DON'T Skip This City in China!

hello everybody this is Doug and welcome back to another video from here in China guys I have moved on to the next city and uh I'm here in quing or I think it's locally pronounced Quinn Ming shout out to my friend Sam who studied abroad here for uh helping me with that I've been here a few days and this is quickly becoming my favorite city in China now I know I've only been to three but uh I'll tell you more about why I really love it here a little bit later in the video Year of

the Dragon happy new year so I am just walking right now in I think one of the main downtown areas of the city of Quin it's crazy this is like a second or third tier city in China by size but it still has a population of like 8 million people that's China for you I mean this isn't even one of the most major cities in this country and yet it still feels enormous but at the same time it's a little more chill than like a Shanghai of course and it feels a little more manageable a

little more laid-back so I really like that they've got all these nice decorations set up here downtown for Chinese New Year still and uh lots of people out and about on this Friday uh at afternoon is quin Ming the most underrated tourist destination in China I don't know but I'll tell you guys my reasons for really loving it throughout this video and then at the end you can decide for yourself but I can already tell you that I think if you're going to come to China as a tourist you should come to Quin Ming so

reason number one why I'm really loving it here is the weather the climate it's like 70° here right now this city is known as the city of Eternal spring because it has basically perfect weather year round and I'm heading to Beijing next where apparently a couple days ago it was snowing and it's like below freezing so I am really enjoying this all right so there's this cool area and it looks like a ton of food options I'm very hungry I'm going to head in there there are just so many food stalls and I kind of

don't know what anything is but I'm going to try my best and I'm sure whatever I find will be [Music] delicious meow can I have one uh of this please um yeah that one thank you she you the key to ordering here for me has been pointing or Google translate or take a picture of something and show it you know you got to make it work o that's me okay um a little bit of chili a little yeah bye okay bye all righty smells amazing and I got a little bit of chili eat the Indian

okay and for paying for absolutely everything in China everything even the smallest Street stall will have a barcode here or a QR code you scan that from one of the payment apps either Ali pay or WeChat and you can type in the amount you send it and usually it announces that you've paid like somewhere inside the booth and then you're good to go it's one of the coolest things about China is this like super consistent payment system there's no question of whether or not people will accept a certain form of payment because everything everything everything

is done through alipay and weat and again even the smallest vendor selling fruit on the side of the road will have a code that you can scan to pay anyway let's get into this no idea what the name for this is guys but it looks like we've got some meat in there I'm guessing it's pork but it could be something else got some Sesame some greens noodles and uh chili I'm way too big for this table but here we go oh my God hot hot temperature wise oh delicious though okay I need to wait so

good I have not had a bad bowl of noodles in China yet and these are different they're like more like jelly noodles I guess they're rice noodles probably I still haven't mastered the slurp which is a sign of enjoyment here apparently it's not rude but I can't do it I feel like I'm going to inhale the noodles and choke on them so I try my best all right that was delicious moving [Music] along okay so the second reason why I'm really loving Quin Ming is the people so Quin Ming and yunan province uh more broadly

are apparently some of the most diverse parts of China there are so many different ethnic minorities represented here and as a result not only does it make the people and the culture so interesting in such a Melting Pot but also the food is incredible I mean there is so much variety and I've been eating as much as possible of it and the other thing is the people here are just really friendly they're really inquisitive you know it's a smaller City like I said so it's not as fast moving the people are very laid-back and the

people have been so nice and patient with the anguage barrier here uh which I really appreciate you know in a bigger city or like a more touristic City people can tend to be kind of impatient with that sort of thing and and and just want to you know get you get you taken care of and out of the way but here I haven't found that to be the case people are patient they're they're willing to help me they're inquisitive about what I'm doing here and just friendly and and and nice so reason number two the

