Agenda: Self guided walking tour of city/meander. 1949 cultural show this evening
Very overcast/misty today with risk of thundery showers. Oh well
Prices: food very cheap. Full meals 20-30Yuan (£3) yesterday’s feast 138 Yuan (£14) for two. Only fruit is relatively expensive, closer to UK prices for apple and oranges
Taxi (Didi) very cheap today 11Yuan (£1.20) for 15 min drive
“Western” goods nearly full price?
No tips
Breakfast today very carb heavy, rice/noodles/cakes. Managed to get 2fried eggs!
Urban Chongqing = 19million twice size of London though municipality is 32 million and the size of Austria!
Ying decided to meld all the Chongqing walking tours into one self made one
First stop Eling Park. We got Didi to Eling Park and walked up to the summit and 7 storey pagoda. Views were nice but everything shrouded in cloud/mist
The popular highlight of Chongqing is the monorail through a tower block. We got a few shots but were a bit underwhelmed til we realised the view was better from the other side (too late!)
We stopped for a yoghurt-Cow I had heard of, very nice except for brain freeze. People here seem to love yoghurt, several outlets/brands. This one was peach yoghurt with red rice
Went down to Hongyadong to look at the stilted buildings by by the Jialing River
Next up lunch. Wandered into a food court and picked their chicken special. A “medium” hot and spicy chicken
This evening off to see Chongqing 1949 Show
The plot was about the birth of the Communist Party, hardly inspiring… However the staging was fantastic, though difficult to capture
A large circular custom auditorium with a tilted stage that rotated, completely. In fact there were 4 concentric circles that rotated 360 independently and then (obviously) the front two sections of the audience also rotated 360 independently opposite directions
Translation earpieces didn’t work so I just watched like opera. It was a somewhat confusing really huge spectacular
The two taxi journeys to and from, confirmed my thoughts on driving. The first drove like a maniac, the second slower but needed a gyroscope
I reckon that in India there are no (written) rules, and it’s chaos. Here there are rules and it looks like any other big city but it’s still chaos. Maybe lane discipline?, their reflexes are way quicker than mine?, road layout is quirky, interleaving? Didi taxis stop anywhere and need swerving around?, Also they are EVs and have whiplash acceleration, combined with an on/off accelerator pedal. Oh and someone was driving down a highway the wrong way…