Living It Up in Luoping

Lin prepared us for the worst travel condition and where possible, she booked us into the best accomodation available. :) Though one can choose to stay in local B&B, we figured it's better for us to stay in Zhong Yuan Hotel (中源酒店). Zhong Yuan Hotel's the best in Luoping with hot shower, electricity & rather comfy beds. This is pretty important as we need good rest to enjoy our Yunnan exploration. ;) What more can we ask for? :)

Lin booked two suites. We should have booked one suite & a normal room as most of the time Ann & Tina are in our suite.

The hotel provided complimentary breakfast. :) It's simple buffet style. Noting too over like hotels in major cities.

A snapshot of what we tried:

Meat & veg porridge as well as noodle in clear broth. Lin couldn't touch the noodles as she found them stinky??? Tina & I tried and all I could say it's mmmmmmmm... to the amusement of Tina & Lin of course! :))) I finished the whole bowl. ;)

I'm not into the meat dumplings & plain buns though. We found them a little soggy. The soya bean milk was unsweeten. :(

There're many Chinese reviews about dining in Luoping. Most say "只求吃包，不求吃好”， which means only expect to fill your tummies, but do not expect good food. Unfortunately, we wanna fill our tummies and we wanna good food. Solution? We packed our mini rice cooker, travel cooker & a carton of food...;)

 We cooked our own dinner in the hotel for the two nites we were there. :)

The first nite: Kimchi noodles with luncheon meat - perfect for a chilly nite. ;)

The second nite: Lobster bisque & pineapple fried rice

We also brought along desserts & snacks...

 







































Satisfied? You bet! :)

Details of Zhong Yuan Hotel:
North Section of Jiulong Avenue
Luoxiong Town
Luoping County 655800
China
Reservation Hotline: 0874 8215 666
Email: 107695160@qq
Suite: RMB 980 per suite

Day 1: Embarking on a Yunnan Roadtrip

All it took was just a sighting of some canola flowers (油菜花) by the roadside while we were driving to Fuchun Resort Hangzhou last year to get us all hyped up to plan for a trip to Luoping (罗平), Yunnan this March! Luoping is one of China's primary canola production bases. After 4 months of planning by Lin, we're finally embarking on our journey to Yunnan.

Our route:
Singapore > Kunming > Luoping > Kunming > Dali > Lijiang > Kunming > Singapore

Silk Air flies 3 times a week from Singapore to Kunming. :)

We did breafast on board. :)

The flight journey is approximately 4 hours. Not too bad eh? :) We tried our very best to travel light...

Each of us has a role for this roadtrip. ;)
Lin - Overall In-charge/Planner
Ann - Financial Controller
Tina - Fire & Safety officer cum pharmacist
Li - Archivist

We headed straight to Walmart to stock up on water for our Yunnan roadtrip. :) Oh and we bought a bottle of air freshener for the chartered car. Lin made the driver, Wang Gao Gui (王高贵）clean the car again as it wasn't up to our cleaniness standard. *.* Mr Wang did try his best to meet our requirement! :)

















Ready to set off to Luoping! :D

KFC lunch in the car...

Here's a look at what we sighted on our drive to Luoping. :)

The journey took longer than expected as the driver drove into a small road due to some road blocks on the highway. *.* The next couple of hours was a bumpy one! :))) Pretty fun nonetheless as we got to see stuff we would otherwise have not. Thank goodness we didn't have a full bladder! :D

Mr Wang was apologetic for making us go through the arduous journey and was very relieved when he finally got us onto the highway again! :)))

We were happy to be back on track! :D

I've lost count on the numbers of tunnels we went through...

We passed through a few toll gates too.

We know we were reaching Luoping when we spotted yellow patches. :)

And finally the "Welcome to Luoping" banner. :D The time was around 6.30-7.00pm.

Woo...don't you love the bright hues of Luoping? :)

After 8 -10 hours of travelling, we could only cook ourselves dinner and have an early nite! We gotta wake up real early tomorrow to catch the sunrise! :) Nite!

Details of Mr Wang Gao Gui:

A Bowl of Ramen Please

There are times when all we want is a simple bowl of ramen in chicken broth. Nothing fanciful. Marutama Ra-men seems the obvious choice for our Sat dinner. :)

So here we have it. Qq ramen with pork slice, ajitama & lots of scallions in chicken broth. :)

And the side? Gyozas. :)

Details of Marutama Ra-men:
#02-01/02 Liang Court Shopping Centre
177 River Valley Road
Singapore 179030
T: +65 6837 2480