Shangri-La

is a beautiful place. not the one in Singapore. that one's quite nice... but Shangri-La in Yunan. THE actual Shangri-La.

and i've not even been to the supposedly most scenic places. in fact, all i've seen is the inside of a hotel, the sights along a road, this lounge place (which had really great local cultural performances) and its toilet, the airport.

it's the people. the people that i've met there are just amazingly warm and wonderful. i'm not sure whether one can generalise from the group that i've met there. afterall, they are damn good friends with one of the people in my group.

regardless... i would love to go back to Shangri-La again (plus other parts of Yunan). this time to stay for longer. sigh...

the other thing that struck me on my trip... so on the last day, we decided to pamper ourselves and went for some spa/massage thing (first time i did this kind of stuff...). i started chatting to the girl who massaged me. she's from a village and moved to Kunming city. her parents don't know that she's a masseuse (they think she works in some store selling clothes). it's one of those professions that a good young lady (and the girl is close 19... or 20... or something like that...) shouldn't work as. yet... it's a job. and it pays the bills, she gets to send some money home. she intends to quit after a couple of years with the money she earns, bury that part of her life and get settled down in the city. i don't know... i am not relating the story properly. but... i just felt the... tensions of liberal, modern urban life vs conservative, old rural life.

this trip to Yunan was an interesting trip all in all. culture-shocked many times over. learnt loads. loads of work to do arising from this trip.