Travel blog: Summer 2025
Posted: 2025-08-15
I traveled a bit during the summer, yet never wrote about any of it out of procrastination. I'm doing all of it together here.
Yunnan
The three of us originally planned to go, just us three, together. But right before leaving, Sue found that she had a broken bone on her ankle that needed an operation. So yeah, she's stuck hospitalized. The parents of the two of us left weren't confident in allowing two girls to go out alone, so Selena's mom tagged along with us.
We checked in way too late on the plane so I'm stuck in some middle seat. The people to my left and right seemed like a boss and one of his employees out on business. I think when they chose their seats, they left a gap between them so they could have more space. Sorry for barging in the middle, LOL.
Kunming
Our stay in Kunming was great. The owner decorated the little yard with a bunch of flowers and had some koi in the little stream. It also got a water wheel, where both Selena and I had tried to do a Reverse: 1999 pull with unsatisfying results.
We went to the National Southwestern Associated University museum, which Selena was very interested in. After that, we went to the Green Lake and saw a lot of birds, kitties, and bamboos thicker than my leg.
(I don't like taking pictures, and I changed to a new phone recently, so I'll be posting whatever pictures I can scrouge up.)
That evening, we went to a steam pot chicken place. It was great. Way better than whatever demon chicken soup they make in Guangdong.
The next day, we walked along the Haigeng dam. We saw this guy writing stuff on the floor. I guess I'd be meeting more of these people if I went out often instead of rotting in my room all day, but he was impressive.
Dali
And then we went to Dali. Originally we were going to Lijiang because Sue already went to Dali before, but now that she's not here we decided to not risk the altitude.
There are a lot of halal restaurants in Dali, and apparently there are a lot of Hui people here, despite the main people being Bai. We went past a mosque in the taxi, but didn't go in. I was surprised that it looked just like any other ancient Chinese temple; not a trace of Arabic-ness or anything. Then it occurred to me that this was probably really old and people had no idea what Arabic architecture looked like back then.
We went to the Cang mountain up the cableway. We were batshit scared, especially when the carrier went past a pole and the entire thing jolted. But we came out alive. We spent a lot of time near the pond, which had crystal-clear icy cold water. We tried climbing up but after barely a minute I felt blood in my throat and Selena said to turn back too. So up we gave. There's a little store selling milk tea made with pond water and we each bought a cup. It was the best milk tea I've ever had.
We also biked around Erhai Lake. We saw a little girl with her dad, learning to read. She was really cute[1]. She's holding a stack of cards, each with a character on it. She'd take a card, show it to her dad, and ask him, "do you know how to pronounce this?" Her dad would pretend to not know, or purposefully give a wrong answer. "I don't know, is it… you?" And the girl would correct him, "no, it's pi! As in banana peel!" And her dad would say "ahh, you're so smart."
We also fell for a candy fruit prank. We bought something called "idiot fruit" because anyone who buys it is an idiot; it's sold specifically to tourists who've never seen it before. We ended up throwing the bag away.
We also went to the Chongsheng Temple, the one with the three pagodas. They were giving out stamps, so we both got one.
It was a gigantic white marble stamp, so big it took both people to lift.
There was also the "frog rock," where if you bump a rock against it, you can hear a frog croak.
Ar first, we didn't find the sound to be different from plain old rock-bumping; but later we realized it was not the rock itself, but the echo, that sounded like a frog.
We went back to Kunming for the plane back home. The last night's stay was pretty horrible; my fault for being cheap. We had steam pot chicken again in Kunming.
Xinjiang
I've always wanted to go to Xinjiang. My travel philosophy is that scenery can all be seen online, and only food goes into your stomach and becomes truly yours. I had noodles, naan, baked buns, big plate chicken, and meat pies. 10/10.
A friend of my mom's happened to have planned a trip with her sister, and my mom and I tagged along.
