Sounds like a fun trip! I think you'll especially like Lijiang. There are lots of traditional style Chinese houses there, as well as the Naxi minority people. A lot of the Naxi women wear traditional clothing, which makes for interesting pictures. It's worth renting a bike if you can, as the countryside around there is beautiful. There are lots of rice terraces, green fields and such. There's also a snow covered mountain there, which frames in nice with the green fields below and blue sky above.
Xianglalila is also an interesting place to visit. There's a really large Tibetan Buddhist monastery there. They typically request that you don't take photos inside certain parts of the structure, but all around it is interesting life to photograph.
Kunming itself is a typical Chinese city... The pollution in the cities there tends to give an ugly white sky, which doesn't register well to cameras. That said, you might catch a blue sky day. In any case, make your way down to Green Lake early in the morning if you would like to catch some good shots of people exercising... Tai Chi and such. There is a flower village outside of Kunming, though I doubt you'll have time to get out there on the schedule you mentioned.
If you don't have sufficient portable storage space to back up your images, you might consider going to a photo store. Many of them in China have computers these days. If you had a few extra CD's or DVD's you could probably back up your images for a nominal fee. In Kunming the best camera stores are around Workers Park in the downtown area.
Rick
