Qian Ling Park

Before we left on our trip to Kunming we ran into another foreigner on the street right by our apartment.  His name is Eoghan and he is from Ireland.  We talked to him for maybe two minutes.  He was on his way to work and he was running late.  He stopped for just enough time to exchange numbers and he told us that he would show us around the city sometime.  So when we got back from Kunming we texted Eoghan and informed him that we were back, hoping that he would show us around.  He works all day so hopefully we can get together with him on the weekend.  He was kind enough and sent us a text full of Chinese characters that we can show to a taxi driver.  Supposedly those Chinese characters are all of the cool places the Eoghan knows around our city.  He gave us no warning on to what they are or where we would end up.  So, of course, we trusted this almost complete stranger and showed some Chinese characters to a taxi driver.  The taxi driver shook his head yes and we were on our way to who knows where.  

We arrived at Qian Ling Park, still not exactly sure what it was but it was beautiful!  The scenery was amazing.  There were mountains and little ponds and lakes and rivers.  We walked up the road and found a path over to the side.  We didn't know we were getting ourselves into quite a hike but it was worth it.  We walked up about 75 flights of starts and made it to the top of the mountain.  On one side you could see the city with a bunch of sky scrapers and blue roofs.  If you turn around and look to the other side there were mountains and it was green every where.  It was a breathtaking view.  There was also a cave equipped with neon lights.  They take their neon lights pretty seriously over here.  In my opinion, things would be a lot more classy and more appealing if they would leave out all of the neon lights.  But the cave was still awesome even with the neon lights.

On our way up to the mountain we saw a monkey!  It was within arms reach and we were so excited and stopped and to take pictures.  Everyone was looking at us like we were crazy because we were taking so many pictures.  They obviously didn't think it was a big deal like we did.  

It turns out that it wasn't exactly a big deal because just down another path there were hundreds of monkeys.  I am not lying when I say hundreds.  It was the coolest thing ever.  It was better than any zoo I have ever been too.  The monkeys come right up to you and take things out of your hands.  Sometimes they even attack you if they think you have something that you have.  The monkeys would walk on your shoes, try to get into your purse, and scream at you.  I am not going to lie, at times I was a little bit freaked out but it was all worth it.  Next time we go to this park we are going to come prepared with peanuts and fruit for the monkeys.

The moral of this story is...  When someone sends you a text that you can't read, just show it to the taxi driver and you will end up in the coolest place ever.  We will be showing the other texts we received to taxi drivers in the near future.