Cheer up, captain; buy a flower off a poor girl?

This Friday, Sun Laoshi’s students in Kunming had another dinner with our teacher. She took us to a very good vegetarian buffet. Over plates brimming with tofu, fake meat, and vegetables, we discussed everything Chinese (sorry, this is a rather obscure pun on the name of last semester’s textbook), from the Kunming dialect to the national curriculum. Sun Laoshi told us an interesting legend about why – as I mentioned previously – Lijiang’s old town does not have city walls. Lijiang’s erewhile ruler had the family name Mu (木), which becomes Kun (困), if you draw four lines around it – or walls, so to speak. Kun, however, means “hardship” or “to surround,” neither of which would be auspicious for a city.

On Saturday, our program made an excursion to the Stone Forest (Shilin), about two hours away from Kunming. The Stone Forest is a vast collection of limestone formations jutting out of the ground like walls and pillars or – well, like a forest. It was formed by the erosion of what used to be layers of sandstone and limestone under the sea after they were lifted out of the water by geological processes.

An exhibit at the Stone Forest Museum

 This exhibit looks remarkably similar to the Stone Forest itself

 A plesiosaurus fossil (I think)

 Dinosaur eggs

 More dinosaur eggs

 A rock with giant flowers

 Water plant fossils

 Another dinosaur

 An ingeniously carved tiger

 More dinosaurs

 A mass grave

 An underwater scene

 Another underwater scene

A closer view of the underwater scene

Of course, there are numerous legends that provide alternative origin stories for the formations. One talks about the ancient Sani hero Jinfenroga, who decided one day that he would build a dam to ease the lives of his people. He stole a magical mountain-moving whip, but just as he was herding massive boulders through what is now Shilin, the cock crowed the crack of dawn and the rocks would not budge any farther. Another legend speaks of Ashima, a beautiful woman of the Yi people, who turned to stone after she was forbidden to marry her beloved and was betrothed to another man.

At Shilin, my group first saw the so-called Minor Stone Forest, which despite its name is just as impressive – and overcrowded – as its larger counterpart. After our visit was over, I was separated from my group as I climbed up a little hill for what I thought would be just a few minutes, but ended up following a path that led me off towards the less frequented outskirts of the forest. I did not regret it. The areas on the outer rink offer scenic views of the area, as well as more peace of mind because the paths are not as well paved as in the centre and thus ward off more comfortable tourists. I ended up looping around the central area before descending back into among the rocks, and among the bulging masses of people.

 The Stone Forest over a pond

 The Minor Stone Forest

 Ashima

 The view at the Bushao Mountain Scenic Area

 Another view at the Bushao Mountain Scenic Area

 At the ground-level of the Bushao Mountain Scenic Area

 A narrow passageway

 Leaving the Bushao Scenic Area

A path through cozy pine forests

 More rocks

 Rocks and hills

 Rocks sticking out scenically

 Rocks from above

 An orchard in the forefront

 The Stone Forest and an orchard

 Rocks and rocks and rocks

 More rocks

 An albino fern?

 Rock

 A family of rocks

 Rocks and flowers

 Rocks

 Eternal Mushroom rock

 Another view from Eternal Mushroom rock

 Flowers in a rock

 A tree

 A well-timed picture without tourists on the pathway

 A pathway between the rocks

 Stairs to more rocks

 The centre of the Major Stone Forest

 Towards the exit of the main park

At the exit of the Stone Forest

In the evening, a few of us went out to eat hotpot in the centre of town, after which my classmate Fafa and I went to see the Dounan Flower Market. The metro ride took a surprisingly long time, but the flower market was well worth it. Though we arrived at around half past ten, the market – said to be the biggest wholesale flower market in Asia – was still bustling with men and women selling all types of flowers, putting together bouquets, cleaning flower stalks, and carrying massive bunches of roses. For an entire hour I could not get the soundtrack to My Fair Lady out of my head. From carnations to lilies, from roses to flowers we could not even name, the market had it all.

 One of the flower market's halls

 A debate over prices

 Pink bouquet

 Purple bouquet

 A seller making bouquets

 Flower sellers in conversation

 As of yet unidentified flowers

 The outdoor section of the market

Fafa with a flower she found on the floor

The adventure that ensued was – between our two low-battery phones – to call a ride back to campus because the metro had already closed for the night. It prompted a fun conversation about the scariest moments we had encountered during our travels (I think Fafa’s face-off with a mother bear in the burning forests of California won first prize).