Blogs from Chongqing, China, Asia - page 2

Am Morgen von Neujahr wurde ich geweckt, weil neun Uhr wohl zu lang war, und man überreichte mir ein rotes Papiertäschchen. Wie ich später herausgefunden habe, waren darin 200 Yuen. Zum Frühstück gab es Tang Yuan, die ich auch erstmal selber machen durfte. Das war aber total simpel. Tang Yuan sind kleine, runde Bällchen mit schwarzer Sesam Füllung. Doch der Teig ist weiß und total glitschig, weil er hauptsächlich aus Reismehl und Wasser besteht. Und ursprünglich wurden diese Tang Yuan zum Anfang und zum Ende des Frühlingsfest gegessen. Doch das wird heute nicht mehr so eng gesehen. Joakim wollte dann gerne mit mir Tischtennis spielen und ich war gar nicht schlecht. Dann gab's Badminton und dann Essen. Das war jetzt nicht so spannend, aber ich hab mich mal bewegt. Und nach dem Mittagessen sind wir gemeinsam ... read more

For me, as far as experiences in China go, the four-day cruise on this mighty river must be one of those at the very top of the list. From the commencement in Yicheng to the time we spent in Chongqing on disembarkation, it can only be described as mind opening and thrilling. Flying in from Shanghai on China Airlines we were, unbelievably, served a very tasty hot meal (choice of pasta, chicken or pork- surprise one), for such a fairly short flight of only ninety minutes (North America airlines - wake up!). While in Yicheng we visited a museum and marveled at the artifacts recovered before the water swallowed the ancient sites on completion of the dam. Later, with a stout pole resting across his lean shoulder, our porter picked up our two heavy suitcases, and ... read more

It seemed pretty close on the map, and was supposed to be just a quick 2h high speed train ride away, but Chengdu to Chongqing took a whole lot longer than I'd anticipated. Pretty much my own fault though. First, thanks to these confusing large Chinese cities, I'd gone to the wrong train station, then when I finally got to the correct one, the tickets were sold out, so I had to opt for the slower bus ride instead. But the bus wasn't going directly to Chongqing, but rather one of the smaller towns on the outskirts. Somehow though, there was an opportunity to transfer midway through the journey to a Chongqing bound bus. And so what was supposed to be a pretty straightforward and short journey ended up taking almost the entire day. And what ... read more

Left our home of 4 days today and are back on dry land .... at Chongqing. This is the largest city in China and I have never heard of it. We stay overnight and catch our flight home at 11.45pm tomorrow so arrive in Sydney around midday on Tuesday. Haven't really had time to explore ourselves today but have seen the pandas at the zoo, went to another old "Chinatown" (I think every city in China has one) and a beautiful park. We have a free morning tomorrow so will go exploring (hopefully not get lost) before heading out to the airport. Cruise was better than expected. The rooms and the food were ok and we had the option of tours morning and afternoon. Beautiful scenery again and went through the "ship lock" around half way ... read more

Geo: 29.5591, 106.518Chongqing is a city of 33million people but our purpose in coming here was to board a River cruise ship and sail down the Yangtze. Unlike the swift efficient boarding on ocean cruises we had to drive as near to the ship as we could while floods of people were coming up the road from the ferry. The ship was at the bottom of lots of steps ( China has lots of steps) so we had to hire porters to take our luggage down to the ship. At the security there was an arguement with a family who were apparently carrying something live in their luggage! After walking through one ship to get onto ours which was moored in parallel we were given the key to our Superior Cabin, small but room enough for ... read more