The great loop of China - April 2018 - Page 5

The main muslim food street, surprisingly many things were open quite early. You have to get up pretty early in Xian to not be able to buy parts of a sheep on a stick.

Most of the people living here were airing their captive birds in the sun.

I wonder if these sticks will be sitting here all day in the sun, adding some flavour from the passing smokers and street sweeping machines?
Notice they use fresh sticks, not the machine prepared skewers you would normally expect.

I am really happy with this photo, great light, really captures the street action. All the scooters are electric, theres no such thing as a petrol scooter anymore.

The local recycling man is probably thrilled he found a washing machine or whatever that thing is to collect.

Just one of about 50 butcher shops airing their delicious meats.

Now I start my amble around a quarter of the wall, here is the moat. The moat was nice and did not smell at all. Many people were enjoying the moat.

I once again defeated everyone at ping pong. I am still undefeated.

To celebrate my undoubted ping pong superiority, a new dance has been created in my honour.
Actually its the same dance every grandma group does. I think I know it well now through my detailed and ongoing study of the dancing habits of Chinese citizens. I am writing a book.

Here is the outside of the Xian North station, you can get here on the subway.

I love these photos, whichever station I go to, I look forward to taking one.

Here is the temporary bus departure area at Chongqing west station. The bus staff kept asking me if I was taking the bus because I had lost my money. No, I take the bus for the adventure! And an adventure it was, Chongqing is the mountain city and roads go every which way, under over and through buildings and mountains, in the dark, through much more vibrant streets than anywhere else in China. Its the 30 million people wild west!

Here is my hotel, its a serviced apartment with a full kitchen and washer dryer. I stayed here last time I visited Chongqing, it has an awesome view of a fully animated building that is more than 100 levels high. There are a number of super talls over 100 floors in Chongqing.

Bonus view of hotel room.

After eating crap from the train station yesterday and arriving into Chongqing too late to have a real dinner, I was very relieved to find out my room rate includes the full buffet breakfast. Time to load up on vegetables to prevent scurvy for a few more days. I really did feel healthier after eating this.

Chongqing is all about contrasts. The subway goes most places, and often you have to ascend an alarming number of escalators and or stairs to reach the surface, then when you pop out at the entrance to the tourist shopping street, you are at a rubbish dump. You then walk roughly through the middle of this in the traffic with about 9 million other people to reach the spotless entrance to an ancient street filled with holographic representations of old things.

Well, actually before you get to the real part of Ciqikou you first go through this fake version of it, in case any tourists are tricked into thinking this is all there is to see.

Due to the steep streets, steps, alleyways etc which I already discussed above, nearly everything in Chongqing is still delivered by people with a bamboo pole over their shoulders. These guys are delivering cooking oil / gutter oil.

Woman posing with sign pointing to public toilet. I remember when I last came here I could not find a public toilet, now there are lots of new ones.

And now we enter the start of the street, not too busy yet at this stage.

As I already said, Chongqing is all about the chili / chilli / chile. Seriously the internet debates how to spell this more than any other word. There is the one or two L's debate and then the i or the e debate, and even within the USA they argue about it, normally they settle on the one best way to spell things.

Getting busier now. My camera does a really good job at photos like this I think.

I bought some of this delicious snack. They mix sesame seeds, oil and Sichuan peppercorns together, stuff them into chillis, slice them up and fry them. It wasnt too spicy but the locals watching me buy some were laughing at me so I scoffed a handful and told them it was baby food, where is the man food? Laughter erupted!

Lots of people for a working day! Lots more Chinese flags around these days.

This guy puts on a song and dance show as he beats the fresh liquid noodles through the molecular sieve.

It is a very nice street, everyone thinks so.

As I mentioned above, you used to be able to keep going down to the water, you cannot anymore. I think part of the river was dammed up while a huge bridge was being built when I was last here, uncovering an ancient culture, a million dead pigs (that actually happened in Chongqing, also the river turned bright red once and no one knows why) and a dune buggy track.

Here is the view across the river, so murky! Would you like to eat some of the fish those guys catch?

The street back to the station was also nice, tree lined. I was grateful for trees as its damn hot and I had not applied sunscreen.

Time for my second snack, candied strawberries on a stick. The candying process ensure as much dust / dead insects / phlegm as possible gets glued to the berries.

On the way back from ancient street I got off the subway at one of Chongqings many city centres, this one is Shapingba, if memory serves its the least shiny of the 4 city centres. Last time I was here it was very dirty, now it is spotless.

Memorial to the man carrying the chillis who accidentally fell into a pot full of them and died from chilli overdose.

Have a bit more Shapingba.

It hasnt all be made nice just yet, we now descend into the underground.

Which was suitably grungy. Grimey? I hate both those words. It was a world of nail boutiques, beauty spas, clothing shops, and women asleep sitting on up turned buckets who havent had a customer this century.

The food court however had lots of really nice updated options, I skipped those and headed to the bing bar! Gimme a bing damnit.

