New Volin

I know it is rather late in the trip for me to be getting a violin, but I wanted to get a violin that I would be comfortable traveling with. I don't want to take my Grandmother's as it would be devastating to have it stolen. I started looking to see if I could find a used violin back home but I couldn't find anything which was of a good quality for the value I wanted to spend.

Today, Matthew and I had originally planed on going to the Stone Forest but all the meat from last night's dinner upset Matthew's stomach and made mine grumble, so we decided to stay in Kunming and got tomorrow. In the afternoon when Matthew was feeling better we went out to the street with all of the musical instruments. Matthew came along so that I would not buy the first violin that I saw. At the first shop I asked if they spoke English and they kind of laughed at me. I went in anyway and started looking at the violins, there were some that were really nice and when I asked how much they were they said 20,000 quai. That is a lot even in dollars. My goal was to find a nice violin for under 1,500 quai. The owner then showed me the cheapest violin they had which was 700 quai. I played it a little but I didn't like it. The violin was too heavy and the sound was not what I was looking for. I also really wanted one that had a maple back. I had Jinpeng write it down for me so I could ask about that and when I showed the question he said no and got out the next violin which was 1,600 quai more than I wanted to spend. I played it and it was much lighter and the sound was better. I didn't know the maker of the violin I can't say that I know more than maybe three and they are German. The back of the violin was maple and very nice.

We couldn't find the word case but Matthew asked about a box and they got out a case and bow, and told us 1,200 quai. At which point I was thinking that I didn't want to pay that much for a case and bow plus the 1,600 for the violin. But that was what he was saying the violin, bow, case, and shoulder rest would cost. There were two violins at this price and I played both of them liking the second one more. They seemed about the same but I think the second was a little fuller than the first. Also the pattern in the wood was nicer. So Matthew who was supposed to keep me from buying the first violin told me to buy it. So much for looking more. However, I am happy with it. Now I just have to play some more. When we got back we looked it up and turns out that I got the violin for about 400 dollars less than I would pay for it in the US. Which makes me even happier.

After we got the violin we went and picked up my pants at the taylor's. Because of the time when we left the violin shop all of the buses were packed with people and we couldn't get on. It took us over an hour to get there and we could have probably walked faster. This pair of pants were longer and I think will be better for me. After getting the pants we went to get a bit to eat at the Hump Hostel. A slightly tipsy man wanted me to play him the fiddle. I think he would have been sorry in my choice of music. It isn't really something you would play in a bar. We walked through the back allies one last time to look at the jewelery and headed back to the apartment.