In which most people are, in fact, Chinese, there is a happy reunion, cheap food, and a notable lack of modern dentistry

I boarded the China Southern Airlines flight for Kunming with a slight sense of apprehension. We westerners are pretty well indoctrinated to expect that any below-the-radar airline, particularly one based in a third-ish world nation, will involve sitting on chicken crates and alarming random depressurizations of the cabin. Well, despite their flight maps including such non-US-tourist-visited destinations as Islamabad, Tashkent, and Pyongyang, I have to report that in many respects China Southern was rather more civilized than most US airlines.

We took off from the spectacular Hong Kong harbor and I enjoyed a beautiful view of the islands of the South China Sea. Although leg room was limited, there was an empty middle seat, so the flight was not uncomfortable. The orange juice served was Tropicana Pure Premium level (an Australian brand), and we were given large moist towels before our snack (the pre-packaged kind one often gets in sushi restaurants). The snack itself was presented in both hot and cold portions- the cold portion in a festive lacquered box with a cute mascot emblazoned on it. The hot portion was some dumplings, steamed haricots verts, and some fried pancakes. A nice little dim sum snack. The cold portion was a fresh fruit cup that consisted of good white melon and watermelon and excellent pineapple, along with a small pineapple muffin. I wouldn't want to bet too much money that the quality is quite so good on the flights departing Pyongyang, but it was definitely a pleasant surprise.

I arrived in Kunming after enjoying the changing view from the window. I was wishing for a pilot as informative as the one I'd had when I returned from Chicago to L.A. (he'd kept up a running commentary about the scenery we flew over, in a way that was both informative and unintrusive). There were both classic velvety green Chinese hills and clear instances of development outpacing planning.

As we neared Kunming itself, I saw a lot of industrial sites as well as the occasional random giant... mansion? Hotel? Who can say.

Customs was a three part process, consisting of passport control, quarantine control, and the post-baggage customs inspection. While there was marginally more supervision than in Hong Kong, in that there were three actual pieces of paper that needed to be filled out and collected at three different stations, the process itself was equally lowkey, and I was essentially waved past each station. This is a relief when those who are doing the waving are in full-fledged Chinese military uniforms, red bars and stars and berets and all.

In the airport, I had a couple of hours to wait before meeting up with Alan and Cristoph, so I decided to sit in a cafe to do so. Then I remembered that I didn't yet have any Chinese money... and, unlike the $HK, I couldn't have gotten them beforehand, as yuan are only obtainable within China. When it became clear that the waitress in the cafe in the airport didn't speak enough english to tell me where to find a bureau de change, I had a brief moment of panic. I had no interest in standing around for two hours, and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be allowed to laze around in a cafe without buying anything, "to each according to his need" or no. Fortunately, though there was no place to change my money that I saw, there was an ATM. Ahhhh, technology. How I love thee. (Still not sure, by the way, if the text messaging will still magically work here in the PRC, as the time difference between here and CA means people are probably still asleep)

I was, until Alan and Cristoph's plane arrived from a popular tourist destination, the only white woman (and probably person) around. This made me the source of much amusement to a couple of little girls who kept running up to me and giggling as I sat reading my book. My Chinese is limited to "Hello" and "thank you" and their English seemed to be limited to "hello" and "book," so there wasn't much in the way of cross-cultural exchange taking place. I have resigned myself to smiling a lot and pointing when Alan isn't around to translate.

As I waited for Alan and Cristoph to collect their bags, I started to notice the remarkably bad state of Chinese dentistry. Seriously, I am never going to crack jokes about the British again.

After we took a cab into town and settled into our hostel/hotel (I got a room, A and C opted for the dormitories), we went in search of dinner. Alan has armed himself with the MOST recent edition of Lonely Planet, which recommended a cafe at another hostel. The menu seemed unpromising, offering such items as "scrambled egg with tomato" and "beef with noodle," but what ended up arriving on our table was some of the best damn Chinese food I've ever had. Seriously, if you dressed this stuff up and gave it more compelling nomenclature, you would easily have the makings of an upscale trendy restuarant in the US. All the dishes incorporated good, fresh, ingredients and were wonderfully flavored. We had sauteed wild mushrooms (mostly oyster-y) with garlic, ginger, and spring onions; schezhuan beef (too spicy for me, but delicious); the aforementioned scrambled eggs with tomato (which sounds weird but was a delicious, not quite soup-y mix); curried vegetables; and a bowl of dumplings in broth. I had a gin and tonic and we all split some Tsingtao beers. All this food, including four large bottles of beer and a hefty gin and tonic, cost 80 yuan. That's at a rate of 8 yuan to the dollar. That's right, one of the best meals I've had in a while was NINE DOLLARS INCLUDING BOOZE. All hail the PRC, I say.

I'm now in an internet cafe that is definitely a local joint, non-tourist (thanks to Alan's language skills, such things ar possible) surrounded by boys playing shoot em' up video games and a couple of teenage girls playing a game that seems to involve making SIMS-esque computerized Britney clones successfully execute a macarena. No idea.

On the downside, I can't read my blog. I don'f know if this is a glitch or if I have accidentally said something subversive and Google is keeping the Chinese people safe from my rambling. So, if I don't respond to your comments, that's why!