I opted for vegetarian, ordering in Chinese, and it was delicious. Different to bing boy in Australia, they fold it into a square and chop it in half, makes it much easier to eat. Best $1.50 I ever spent.

And then while buying water from the enormous Carrefour supermarket next to my hotel, I spotted a chilli snickers. How can I not try that? Snickers is by far the main chocolate variety in China, as it has been since I first came here. The chilli version seems to be a local variation for Chongqing. It needed a lot more chilli.

This is the view from my hotel window. You can open one small window in the corner but its not the best angle, so this one was taken through glass. I have been hanging an epic moon for hours.

When last I was here, this bridge was under construction, I stood and pondered how amazingly large it was, and how far down it was. Now I can do that again, gawking at the finished bridge. The subway runs along the hidden lower deck. Its a train sandwich.

Amazingly, you can walk across the bridge, and theres no blocking screen! Happy times.

Part way along looking back at the main part of the city, the previous photo is not the main part of the city, its just the suburbs.

This is what 30 million people looks like. Except the view in the other direction behind me is also similar.

Another wider view of the central business district. I will have to go back out over the bridge one night when its dark.

Who photographs the photographers? I photograph the photographers.

This is looking back down a pedestrian street towards my hotel. The big building on the left is fully animated at night, and just outside my hotel window.

Chongqing has lots and lots of street food. Too much, the places were not busy enough for a friday night.

This is a new one to me, a fresh flower vending machine. It is quite common to see florists still open at midnight across China for no known good reason. I guess the owner of this florist was tired of that concept and invented a new one.

If you want something a bit different, theres a salad bar surrounded by boiling cauldrons of chilli in the street.

When you buy things on sticks, you first roll them in chilli powder, or paint more on with a provided house paint brush, then shove them in a bucket. Generally they are sprayed with oil to ensure enough chilli powder sticks on.

For my dinner, I had dumplings in extra spicy oil/soup. Very invigorating.

However because my dinner was unhealthy, I had to balance that out with some really really excellent fruit salad, which cost more than my dinner. This being China, tomato is fruit salad.

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!

Tonight I had to line up to get into the subway. Saturday night is the busiest time for public transport in China, absolutely everyone goes out and does things in the street. The concept of staying home and watching tv, or inviting friends over is non existent. It was quite the push to get on. On my way back later in the evening, I actually decided the wait was too long to get to my platform of choice, so I took a train one direction the other way and came back on a different line which was less busy.
While waiting for that train, orderly lines were formed either side of the door, and one boy with headphones on and a backpack walked straight up the middle of the two lines to the front centre of the doors. I grabbed the handle of his backpack and firmly dragged him to the back of the line. He looked petrified, and actually ran off. No face.... no face.... Locals were smiling at me.

To give context of where I am, its the basement level to the Shin Kong complex which is actually several different buildings and outdoor streets.

Although quite a way from the centre of Chongqing, its still skyscrapers everywhere, new shiny ones.

The basement was a fantastic food court, and not too busy! There is no hope getting into a real restaurant as a solo diner on a Saturday night. Real restaurants are all food designed to be shared by big groups anyway.

The variety in non Chinese cuisines has not really reached Chongqing yet, but they do have a Sukiya in here, and a pepper lunch.

I probably should have had either Sukiya or Pepper lunch, because although my Taiwanese beef noodle was delicious, it was too much food and I felt a bit ill from overeating. Fantastic quality beef, HERE IS THE BEEF.

This mall has a number of non shopping activities, here is the basketball court. There were also ping pong tables, just as we have in Australia now in many shops frequented by Chinese people.

Most people would be aware that Asian countries love of giant robot fighting movies is the reason transformers keeps getting made. Chongqing delivers with a theme park style ride where you go through a fight between Optimus Prime and the thing that turns into a gun. There are sparks and lasers and Shia Lebouf, the real Shia Lebouf, this is the only gig he can get these days.

Time to leave Chinese Taiwan.

This part of Chongqing looks very different to where I am staying. It looks like a western city.

After about a 45 minute lazy stroll, I re-arrived in a land of neon.

I remembered paradise walk from last time. It used to be a street, now its a mall, the top 2 floors are hundreds of huge restaurants. I walked through here because it was air conditioned, it is hot here this evening. All the while I could hear the distorted loud speakers from the restaurant floors calling out the number of the group whos table is ready. You cannot make restaurant reservations in China, and thats the way it should be everywhere.

Quite a nice area, but I took a few redundant photos.

Here is another.

It took me a while, but then I found the mass dancing. It is a site to behold. I made a video which I will upload to youtube at some point.

Next to the dancing is a sea of flowers, sneezing fit intensifies.

There are lots of splinter dancing groups. If I am not mistaken, Chongqing is the city where there was a suspected murder of a dance group member who tried to start a new group. Grandma dancing is serious business!

One more, the police presence was very high in case another professional hit takes place.