Good to be back in China. As promised, Jamie and I did in fact get to Beijing. We stayed in Tony and Lily's living room with Mark and Katherine. I slept on the floor and slept splendidly. The next day, we took a three hour flight to Kunming. Kunming is the capital city of Yunnan province, which is in the south and bordered by Burma and Vietnam. The name Kunming should mean 'spring city'. Flowers are in bloom here year round and it's eternally spring. These few days it's been pretty chilly, getting below zero and snowing for the first time since 1998. In these parts they don't have heaters anywhere, so sleeping at night has been particularly cold. Anyways, I'm gonna post some pics now.

 Eating in Beijing: Tony, Jamie, me, Katherine, Mark, Lily.

Kunming: Red beak (红嘴) birds which migrate from Siberia to Kunming each winter.

Chilling in Kunming: heybillman, daytosaybye, Chad, krystalrock, TheElder, me

Kunming: Minorities singing Chinese Christian worship songs (in Minority Park)

A couple scenic pics from Kunming below:

Me & huge stone

Kunming: Wa nationality men displaying traditional dance (Minority Park)

Kunming: Traditional Tibetan dance (Minority Park)

Kunming: Fierce poses in front of warriors: daytosaybye, heybillman, me, TheElder, krystalrock, Chad

Kunming: TheElder on swing

Next stop: xishuangbanna. More pics to come.