Day 0. Fly to China

Flight 1

We left SFO at midnight 12:35am July 1 and arrived Wuhan 14 hours later at 6:00 am July 2 local time. The flighht was smooth. We flew China Southern Airline this time and a nice surprise is that they offered a little gift bag with toiletries. 

Wuhan Airport

In Wuhan airport, the borader entry was quick and there was no lines.  

It was 6am, most shops were closed. We walked around and found a noodle place. The food was good. 

I tried to buy a SIM card, but it turned out that there is no SIM card vendor in this aiport. One had to take Didi to some shop 20 minutes outside of the airport. I decided not to do that. 

The good part is that the WiFi in the airport can be accessed by providing a scan of passport, so we were able to play with our phones while waiting 6 hours for our next flight. 

Flight 2

We left Wuhan at 11:40am and arrived Kunming at 2pm. For such a short flight, they provided lunch, so it was nice.  

Kunming Airport

We got our check-in luggage pretty quick. Claire decided to wait for me while I went to buy SIM card. Kunming airport WiFi requires a Chinese phone number for verification so we could not use it.

I found a store by 中国联通 selling China Union SIM card. The card is 259 RMB for 30 days with some insane amount of data like 80GB. It will be automatically canceled in a month so I do not need to cancel it in person. 

After the card was installed, I found that my phone could not receive verification codes. We ended up spending two hours on this, switching cards, restarting apps and phone, playing with phone settings, reinstalling updating apps. It was never fixed. Since I really just need the verification codes for the ride-share app Didi to work, we found a way to get around it: I installed a Chinese version of Didi (use 应用宝to download 滴滴), this version automatically detected the cell phone number without verification codes. I don't like the buggy SIM card from 中国联通, but the person was super friendly and patient.  

I also tried to buy a card for Claire, but was told that SIM cards can only be sold with an adult's passport as verification, and only one SIM card per passport. The person told me that I could try to use my passport to buy another SIM card with a different company such as 中国电信 or 中国移动, since companies do not talk to each other.  

Bus to Mile

After spending 2 hours with the whole SIM card ordeal, I found Claire and we walked outside of the airport to the bus station. Claire said that she waited for so long that she took a nap. She did not complain much though. We got to the bus station at 4:15pm, bought two 5pm tickest for Mile. During the wait time, Claire tried the message chair there.

The van departed at 5pm and took a 2-hour drive to Mile. I used Didi to get a ride to the hotel.

Hotel

Check-in to our hotel was smooth and we went to our room. We ordered some noodle delivered using the app Meituan. Both of us had lots of leftovers. We went to sleep after such an exhausting long day.

Our hotel is 弥勒湖泉酒店,  which was the top hotel in town. It was located in a park with lots of lakes and trees. It has many hot springs - guests have unlimited access to 30 hot spring pools. We did encounter a couple of minor issues though: The in-room fridge was not connected to power, so I had to call to get someone to plug it in to a very hard to reach outlet. The walls are thin and one night I had a group of neighbors talking at 1am.

Spending

• One-way flight from SFO to Kunming with China Southern Airlines purchased on Expedia: 1313.2 USD
• Meal for two at Wuhan airport: 106 RMB
• One SIM card from 中国联通 bought at Kunming aiport: 259 RMB
• Two bus tickets from Kunming airport to Mile: 172 RMB
• Massage chair usage for 20 minutes at the bus station: 29.90 RMB
• Didi ride in Mile from bus stop to hotel: 6.9 RMB
• Delivery dinner for two: 48.07 RMB
• Hotel: 弥勒湖泉酒店, 7/2-7/4, 2 nights for a double-bed room in building E: 1216 RMB