July 30, 2009 – Day 217 – Kunming, China

Well, we and a fellow traveler we met at the hostel suffered a failed attempt this morning at trying to go to the Shilin Stone Forest. We arrived early, as the hostel staff suggested, but the only 2 remaining minibuses that were heading toward Shilin wanted to charge us each almost 3 times what the fare should have been.

Lunch!

Plus, we had to schedule a time to come back as well or they would not take us at all! WTF?! Since we all three have tomorrow in Kunming still, we decided to head back to the hostel, go our separate ways and do something else for the day. By the time we got back, it was noon already and we enjoyed a leisurely lunch downstairs, an afternoon nap and some movie watching.

Oh but the fun does not stop there. What was supposed to be a quick pit stop at Wal-mart (yeah wal-mart…. crazy) turned into quite the cultural experience. As we wandered around the aisles hunting down our needs (always the same stuff: bar soap, snacks, water, tissues) we stumbled into the “fresh” food section, which was … um….. interesting. I’ll let the photos do the talking.

Live bull frogs, Now on sale

Dried squid? Goes great with soup

How about some BBQ chicken feet

Also available boneless

We probably spent an hour just wandering around the aisles checking out all the strange stuff for sale. I really think they will eat just about anything here.