The plant sculptor

Sometimes living in Kunming doesn't feel like living in China at all--my hotel is in the expat area, so I have granola and coffee for breakfast, pizza (made by a real live Italian) for dinner, even the occasional chai tea or glass of wine. And since at the moment I'm spending all my waking hours at the provincial library frantically retyping information onto my computer (seriously, what kind of library will not allow patrons to use the copy machine?) I've been leading a pretty solitary existence--wake up, walk to the library, walk home at the end of the day, attempt to avoid the torrential rain that is beating down on Kunming. Nonetheless, Kunming seems like a pretty friendly place, and in the past few days I've had a few nice chance encounters with creative strangers.

I was walking around doing some errands tonight and came across this guy sitting by himself on a busy street. The photos didn't turn out great, but the snakes and flowers he was making out of some sort of leaves were amazing (as was his hat).