Living the sweet life in Kunming

I feel like writing an update of the last couple of weeks. Just a couple of sentences to each topic where I could easily fill a whole article with. But I don’t really get around to it. Why? You’ll see…

I really enjoyed the last rough bit with ferrys, trains and beach camping as I expected to settle down for a while when I get to Kunming. I settled down in high-speed mode as well as fell in love with this city.

My sweet warmshower-host, soon-to-be roommate, fellow solo-cyclist and first friend in Kunming,  Vera picks me up at the metro station after a long-and-relaxing trainride (me) / a long day of work (her). The late-evening walk to her apartment was wonderful, I was amazed by the quietness of Kunming as well as it’s fresh air.

Most of my stuff was already at her place as my friend Huan helped me sent it there earlier. So I dreamt on the train of how I would take a shower to put on all-clean-clothes afterwards. This is the SWEETEST feeling!

So settling down in high-speed mode Vera offered me to stay in her guestroom while I’m here studying Chinese. Of course I jumped for it – not only no hassle to find a place but just – I don’t know how to phrase it – I didn’t even stumbled across it as for that, I would have had to at least put a foot out to search, I think. So with literally no-effort I got a nice place to stay and even co-hosted another female solo-cyclist for a couple of days. Sophie is on a big tour, going strong from Scotland towards the rest of the world; cycling, hitch-hiking, camping and woof-ing.

Couple of days after my arrival my Chinese one-on-one lessons started. I am making progress in speaking – but the listening is just killing me. I am still not able to HEAR the difference between “zh”, “ch”, “sh”, “q” and “z”. But I can PRODUCE these sounds correctly. This discrepancy totally puzzles my teacher. I know the words, I can recall them, use them and understand them when said on their own. But in a sentence? Nope.

Since only learning Chinese isn’t filling my days (please note my dry-german-sarcastic-humor here!) I do yoga, go to the climbing gym (only got to real-rock twice so far), spent time with my room-mates, explore the market and – I am really excited about this one – started practicing Tai Chi! A small group that meets every night nearby and I summoned all my courage to walk up to them to ask if I can join. I am so proud and happy I did! After one month of diligent training I should be able to do the first part they said.