Chongqing - China Trip |
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So what inspired this trip you might ask? Why would someone go somewhere they don't know almost anything about the culture, or the language, make a trip there? Well, I met a wonderful girl in China online just looking for people to help me with learning a language. She looked very intelligent, and very beautiful when I saw her pictures, and sounded like someone that I had a lot in common with. I started talking to her in October of 2011, and had an email every week, and months later, an email every other day, and eventually let up to phone conversations, quite often. After so many of these, I had to meet her to see if she was what she sounded like over the phone. So working with her, planned a trip to get out there, and not knowing anything, I planned for a week trip towards the end of the New Years so I could get my feet wet, so to speak. This trip was very scary, and was the first time for me ever traveling internationally, so I did not know what to expect with anything. I definetely loved the trip, and I'll describe what all I learned/did through the trip. |
| So the flight to Chongqing started in Colorado Springs. The flight would take me to Los Angeles and I'd arrive around 7, to catch my flight at 11 at night to China. Colorado Springs airport issued all my tickets, and said my luggage would make it there without me having to collect it anywhere along the way. I arrived in Los Angeles, and made my way to the international airport. On getting there, I had 4 hours to kill. Apparently I could not get into the terminal until a couple hours before the flight left. When security finally started letting people in, I was told I had to get new tickets, and to get in the long line of people to get new tickets again. Grrrrrr. The airplane was quite large, and I found it to be a great airline(Asiana). 5 seats in the middle, and 3 on each side. They had theater movies, regular movies, documentaries, and they kept coming around every 15 minutes with water and juices. Got a dinner meal and a breakfast meal on the flight, so it was nice. Flight took about 13 hours to get from Los Angeles to Soul Korea. |
| When I landded in Korea, I did not understand the concept on an "International" airport. I found my gate number to catch my connecting flight to Chongqing was just a couple gates next to the gate I just got off on, so figured that was it. After 40 minutes of standing there, and realizing that no one else was waiting, and that the entrance to the plane didn't really look like a place that was going to start accepting people, I hiked it accross the terminal to the exit area, where I asked a counter person about what was going on, as I only had about 40 minutes before my flight left, to which they told me I needed to get in a security line to be screened again. After rechecking everything, I entered the normal airport, and made it about 20 minutes before flight left from another gate with the same name/number. I also found my cell phone did not work anymore, even though I was told it was. Grrrrr |
| The flight from Soul Korea to Chongqing was even better, it was 3 seats on each side, and there were only about 1 person for each 3 seats per row. Still same awesome service, and very very comfortable. I was able to get some good rest in on this flight. Same movies(smaller selection), and drinks, and friendly staff(same airline). Was a great flight. When I landed in Chongqing, I passed through customs, to which they just asked me how long I was staying. I got stamped, and walked around the corner to find the carousel of luggage, and a dog sniffing through. I got my bag within a couple minutes, made a turn around the next corner to realize there were no more checks, and I was exiting the airport, to find Sophia there waiting for me. We recognized each other immediately, even though I said I would wear a hat so I was recognizeable. Didn't happen, I didn't expect to get through the airport so fast with so little checking. So that was definetely awesome! |
| The Hotel was amazing. The Double Tree(Hilton) hotel. I had a room on the 18th floor, and the elevator got me to the 18th floor, faster then my office elevator gets me to the second floor. The room was also spectacular. My favorite thing about the room was the hotel cards, which I could take by the main door, which would kill power to the whole room. But when I was getting ready for sleep, I could reach over from the bed, and push a LED lit button, and it would cut power to the entire room, including TV's, as well as all lights. When I was about to wake up in the morning in the darkness, I could reach over to the LED light, and push it, and all the lights, plus the TV's would come back on, and the room would be exactly the way it was before I fell asleep. Soo cool. Only issue with the room was no AC was available, even though they said their was. The room was at 23 degrees Celcius. Turning the AC on, the room would climb to 26 degrees which wasn't good. Sophia called down and asked them the deal in Chinese. They said they would look at it, and then fixed it. However it never worked. We suspect AC was off for the winter time since Chinese like the temperature a little more warmer then I do. |
