Saturday, Will wanted to go out with us four TAs, and we headed out around 1:30 pm after a morning of relaxing. He showed us how to take the public bus down to the station. I thought it was going to be 2 quai, but it turned out it was only 1.8 quai, and the others used their metro cards (the same one as for the subway) and saved the .2 quai. All in all, my first time on the public bus (the other bus was the campus bus) wasn't bad at all. Not too crowded, and I had a good discussion with Will about how quickly the country has been changing, even in the less than a year since he was last there. There was a curious little girl watching our conversation who I waved at as well.
Getting there quickly, we headed upstairs. However, we found out that we had 6 minutes until the next subway (they run every 9 minutes) and Will insisted on showing us the bakery downstairs. The only thing was that we had to go back out of the turnstiles, which would potentially take money off of our card. Will tried to ask the police officers if we could go through, but they refused. Eventually Nick decided to go through, finding out it took no money off his card. No one else had money taken off their card either....except for me. For some reason, it took 1.8 quai off my card. Shrugging it off, we headed to the bakery, and I got a small loaf of almond coconut bread which was sweet and satisfying .
The train ride to Jiaochangkou took about an hour, which was a relatively long hour because although we got on at the first stop, everyone rushed to get a seat, and us 4 TAs were left standing.
Iconic sign in the subway station
Heading out, we went towards the main shopping area, but on the way, Nick and Dom stopped to get coffee at a British coffee chain, and I saw the neatest staircase made out of wood and metal that I had to get a picture of.
Apparently, this is a very popular concert venue, but it's closed for the holiday
As we continued, we came across this thing called cheese tea. My curiosity was piqued, so with the help of Will, I ordered it. It had a type of foam on top, which struck me as weird at first, but Jessica described it more aptly as a type of meringue. As we walked, it melted into the tea, giving it a more sweet flavor. They gave me a coupon, so I might go back again.
We kept walking enjoying a lot of the decorations for the New Year, and even seeing the machine below (which we believe is a condom vending machine....)
Eventually we got into the center of the city, which was reminiscient of Times Square (especially later with all the lights). Will told us the clock tower in the center was the most famous spot in Chong Qing, so we took several pictures by it. We noticed that the clock itself said Rolex....which was an appropriate advertisement for the Rolex store that was pretty close. We went in to indulge our sense of whimsy (although we couldn't afford anything there) and then went into the Omega store with the same intent.
We wandered around some more, and then made our way toward the historic district with Will, making a couple pit stops at some interesting stores to window shop, as well as admiring the architectural marvels below.
Going back the way we came, we found Shibati Road, which was the historic part of Chong Qing. It had housing from the older days of China, and it is a popular tourist stop. It was only one hill with a series of steps and crumbling, yet beautiful houses on both sides. To my dismay, Will said that the government was going to demolish the houses next year for more apartment complexes. So I was happy that I got to see it before they tore it down.
At the bottom of the hill, we were deciding where to go for dinner, either hotpot or barbecue. Barbecue won out (and Will offered to pay, which was great). We tried to get on the bus over to the barbecue place, but we accidentally went the wrong way. So to rectify the mistake, we got into a taxi, which we had to pay extra for them to take all five of us. (In fact the first two drivers left us...).
Getting to the relatively obscure part of Chong Qing, we saw the skewers upon skewers of meat and vegetables. You get to choose which types of meats, vegetables, and eggs you want and they cook it with spices. The lady kept trying to get us to get more and more skewers, and Will just told us to tell her to stop. Jessica and I got a separate bowl of not quite so spicy stuff, and we sat down to wait for it to cook.
The guys got beer, Jessica got herbal tea (which was supposed to take the sting off the spice) and I got coconut milk, which was really good. The not-quite-as-spicy stuff came out first, and we dug in. It was mostly sesame seed based spices, and we enjoyed it a lot, considering it was more meat than most places had. They also brought out bread with it after they brought out the more spicy stuff (which was still pretty good, but not something I could eat a whole meal of without regretting it later).
Will went to a stand a couple blocks down and brought back 2 of the desserts below for us to share. It was a sort of gelatin in a fermented sugar sauce with brown sugar on top. It was pretty good, but not something I could eat a lot of, so Will and Dom ate most of mine and Jessica's.
After that, we looked around at some of the shops nearby, since Nick had seen a leather jacket for only 180 quai. I stopped into a shop, and found some
Then we headed down to Jiefangbai, the riverbanks of the Jialing and the Yangtze River, and the home of....you guessed it, more shopping! So we walked around, taking lots of pictures of the river, and getting a few souvenirs for our loved ones. One really neat thing that they were selling were the super powerful laser pointers that went up thousands of meters, so I couldn't resist getting one for myself.
We wandered around some more, and the guys decided to go get a round of Guinness, so Jessica and I decided to go walk around on our own. We headed down several flights of stairs, and at the bottom, saw a small handmade clay figurine shop. There were several cute ones, including Totoro, the iconic character from Spirited Away, a bunch of Disney characters, and two Minions that were at odds with each other (one dressed as Hitler...with the Nazi symbol and everything, and one dressed as Captain America.) We both got a few figurines and continued to walk around.
After this, Jessica and I headed to a waterfall trail that was inside the shopping center, and we were almost immediately stopped by two Chinese guys (in their thirties, probably) who started fangirling over just the sight of us. They acted like we were best friends, and asked for pictures. Jessica and I obliged, somewhat creeped out, but....oh well, what could we do? We made their day by doing it.
Walking a bit further down, we had a similar experience with two girls, except they took a lot more pictures and our patience was wearing more and more thin. Another girl said "Hello", and when I replied, busted out into laughter, along with her friends.
A bit frustrated, we took some pictures near the waterfall, and headed back upstairs.
As I walked up to the boys, I exclaimed "We need a drink", which they thought we were serious about....but brushing jokes aside, we told them what had happened, and we started to head back to the subway station.
On our way there, there was another guy who asked for a picture, at which I muttered "Not again". (If you can't tell, I'm not the most patient person with these sorts of things....) He took a picture with Nick and Dom and then one with Jessica and I, with which he was too touchy feely, but it turned out he was also touchy feely with Nick, so that lessened the creepiness factor a bit.
We called it a night and headed home on the subway, exhausted. I skyped a friend for a bit after getting home, and headed to sleep soon after.
-Zoe
Have a great day! Love y'all. Mom
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