Speaking of that miraculous man, Jeremy has totally out-blogged me lately! His latest: Our friend Beth in Washington D.C. went to an exhibition at the Smithsonian yesterday which featured a Yunnan cultural extravaganza. Pretty cool. She was especially excited because she’s planning on visiting us in August. They even had Pu’er tea!

Jeremy also has a nice story about how he caught a pickpocket. Very dramatic.

Yesterday, my friend Jessie introduced me to a secondhand clothes market here in Kunming. I hesitate to mention it, because everyone I tell seems to be totally grossed-out by the notion of secondhand clothes in China. Even (maybe especially) Chinese people. Anyway, I recommend it. It’s very similar in quality and cleanliness to most thrift stores in the US. It’s set up as a cluster of small storefronts. Everything is on hangers and organized by style or size. Mostly out of style, slightly strange clothing. The best part, though, is that it has a surprising amount of Western brands and (more spectacularly) sizes. I have Western hips, and so it can be frustrating trying to find a good fit. But really it was not an issue at this market. They even have some vintage stuff, which is fun! Prices are incredible. A few stalls had a pile of clothes for 1 yuan: “Yi kuai maaaaadness!” A lot of stalls had racks of clothes — skirts, shirts, jeans — for 5 or 10 yuan.

How do you get there? Hmmm… northeast of the intersection of 人民西路 and 二环西路, it’s on 茭菱路 (jiao1ling2 lu4) just west of the slightly smaller drag 近华浦路 (Jin4hua4pu3 Lu4). It’s on the 85 bus line. I think the bus stop is called 丰宁小区 (Feng1ning2 Xiao3qu4).