Urumqi
We rendezvoused at Urumqi. Since my mom and I arrived a lot earlier than the others, the guide took us to a local kebab place he knew. The kebab was nice; they served free milk tea the way eastern restaurants served free barley tea. Real milk tea, mind you, not whatever abomination modern bubble tea is. It was way too salty for me. After the others had arrived, we went to the Grand Bazaar that night to eat whatever we come across. I just had a baked bun and spent the entire trip blowing at it because it was too hot.
The next day, we went to Tianshan Heaven Lake. Out of the six of us, three didn't like taking photos and the other three loved it, so us three were always way ahead of the other three. I had some naan while waiting for them. Chewing it too hard hurts your jaw.
Altay
Xinjiang is one of those travel places where you spend more time on the road than actually touring. We went all the way to Burqin to the Rainbow Beach. It was made that way because all sorts of metals somehow got to the surface of the rocks. Red for iron, green for copper, stuff like that. My mom complained that the picture I took of her made her look too ugly. But that's just how she looks.
We stayed at Jiadengyu, a sort of crossroads to Kanas and Hemu that everyone who visits these places have to stay in. We saw a llama. It feels really nice, I wish you were there to pet it.
It can also loaf.
At a restaurant we also saw a litter of Jianzhou cats playing with each other. Their mom had abandoned them, according to the restaurant owner.
One of them even flipped its belly at me. By the time we finished eating and got out, they got tired and got into a heap.
Ili
We then went south. We passed through the "devil city," which was nothing but heat and rocks and was pretty boring. We also passed through Karamay, and you can smell the sulfur from inside the car.
In Jinghe county, we had some meat pies at a place called "Running Meat Pies." It was great. 10/10.
We got to Sayram Lake and drove around it. I saw a ladybug spread its wings.
At some nearby horse ranch we saw a Kazakh kid fluidly climb up a horse. He wasn't even tall enough; he had to park the horse near a fence and step onto the fence. Bro couldn't have been older than eight.
We got to Horgos, on the Kazakhstan border. We originally wanted to get into the China-Kazakhstan collaboration zone where you can buy cigarettes and wine for cheap, but none of us brought our passports and the place they hand out temporary passes was closed twenty minutes before we got there. I ended up getting some Russian sausage, chocolate, and ice cream, the last of which definitely contributed to the period cramps.
The next day, we got to Narati. My period came and I spent the day in bed while they rode horses. Well fuck me in particular.
From there we went on Duku Highway. There are a lot of groundhogs to the side. They had big butts. Sometimes they stand up and fight each other.
Urumqi again
The journey's almost at an end. The guide took us to a local restaurant. You can tell it's really local when most of the waiters barely speak Mandarin. When I asked him to make the big plate chicken not spicy, he stared at me like I was an idiot for a while (maybe something like "big plate chicken not spicy? Why don't I give you ice cream not cold?" or maybe he just didn't understand me) and when the chicken was served it was still spicy. And then there are a couple of dancers dancing around the place. Do Uyghurs just have to watch people dance to stomach their food or something? Did the restaurant hire them specifically just to dance? Or they're all just waiters taking dancing shifts?
The next day we visited Xinjiang Museum, but exhibits 1 - 6 were all closed and we didn't get to see the dried corpse it was famous for. And then home we went. I have to go to southern Xinjiang one day; I'd really like to visit Kashgar, and also have big plate chicken and meat pies again.
Hebei
We were going to my mom's hometown to visit some relatives before I leave. On the way there we chose a 21-hour train ride. You need to go through double security at the train station now if your train passes through Beijing, even though we were supposed to get off before then. We played card games. Dad won all but two rounds (which I won) because he could actually calculate what cards we had left based on what we had played.
At Fucheng, one of my mom's friends lent us her house to stay in and her car to go places. I ate too much at my little aunt's (she made me two big pots of dumplings) and had a stomachache. Later, we went to Langfang, to my third aunt's. We had some great lamb hotpot. I finished Type Help over there.
I can't believe I'm calling a child cute, but here we go. ↩︎