were.
Coyle and I had some time just to wander around the lake as well. Green lake park is a beautiful park in Kunming and full of people taking pictures in traditional costumes, exercising, listening to music and just hanging out. We spent a ton of time wandering around, blowing bubbles and watching the birds. Of course Coyle made friends everywhere he went once again.
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