This will be my final blog from Kunming. What a ride it’s been! It’s hard to believe, but in about 48 hours our exotic adventure here in Kunming will be over – at least for this time!  And what an adventure it’s been!  Every day has had surprises or unexpected twists and turns. I have learned so much, and yet still know so little! We can probably only fully assess and appreciate our experience once we’re removed from it, but I do already know there are many things I will miss a great deal, and a few things I won’t miss at all! Walking down our street is so very different from any of our city or suburban streets at home. Waterloo will feel very quiet after all the hustle and bustle that takes place on our street here. We had no idea how very fortunate we were when we rented this apartment online from home last January (five flights of stairs notwithstanding!).

The location is superb, close to our beloved Green Lake Park, close to dozens of restaurants, fruit and vegetable markets just a few minutes away. And of course there are food vendors everywhere selling a variety of things to snack on. But it’s noisy, very colourful, with a wide variety of pungent smells.

Dishes and meat are washed on the street…

An old man sets up his old singer sewing machine every day in the alley and repairs clothing that people bring him. There’s another guy who fixes bicycle tires, and on and on it goes. Scooters take up just as much room on the sidewalks as do pedestrians. Restaurants tend to close fairly early, and shops are closed by about 10 pm; that’s when the street vendors come out, and you can buy as many fake watches, handbags, jewellery etc. as you like!.
 I have done no shopping here at all, other than the excellent Pu-er tea, which is a very high quality fermented tea. Like wine, the older it is the better it is!. Highly renowned and very expensive. Clothes and shoes are not available in my sizes. Shoes come in nothing larger than a size 7, and clothes, mostly size 0 or size 2. The women here are very petite! 😦

This past week was the 2nd and final performance of La Traviata. It was a resounding success, and judging by all the lengthy speeches before and after the performance, this was considered a most unusual and astounding achievement! It was really quite amazing how these singers came through in the end. It has been a round of meetings and dinners ever since, with a final banquet in Howard’s honour tonight, which will include the whole cast of La Traviata. The university/symphony etc., have all been very generous in their praise of what Howard has been trying to do here, and would love him to come back any time! So who knows what the future holds for these retirees!

Sunday afternoon we leave Kunming for Taipei – this time it’s a direct flight so as to avoid all the hassle we had when we came here four months ago. Kunming has a new airport which opened yesterday, so I hope that everything is working on Sunday and we won’t have any undue setbacks or delays. We look forward very much to seeing Anthony and Vanessa, and of course our 2 gorgeous granddaughters.

Sunday the 8th of July we are back in Canada!  I feel as though we’ve been gone for a year!. Can’t wait to see everyone!

Zhidao xia yici!! (Till next time)

Maggie