Stone Forest
Driving 85 km from Kunming, we reached the town of Shilin. (Shilin means ‘stone forest’) This is home to the Sani ethnic minority people. Here, the Stone Forest sits on 350 sq. km area. The GPS location 24 49′ 27.95″ N 103 19’24.41 E will put you at the entrance.
My friend Rose was my guide through this amazing place. It took us about 4 hours to explore about half of this Unesco World Heritage site. It is also considered the first natural wonder of the world, being formed over 270 million years ago.
Walking through these giant stone karsks is a sensation for both your eyes and ears. The rock itself is an extremely hard stone. It feels like steel. Some of the stones make a musical sound when struck, while others make no sound at all. With our trusty map in hand, we worked our way through to the various points of interest along the way. The typical Yunnan weather of clear blue skies and sunshine only added to the unique lighting environment inside the stone forest.
I would consider this a must see stop during your tour of China. The park area has it’s touristy feel to it, but not to the extreme. It is easy to find yourself along exploring this unique forest of stone. After leaving the park and returning to Kunming, we stopped in Yi Yang and ate the best Peking Duck ever. I always stop in there when I am going in this direction from Kunming.
Live Light Using These 5 Simple Steps to Organizing Clutter
Long before people came to the Americas and took over the land the Indians lived in beautiful harmony with the land. They “lived light on the land”. Many tribes traveled from place to place depending on the food sources, weather and other conditions. They traveled with their homes and all of their earthly belongings. They respected the earth and had only what they could use.
I can safely say as a professional organizer that the majority of us “live heavy on the land”. We have homes we chuck full of things. Often these are things that have no meaning for us or things we once loved but no longer care about. Or we have collected too many things for the space we have and the clutter becomes overwhelming often causing anxiety and depression. Then we are concerned about organizing clutter that we have created and allowed to live with us. This can hold us back from doing things we really want to be doing. We start feeling stuck and burdened with things that once brought us joy because we have too much stuff—and it is just stuff.
If you would like to start “living light” here are five tried and true steps to organizing clutter:
1. Go room by room and decide what is working for you and what isn’t working for you. Evaluate if you use the item, if you like it, if someone else would enjoy it more, if it is just a dust collector. If it doesn’t light you up and you don’t enjoy it, it is time to let go.