| Since the days blended together, I will sum up trip items from the pictures which came mostly towards last few dats of the trip. So I arrived a couple days before Valentines day, in which the Chinese New Years was just coming to an end. As you can see from the city pictures, red is a very favored color in the city, and everything tries to include it anyway they can. The downtown area had a spot with fountains, and a story, which according to Sophia, was a story about a couple that had founded the city, and there was a whole show that happened to explain, celebrate it. Several buildings had big screen TV displays on them with information and other things as well being talked about. But the weather was quite comfortable to walk around and enjoy all this. Passed a McDonald's, and had to take a picture of a few items. Ran accross McDonalds, Pizza hut, KFC, and Dairy Queen quite a lot in my travels there. |
| The weather for the most part was glummy. Had a great day of sunshine on the day we went to the old China city. This was a good and a bad thing. Good in the sense it was nice to be comfortable for both of us, and nice to see the city in a open sky day. The bad part was EVERYONE went out for the nice day that had not been around for the end of the new year, so the area was sooo crowded, I could barely walk aboud without bumping someone. My steps were so small, I felt like I was waddling my way around. Was quite funny to see a sea of heads, as I rarely found anyone that was as tall, or even close to my height. So got a few pictures, lot of shops were making candy out front on a machine that was constantly chopping small slices of it for people to see. A picture of a man straining noodles at another shop. People with headsets were selling people to come eat at their places. We ate at a place I felt a little uncomfortable at, because it looks like they were making soup out front, but I couldn't tell. There was someone at another table that was causing problems with the owners, and it wasn't sounding pretty(of course I couldn't understand the conversation, but wasn't sounding good). |
| Traveling to Dazu(Rock Carvings) was quite a trip. Sophia's great friend Echo and her hubbie Zhin(Seen in some photo's) drove us up there which was about a 3-4 hour drive from Chongqing. Along the way, people were setting off fireworks, to which I referred to as a BBQ at one point that Sophia laughed at me about, as they were festival fireworks, and not BBQ material. Oops. Rock Carvings were awesome, amazing how much culture and stories there were behind each and everyone. Took us about 2 hours to get through the mountain. At the end, was attacked by a bunch of folks trying to sell me carved little rock statues(chess piece size). After saying no thank you about 40 times, Sophia grabbed me to pull be through, and Zhin handed me a set he had bought, and said there you go. Was quite funny. I actually felt bad I left it in their car when they dropped us off. I got confused what was happening, and thought we would hook back up before the end of the night. |
| Sophia took me for Hot Pot one night, which you can see in the photo of a big cooking pan. Of course, she made me a batch of very light spicy sauce, and herself a nice spicy ones. I tried the chicken and ginsel root mictures, and found the chicken very very different from American chicken. I sampled Sophia's hot pot mix, and found it was indeed pretty spicey. Mine was nice and mild, so she did a wonderful job. Funny thing about hot pots, once you eat, very hard to get the smell of the oils out of your clothes. Took about 2-3 days leaving our clothes by the window to air them out. |
| China loves Helloy Kitty stuff as much as US does. The malls in Chongqing sure had more interest in it then our malls seem too. Even on the outside, we couldn't even fit a picture of advertisement in one shot, had to take it in several pieces. Visiting a few malls, found a Subway at one of the places near a mall that was near a pirate/knight/cannons display area, which was quite funny, I didn't expect to see historical things of that nature. The other mall was a bit of a drive, but had a killer fountain out front, with no guard rails, and signs saying keepout. if you weren't careful, you'd fall into the fountain parts, so was nice to be able to see it up close. Mall stores were awesome. If they were local shops, people were hanging out ready to help. If you went to the department stores. Oh my god! Like 3 people for every 20ft x 20ft room to help you, it was almost like they were going to go insane if they did not help you. We passed a store in one of the malls that actually had "toilette" seats for tables. I mean seriously!? The stacked housing picture was interesting too, as Sophia told me old Chinese housing kind of ressembled it. |
| Retrieving money in China was not a problem ATM and the fee's associated to them were really not that bad. The only bad thing was the messages the ATM gave you about certain things. I had to get a picture of the one that asked if you would like advice after you got your money. I am pretty sure it was supposed to ask if you wanted a receipt, but I laughed everytime we stopped by it. Was convienently close to the hotel. |
My Thoughts on ChinaWhat to say about China, well let me see:
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