What to See in Kunming - Top Sights and Attractions

Lake in China. Green Lake Park, or Cui Hu Park, is an urban park in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China. It was established in the 20th century on the west side of the Wuhua Mountain and is sometimes described as a "Jade in Kunming".

The park consists, in effect, of a group of 4 small sub-lakes linked by bridges in the traditional style. The lake was originally a water reservoir for the city.

Green Lake is ringed by a street, and along the edge of that are restaurants and tea houses, shops, and hotels, including the upscale Green Lake Hotel and Grand Park Hotel.

Green Lake Park was visited during The Amazing Race 18 when the park was featured as the "Pit Stop" of the 5th leg.

The park is just below the main gate to Yunnan University. The most famous building on the lake is Jiang Wu Tang, a tourist attraction.^[1]

The Kunming Natural History Museum of Zoology is located on the campus of Kunming Institute of Zoology, Jiaochang East Road, Kunming, Yunnan, China. The museum is an important project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Knowledge Innovation Program, and a joint project of the academy and Yunnan Provincial Government.

The Kunming Natural History Museum of Zoology presents the diversity of fauna, past and present, of Southwest China. It started earth construction in 2000 and opened to the public since November 2006. Various specimens collected by several generations of scientists in Kunming Institute of Zoology are fundamental basis for the establishment of the museum.

A trio of dino-skeletons dominate the prehistoric exhibit on the first floor. These plant-eaters stomped around Yunnan about 200 million years ago. Though the biggest of the three is a cast, the smaller ones are genuine bones, exhumed from Yunnan's Lufeng Basin in the 1980s. Though the prehistoric exhibit is the most impressive, there are plenty of animals to be seen on all of the museum's three floors. An array of taxidermied mammals and birds lines the display cases of the second floor. Up another flight of stairs reveals a "Rainforest Adventure," which walks visitors along a path through synthetic trees, bird calls and a darkened cave. There are rigid fish and snakes entombed in formaldehyde jars.

Because of the museum's affiliation with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it is well positioned as both a tourist attraction and a home to future zoological scholarship. Most of the visitors come with a scientific background.^[2]

National park in Kunming, China. Daguan Park is a lakeside park located in the southwestern suburb of Kunming, Yunnan, China. Today many locals come to sit, drink tea, fly kites, and go boating. Among shady walks and pools, Daguan's focal point is Daguan Ge, a square, three-storeyed pavilion built to better the Kangxi Emperor's enjoyment of the distant Western Hills and now a storehouse of calligraphy extolling the area's charms. The most famous poem here is a 118-character verse, carved into the gateposts by the Qing dynasty scholar Sun Ran, reputed to be the longest set of rhyming couplets in China. The park is set on Daguan Stream, which flows south into Lake Dian, and there are frequent hour-long cruises down the waterway, lined with willows, to points along Lake Dian's northern shore. Lake Dian, also known as the Kunming Lake, is the largest lake on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. At Longmen of the Western Hills, there is a panoramic view of the lake.^[5]

Yunnan Military Academy was a military academy based in Yunnan, during the late Qing dynasty and early Republic of China. Along with Huangpu Military Academy and Baoding Military Academy, Yunnan Military Academy was one of the “three major strategist cradles in modern China”.

The academy was founded in 1909 in Kunming, capital of Yunnan province and ceased operating in 1935 because of the demands of the Second Sino-Japanese War. It enrolled 22 classes of students during its 26 years and in total educated more than 9000 trainees.

Many famous military leaders graduated from Yunnan Military Academy, including Zhu De, who taught at the Academy after his graduation in July 1911 and whose residence is now a museum in an area across Green Lake park from the academy. Other leaders included Ye Jianying, Marshall of the People's Liberation Army and Zhou Baozhong, a commander of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army and after the Chinese Civil War, Vice chairman of Yunnan People's Government. All of these leaders played important roles during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Three stages:

First period: 1909-1911, graduating classes 1-3. The school was established by Qing government.

Second period: 1912-1928, classes 4-19. During 1918-1920 a branch campus was established in Shaozhou (now is called Shaoguan city) in Guangdong province.

Third period: 1929-1935, classes 20-22. The Academy received approval from the Nanjing National Government and continued for six years.^[6]

Multi-purpose stadium in Kunming, China. The Tuodong Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Kunming, China. The stadium is located at 99 Dongfeng East Road and it opened in 1958. It is currently used mostly for football matches. The stadium holds 35,000 people. Tuodong Sports Center is located in downtown center of Kunming City at the elevation of 1,891m and occupying 5.4 ha.

Tuodong Sports Centre is one of the major sports centers in Yunnan province and Kunming City for physical training and various types of races and contests. The stadium is equipped with glass fiber-reinforced plastic chairs that can accommodate 35,000 people. The football field in the center is of international standard at 105 x 68 m and surrounded by 8 plastic tracks. A great many international sports events and matches of large scales have been conducted in the center.

Other facilities in Tuodong Sports Center include swimming pools, well-equipped gymnasium, Ping-Pong rooms, etc. All are compliant to relevant international standards, and ideal for training and matches for basketball, volleyball, judo, fencing and martial arts.^[8]