28 April 2018
Massive Renewal
The amazing architecture of Chongqing
No, not a massive renewal in my health, a massive renewal in the entire tip of the main part of Chongqing where the Yangtze and Jialing rivers meet.
My health is still poor, but not declining, situation stable, still alive.
Last time I was in Chongqing, the point was a barren place for poor people to sell fruit and to line up for cruise ships departing to the three gorges dam sightseeing area. Currently the cruise ships and poor people are still there, but rising from the rubbish is a new enormous development of giant apartment buildings and associated commerce / parks that will eventually form 2 concentric semi circles linked by sky decks similar to Singapores Marina bay sands only much higher.
I did what I could to photograph this but you cannot really get far enough away to take a proper photo, plus many of the towers are not yet started or half built.
Because of this construction, numerous roads are gone, they are still marked on maps, but they just do not exist anymore. This part of the city was already impossible to navigate and today I ended up doubling back many times, followed at the end by a huge retreat all the way back around the water. You literally do follow roads through building to get places, and a big tunnel that empties out into the river.
Despite my cold, I somehow managed to walk 20k steps before lunch time exploring just a small part of this enormous city.
Here we have a scene repeated at thousands of places across the city, typical Chongqing breakfast. You go to a noodle cart, they add various pastes and spices to a bowl, pour in boiling water from a kettle, stir it a bit, boil some fresh noodles, throw that in, then add spoonfuls of things on top such as chopped nuts, more chilli, sliced shallots, dried onions, dried mushrooms, pickled cabbage etc.
I first tried to approach the new development from this side, I could not get any closer, first retreat of the morning.
You have to climb lots of steep staircases in Chongqing. The bamboo pole guys send packages of anything you can imagine down the stairs by stuffing them in canvas bags and flinging it down the rollers. I managed to capture a bag on its way down, the guys running the show waited for me to be ready before they let it go, I gave them the thumbs up after taking the photo, they seemed happy.
As we will now see, this whole part of the city is undergoing a dramatic renewal, this part is new, oh and its 19 levels of mall. Dont be suprised if you walk in on level 5 and out on level -3 and yet are somehow still at street level. Very confusing, everything is built on the side of a cliff.
Immediately over the road from the new mall is this. With the construction going on, it seems to be the main traffic thoroughfare at the moment.
Inside is a very claustrophobic wholesale clothes market. People still go here to buy things though, no change rooms, no matter, just get undressed in full view of everyone.
I thought I was at street level, I entered from a street, I had gone down a few flights of stairs, but I am about 8 levels up. This market continues through many adjoining buildings without you realising.
I made it back down to a street level. Shirtless men dragging stuff around the place are everywhere here.
Eventually I found the river again and was able to get my bearings, well it was a river, not the same river.
Heres a bit more of that development, shot from river level. There will be another deck on the roof with a big park once all the towers are built, and going a full 180 degrees.
To get out to the cruise ships bobbing up and down in the Yangtze, you must walk out over the floating jetty. I tried to but you need a ticket to pass the security on each one. That red bridge in the background, thats a different huge bridge to the one I was on last night, this is a different river.
A bit more of a different part of the city. Grey clouds this morning, they started to clear up by lunch time and it got hot again. That is yet another different huge bridge.
I walked all the way around the point at water level hoping to find a way back to the area where my hotel is. No, not possible. That red bridge IS THE SAME red bridge as yesterday. So many red bridges. Alas I must now retrace my steps.
Which meant I could find another different red bridge. No, its the same one from earlier today, but not the same one as yesterday, but the same one as a bit later today just before this photo. Very simple layout. Not confusing. This one also has a subway running through it on the lower deck.
Before all the bridges, there used to be lots of cable cars crossing the rivers here. Now I think this is the only one left. People still like it because it goes into the middle of the city and much higher up the river banks than walking over the bridges will get you. I have seen pictures of the old terrifying ones that look more like rusty mine carts, apparently they fell quite often!
Across the river are two by twin towers, the gold and the black. I am not sure who was first, I remember seeing the gold ones last time I was here from a bus window, but not the black ones. The gold is a little less gold than I remember, might be the grey sky today, or the gold might be wearing off already.
Vertigo inducing shot of the cable car passing some low rent apartments.
I didnt quite have to retrace my steps the whole way, I found a tunnel to go through. It has a footpath despite me standing in the middle of the road to take this photo. No cars were really using it because its now a dead end into the construction zone.
The other end of the tunnel let out into the tourist zone built on the cliff face as seen yesterday. These are actually dug back into the cliffs, they are called the Hongya caves. It is so popular they have to limit the number of people on site at any one time, although it was still morning so not too busy yet.
It is an 11 level structure attached to a cave, made of actual lacquered wood, and going quite a distance back under the cliff. Seems dangerous!
Cave garden.
Another view of the start of the interesting tourist amusement park and restaurant zone.
Some parts inside were quite deserted, this floor sells plastic junk.
There are lots of ways to ascend, but it can be a maddening process of hitting a dead end, descending 3 levels, finding another staircase, repeat. If it did catch on fire, I would be pushing women and children to be the first to bound out, the whole things a trap!