I'm a few days behind because I couldn't access my blog site from China. But I did manage to arrange my transit travel there on the way to Thailand. Not the route more travelled, but I got to sight see a bit around Kunming in the southern part of the country. Big modern city with an enormous new airport. A strategic error on my part since I had the mistaken idea that it would be a tiny back country airport. I had further assumed that it would be easy to get out of this imagined airport and find a hotel. A classic and somewhat hilarious situation ensued with about a dozen strangers gathered around me (all about a foot shorter than me) trying to (helpfully) understand what exactly I was trying to say. Eventually I did find a cab driver who spoke enough English to get me to a hotel at 1 am. On my return journey to the airport the next day, an equally amusing situation occurred with me standing in the middle of the street holding my arms out like an airplane as a substitute for being able to speak coherently to the cab driver. 

Below is the complimentary hotel breakfast--fresh noodles--quite delicious and just a little spicy, and hot soy milk.