people so this district is called the Quin Ming old street but it's not just a street it's a bunch of streets it's like a whole neighborhood here very close to the center of the city and I believe it's all old preserved buildings uh which is pretty amazing here in China because they're building you know so much modern architecture so quickly that a lot of this stuff ends up getting demolished but they've preserved it here I was here the other day but I didn't explore it that thoroughly but I know that there is a bird and

flower market nearby and they have a bunch of other animals pets for sale all right we found the flowers perfect for the city of Eternal spring now I need to find the animals okay and I found it here we go so we've got a lot of birds but also all different animals the little hamsters running on the wheel got some hedgehogs birds and we got ducklings and chicks see even the pet people have their barcodes ready to go for payment let's see what else we got here we got Turtles of all different shapes and sizes

clams or something bunch of fish this one is making a getaway where you going right next to it are the uh like underwater Oh my gosh he's in with the salamanders oh boy Havoc they don't like him I think these are called Axel and then we've got kittens and puppies [Music] here okay and I was here the other day and asked the guy selling the kittens how much they cost and it came out to about $30 us for a kitten they're like 3 months old I think he said I think they're negotiating the price of

a puppy maybe how much does one puppy cost niow uh let's see how much one puppy cost okay for this guy okay 500 Yan okay so that is $69 70 bucks for the little puppy this one's fluffier so maybe he's more oh 300 cheaper okay you're only 300 cute oh 40 bucks 40 bucks for that little brown fluffy guy okay I was here the other day like I said and there were not nearly this many uh puppies and cats available I guess cuz it's almost the weekend the market gets bigger but there are so many

animals here today hi buddy see I personally would love to get one of these little guys a little duckling but I'm headed to Iraq straight from China and something tells me uh Iraqi immigration would not love it bye-bye I am headed to Iraq right after this for another group trip and if you ever want to join one check out the link down in the description below it's amazing would love to see you there oh they're so excited hi buddy hi hi what's up what's up how you doing you okay oh it's feeding time they're getting

excited what's up sorry I don't have any food for you they are so excited oh my goodness does that mean it's time to eat okay I could stay there all day petting the puppies but it is time to move on let's see what else we get up to do you have uh this one it's time to eat again I don't think it's dinner but it's like an in between so I'm going to get one of these which I've seen everywhere and I don't know what it is but it looks delicious there they are and then

I'm going to get some shaolong ba soup dumplings and they've also got a lot of chickens okay so these are not really like soup dumplings like Shanghai style they're more of like a fluffy bow bun going to give it a dunk this looks like green onion maybe soy sauce some kind of brown sauce and garlic smells very good okay oh jeez I'm making a mess one bug so good very fluffy very filling for sure let me show you the inside so there's some meat and like chives in there or something okay and the other thing

that we've got here is some kind of like fried scallion pancake or something yeah I think it's going to be filled with maybe scallions and some meat let's see nailed it so you can see in there I don't know what kind of meat it is but it's stuffed with meat some onions and then deep fried so this is like a giant piece of fried dough but with meat and stuff inside very good perfect street food snack okay that was pretty good and I want to show you guys one more spot for today before the great

big Grand Finale tomorrow morning so stay tuned for that it's going to be at the end of the video one of the coolest things to see in this part of China but before we go to the last spot for today I decided to get some tea there are literally so many of these kind of tea shops all over China like here's one there's another one there's probably 10 more on this street and uh it's pretty amazing the nice thing is with a lot of uh cafes and like Quick Service things you can come in scan

that QR code right there and then if you use alipay to scan that you can access the menu place your order and translate the menu most importantly so you can see it in English we CH us as far as I know doesn't offer that capability but on alipe you can scan it look at the menu place your order all in English and then you just wait for it to pop up and I think mine is ready let's go see there we go I love these machines that just put the plastic Lids on all the different

