Photos from Mt. Shibao

The view from the drive to Mt. Shibao


The remnants of an idol

Walking around the mountains

The mountains of Yunnan

Monkey with kid

The guy feeding this monkey identified the monkey as "the monkey king"


Climb to the top of the mountain

The temple as seen from the front gate

View of the mountain

The trails leading up the mountain

Mid-level of the temple

Mountain peaks

These likely once held the ashes of a monk

Idols on higher levels of the mountain

The view from the top. I believe you can see all the way to Er Lake, near Dali


Peak of the opposite mountain


Ruins of a temple on the top of a mountain. Someone lives there now.

Chickens in the temple

Fields for cultivation next to the temple

Coming down the mountain

And more mountains, lovely lovely...

The main idols, a closer look. The golden one is Maitreya, the Future Buddha.

Temple complex, from the level of the idols

For scales

FOOD PORN! This was a ridiculous vegetarian feast the temple prepared for us. Directly in the foreground was one of the rare misses: it tasted like sticks covered in sugar, and it might have been. But next to it is awesome fried cheese.

The idols in the mountain again. I usually avoid taking pictures of the idols, but it was pretty hard to do here.

Mountains again.

Photos from Xizhou

Vats of dye at the batik making factory

Tie-ing the tie-dye

MICHELLE!

Fixin' the dye

George trying to dye fabric

My host daughter, who was kinda cute

Slabs of pork hanging there to dry. I never quite got what that was about.

Cooking equipment and produce

Cutting up some pork, straight from the pig


The marble table in the living room. In the Dali area, marble is so plentiful (the word for marble in Chinese is literally "dali stone" that it's extraordinarily cheap. So even though this family was not incredibly well off (although also far from really poor), they had tons of marble furniture.

View of the mountains from the house.

Marble patio, see my note above.

Host dad!

Host mom wearing traditional Bai headdress.

Photos from Dali

The mountains surrounding Dali

The old, intact walls of Dali


A pavilion in the city

The old streets

Lovely little street

Gates

The mountains as seen from the city

Interesting church with Chinese architecture

Gate to the city

View from that gate


The view of Lake Er



The town on the slope of the mountains

This is where you can go to eat a minority family, I guess. Weird thing: the Chinese actually says "Ancient town family".

Michelle! Skewers!

Old town at night

Dancer at this bar

Unreal view of Dali and lake Er from the campus of Dali University, which is only six years old and insanely pretty

This is all faculty housing. Yep.


The hills behind Dali University. Eat your heart out, Wash U.

Photos from Mt. Weibao

The view of the Kunming mountains from Mt. Weibao

The trail through the mountain

More view

Temple complex on the mountain



View from the temple

Lovely little pavilion in one temple

Yin-yang

Another shrine building

Lovely frescoes of taoist deities


Wood carving in the temple

Temple in the woods

More yin-yang. That's the way they roll on a Daoist mountain

Stairs to a high temple

I really liked this image of the mountains through this smoking censor

Photos from Weishan

This shop sells colorful things for festivals

Can you handle the pressure? Apparently, representing the culture right doesn't mean spelling the words right.

Lovely stone gate with view of the mountains

Old courtyard house

Lovely old streets, reminds me of Europe

City park

I kinda liked how beat up the buildings in this park were



Grass on the pavilion roof, this place was legit

Elaborate wood carving in a new house being built

The tower at the city center


Believe it or not, this is an elementary school. I think it used to be a temple.

How tea is sold in the village


The village's open air market. Those cuts of meat are generally straight from the animal.

More village


The restaurant we ate at, an old courthouse mansion

Photos from Stone Forest, Sani/Yi Village

This is the kind of official proclamation you typically encounter on entering any sort of Chinese national park, I like the official language in the first paragraph

Stone formations in a lake. These formations were formed through thousands of years of rain on limestone.

The stone forest from above.


One of the formations up close

Stone formation called the "water buffalo"

This is the classic photo from the Stone Forest, those are the Chinese characters for "Stone Forest"

You can even rent minority costume to wear! Hooray for weird Chinese exoticism!

Grafitti from the Cultural Revolution, it says "Chairman Mao, may he live ten thousand years!"

"Stone Forest"

Magnificent formations, nothing much to say on them















Walking into the Sani village

The pigpen

Pinyin chart for teaching kids

Sani villagers in traditional costume preparing to sing

The really insane food they prepared for us

The main community house

Our professor, Qin Wenjie, talking with the village head, his family and villagers

This is the village's prize fighting ox. Every year, there's a certain festival where they bring that ox to fight other village's oxes. It was awesome



The village community hall, dates back from the Cultural Revolution


The basketball court

Sani woman and drying corn

Old style Sani lute

Shots of the village


This is the door to the sacred grove of the village. The characters on the door are in the Yi language.

Village

Dog!

Village garden

The village head's daughter with the village head's son. She's my age, believe it or not.

Twin Pagodas, Downtown Kunming

These are the twin pagodas that dominate the heart of Kunming

View of one of the pagodas, the newer one, built in the late 1900s after the Hui burnt down the original

Ornamental carving near the other pagoda

The older pagoda, dating back to the Tang Dynasty

A newer carving

These are kinda tacky in retrospect, but notable at least for the unusual minority style

Old building near the pagoda, not sure what it's for, but it was empty

The pagoda, close up, note the simple Tang dynasty style

An old city gate type structure between the two pagodas, this might have been refurbished by a development project in this area







Shot of the development buildings

Rhododendrons in the park of the other pagoda

The pagoda