Welcome to China

Kunming is a gleaming metropolis. A medium sized city of 5 million
souls. I checked into a pristine dorm room bed in "The Hump
Guesthouse" sold to me for 7 USD per night along with a Canadian woman
and two Spanish guys that I met on the bus. We were partners in
confusion getting here. My Mandarin was satisfying to use in
inquiries with locals about exactly where we were, but it was
ultimately no help, perhaps in part because my Lonely Planet is 5
years old. A lot changes in 5 years in China including, apparently,
the location of the bus station. On our second night, a Monday, we
hit the clubs a little along with the cadre of random revelers we met
at The Hump. Chinese people apparently don't ever take a night off
because the town was alive with strange dancing and drinking well into
the wee hours of the morning. I couldn't connect with Yang Yang, my
kind Couchsurfing host, apparently due to a cell phone malfunction, so
I'll have to delay my first CS experience until a later town. So far
China is as strange and wonderful as I had hoped in ways that I never
expected.