We had lunch in a 200-year-old Kunming style home - very large, with steep staircases leading to the second story, and a large courtyard on the inside. It was a great lunch. We tried many interesting new foods I had never seen before, including delicious goat cheese, and I enjoyed myself.

Later, we went for a talk at Yunnan Minorities University, and listened to Professor He talk for about an hour or so. He himself is an ethnic minority, and we spent an hour afterwards walking around Kunming with some of the students, who were also minorities and spoke good English and wanted to know about the United States.

That night, we went out to a hot pot restaurant. I was highly amused when I pulled out two feet and a complete, blackened rooster's head from the broth. I think everyone else lost their appetite after that; I thought it was interesting, but it came back to haunt me later: that night, I became violently ill, and made a mental note to avoid hot pot in the future.

Tomorrow we are on a plane for Shangri-La. More then.

April 8: Today we had to get up early. We were supposed to leave at 5:30 a.m. Brian, our group leader, knocked on my door at 5:25 a.m., so I got up and dressed and packed in 5 minutes. Our flight was on a small Boeing, but it was smoother than the flight into Kunming. It was cloudy, and as we climbed, we suddenly shot out of the gray cloud cover into bright sunlight. I wish it hadn't been cloudy, because Brian said the 45 minute flight is beautiful when it's a clear day.

We touched down at Shangri-La airport, built in 1999, for less money than anywhere else, according to our tour guide, whose name is Xiao Pu. Our bus has a big cheetah on it. We got some breakfast at the Tibet Caf¨¦, and I had my first taste of Yak cheese - what a strong flavor. The butter tea and buckwheat pancake were good.

That day, we drove out to an orphanage, founded by a Tibetan orphan who had herself been adopted by a German family and had returned in the early 1990s to start the orphanage. The orphans sang traditional songs for us and danced; it was an interesting experience, but I was not without my reservations. I felt a little bit as if I was at a zoo, looking at animals and oohing and aahing at the things they did. It seemed a little bit like the stereotypical American waif of the 1930s singing for his supper. Perhaps I have just watched too many Shirley Temple movies.

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