T's and then you just pop the straw through like so perfect refreshing huge Cup this was 4 you1 which is like a little over 50 good deal all right now let's head out to the last stop for today but not the last stop of the video that's tomorrow so stay tuned I don't know if you guys noticed that but you can hear like no engines here because almost every vehicle is electric it's crazy like almost all of the bikes all the scooters and almost like 95% of the taxis that I've taken have been electric pretty

cool all righty guys and we're arriving at the last stop of the day this is called Green Lake Park right in the center of the city here it's just beautiful there are so many people here and uh I'm going to go see what they're up to it looks like it might be weddings or something maybe I don't know there's a lot of people taking photos the sun is about to set so I got to get the Drone up there and get some beauty shots of this place it's so cool all different uh waterways and little

strips of land sticking out you can kind of walk through the park all different ways so I'm going to go see what's going on over there here is the entrance to the place where all the people are let's go see can see the map of the of the park here so it's like mostly water but then there's all these little strips of land that you can kind of explore so pretty unique okay I don't think it's a wedding I just saw a lot of people dressed in white because I think they're wearing their best clothes

to get their best photos here so a lot of people dressed nice but it's all different groups of people not one big event ooh look at that there's like a bamboo forest over there just across the water it looks like you can walk through it I feel like this park is kind of what people expect China to be like like stereotypically but it also kind of like exemplifies what I like so much about Quin Ming which is like it's so calm and peaceful and there's people out and about and it's perfect weather and it's beautiful

I feel like this park kind of sums it up if you come here you got to come check it out it's beautiful okay guys this place is amazing when it gets dark and the lights come on all the lanterns are lit up all these things for Chinese New Year are still out and I met a local guy near where I was flying my drone he told me stick around till it gets dark because they're going to light up this giant dragon that's on the water and it's going to look amazing so I got a chance

to see all the lights around and fly my drone and uh get a few shots of the Dragon which was incredible so that's going to do it for tonight but don't go anywhere because tomorrow morning which will be in just a couple seconds for you guys we are headed off to one last stop outside the city which I think is really going to be incredible so stick around I'll see you then good night and good morning actually it's good afternoon uh but welcome to the next day here in yunan Province so guys I am outside

of Quin Ming right now I took about an hour and a half long bus outside of the city to the place where I am now which is called The yunan Stone Forest it is a UNESCO world heritage site and uh it is just absolutely stunning out here they've got these incredible Limestone rock formations all throughout this Valley here the site is absolutely enormous so to get here it was pretty easy I just went to the east bus station in the city I held up a translation saying I'd like to go to the Stone Forest and

they gave me the ticket directed me to the bus got here bought my ticket I believe the ticket into the Stone Forest is 131 and then it's a 3 km walk from the ticket office to the starting point actually here in the Stone Forest so you have an option to pay 251 to take an electric buggy to the starting point which I did because I'm a little short on time like I said UNESCO world heritage site this place is absolutely beautiful it's pretty crowded with Chinese tourists actually like domestic tourists but I haven't seen any

foreigners as far as I can tell which again leads me to believe that yunan Province kind of more broadly is really an underrated tourist destination here within China all right check this out behind me look how deep and narrow it goes I believe this is called the deep and narrow Gorge so the name is very fitting all the way up to there all the way down very very narrow very steep got to be careful this place is so cool feels like Avatar in real life with the floating Rock mountains I think this is the closest

thing you can find to that not on the fictional Planet I wish I had more time here in Yan Province because apparently there are some more incredible natural sites I'm going to have to come back anyway all of this being said to lead me to the third reason why I believe yunan Province and Quin Ming as the city are one of the most underrated tourist destinations in China and that is the nature the diversity of activities around here and the ability to get out of these big crowded densely populated cities and come to a place

like this only an hour away or so I mean it's incredible and so those are my three main reasons for loving it here in yunan got the laidback city with the amazing weather the city of Eternal spring you've got the incredibly friendly warm welcoming people and last but not least you've got all of this incredible nature and these natural wonders right at your fingertips that's going to do it for this video guys I really really hope you enjoyed it stay tuned I'm going to Beijing tonight so I'm very excited to show you guys what that

is like but uh other than that thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next one [Music] bye-bye