My arrival in Shanghai was a bit interesting. I have to admit I was nervous about the possibility of being quarantined. This nervousness was not helped at all when the flight attendant announced we would all have to stay on the plane until everyone's temperature was taken and we were all cleared to leave. About 8 people entered the airplane with their white protective suits and masks and took everone's temperature. All of the passengers were taking photos because it was so unreal! Thankfully, no one was identified as being with a fever.
I was a bit surprised at the Shanghai airport. I really expected it to be extremely crowded and big...it was pretty large, but not nearly as many people as I had imagined. I was happy to see some of my classmates there when I arrived. We were on the same flight from Shanghai to Kunming, which helped ease some of the anxiety about getting a taxi to the hotel once we arrived. I was also very happy to see our professor waiting for us at the airport with Que, one of our Chinese students, to help us get our taxi. I made the mistake of saying a few words in Mandarin, because then our driver just kept talking to us. All I could say after that was 我不懂 （pronounced 'wo bu dong'), which means "I don't know".
Today we took a bus tour out to the stone forest (森林石). On the way there our tour guide told us a lot about Kunming. There are 26 minority groups, and 13 of them are only in Kunming. On the way, we saw a large cow on the sidewalk that had just been killed. It was a bit shocking to see it with all the blood pouring out.
While at stone forest, we took many photos and some of the girls dressed up in the traditional dress. We learned that you can tell whether a woman is married by looking at her hat. If there are two triangles, they are single. One triangle means they are engaged, and the black hat means they are married. Mostly we saw single ladies and a few dancers were married. Muna, a classmate jumped right in and started dancing with the musicians and dancers. The state apparently pays a salary for these people to come and sing and dance every day at the stone forest.
After we got back, we had a meeting with our entire group. Que gave each of us a China mug made of eggshell with our names and the date of our trip. Very pretty! Qiong also brought some delicious fruit to us from her hometown of Wenzhou. The fruit is called yangmei and is a delicious berry!
Most of us pretty much crashed after the meeting. Jet lag is a real drag....
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