~Entering the Unknown~

I’m beginning to miss my blog and Internet access and I don’t feel good having too long a break of 8 days, perhaps I should consider a 5-day break to Japan a few years later. I’m seriously thinking of winter Hokkaido if possible. Lazed around on bed till 6:30am before I got up to brush my teeth. Unlike the 1st and 2nd night, we did not have instant coffee in our room as we were allocated 2 sofas instead of one.

We proceeded to ‘Salt and Pepper’ restaurant at level 1 for our buffet breakfast at 8am. I had dumpling noodle soup. The texture was more chewy and soup more tasteful as compared to last time.

As we would be having free morning, we proceeded on cab to Chao Tian Men Square at 9:30am.The driver seat, unlike the system in Singapore was on the left instead of right side. I paid 13 RMB for the ride. I wonder what’s the purpose of zebra crossing when drivers never bothered to stop to give way to pedestrians. We made our way to the warehouse areas and saw a lot of stalls selling shoes and bed sheets. Vehicles honked and passing sellers shouted rudely to get people in front to give way to them. I was being yelled at for a number of times. Dad bought fruits again. After enduring till 11:50am, we managed to flag down a taxi to return back to hotel. There was a plastic shield between driver and passengers probably to avoid robbers. Dad paid 15 RMB for the fare.

As for lunch, we bought 3.50 RMB of mixed sauce noodles for me and beef noodles from nearby noodles stall for mum and bro, dad stuck to instant cup noodles. The noodle was packaged in a different way from Singapore’s. There was no cup cover and the cup was made of water-proof paper. The quantity was huge though I ordered the smaller cups. The noodle was chewy and sauce tasteful, the only complaint was, it was too oily (I had to sacrifice the soup). Mum’s beef noodles soup was slightly spicy and was pretty tasty. The hotel staff passed the washed clothes to us around 12pm.

At 2pm, we met our Chongqing guide at level 1 lobby and checked out from Holiday Inn. There was a change of site from hot spring to an ancient looking settlement due to lack of interest of tour members in the original plan. Luckily, I did not wear my swimming suit within my clothes or I’d regret it.

There, we took a number of photos and I saw a number of cats and dogs running freely along the ancient looking houses. By 5:30pm, we assembled for dinner.

There, we saw a number of westerners adopting Chinese orphans sitting nearby. The tour guide managed to order a plate of pork blood for my table as per mum’s request for me (I loved pork blood, but it was banned in Singapore due to hygiene reason). After dinner, we were drove to airport at 7pm with nothing to do till 10:45pm when we could check in. We were allowed to board the plane around 12:30am.

My seat number was 15B-between mum and dad. On the plane, I had fish with rice. The rice was softer than the one I ate on my way to Chongqing. Throughout the flight, my parents changed seats with me so that they could go washroom more conveniently while I slept all the way till the plane reached Singapore at 5:15am.

I woke up at 4-5am to do a final check of my luggage before proceeding for my breakfast buffet at 6:45am. After showering, I drank tea in cooled water (hot water and instant coffee was not replenished on the last day of cruise). Mum and I passed the rest of the morning by watching some boring programme. During the night, the cruise had already stopped at the port of Chongqing.

After a quick look of the port, we went for breakfast at 6:45am. The waiter kept forgetting my order for minced meat noodles. Nevertheless, the noodle was quite chewy and minced meat tasteful. By 7:30am, mum and I got our luggage out to be sent down the cruise. After struggling with our luggage at 8am, our same Chongqing guide took us to visit the nearby Chao Tian Men Square. I stayed in the coach to update my physical diary.

After that, the coach sent us to an ongoing constructing sports complex space and Yangtze river museum for toilet relief. There was a number of locals doing morning dance there. The toilet usage was charged 30 jiao.

After that, we were drove to visit Eling Park to see memorials for Russians who died in China during WWII, old photos of Chinese leaders and an old building. I could see the hazy city from the top.

Outside Eling Park, many of us went shopping in the nearby shops. Dad bought fruits and I noticed an Internet Bar.

The guide drove us to a silk shop where I sneaked out to see the street.

We had lunch in New York building in the middle of the busiest district of Chongqing. After lunch, we had free time between 1:30pm to 3pm. There were a number of statues on the street, bringing an interesting scene for passingbys who went shopping there. I was surprised to see so much cooked animal organs and preserved vegetables in supermarket. My only regret was that I did not take photo of its food court. It was almost the same as that in Singapore, except the utensils used were not as uniform, its surroundings not as better furnished and the type of food sold differed. After walking around, we even went to McDonald for a rest while waiting for the time to be up. The strawberry sundae did not taste as nice as that I've tasted back home for the strawberry sauce is too 'jelly'.

We went to Holiday Inn to pack our stuff at 4pm. There was a delay in room cleaning and we could only return to our rooms at 4:20pm. Mum and I were allocated room 918 while dad and bro room 908. I called up room service to send my jeans, mum & dad’s coat and bro’s jackets and jeans for washing before assembling at level 1 at 5:30pm for Chongqing steamboat.

There was limited food (beef, mushrooms, squids, bird eggs, vegetables unless you don’t mind pork brain) to go with the steamboat and I disliked the slippery taste in the spicy part of the soup. We continued with our instant cup noodles bought outside Eling Park earlier that day while I watched the later part of ‘Blade: Trinity’ on HBO which I couldn’t watch on cruise due to television reception problem.

I had an early sleep around 9:30pm with weird dreams of going to Taiwan and being pursued by demons. I kept having the strange feeling of the floor rocking, probably due to after effect from my cruise trip.

My brain was still in my job-working mode, it was hard to get my mind off my working matters. As a result, I woke up at 5:40am, stayed in bed till 6am before I showered and ventured out onto the street. Holiday inn was surrounded by a number of private condominiums and several buildings under construction. I had difficulty controlling my bedroom lights, as a result, I woke mum up unintentionally.

At 8:30am, I went to the restaurant named ‘Salt and Pepper’ at level 1 at 8:30am for breakfast buffet. I had fried bee hoon, hush browns, cold noodles and dumplings. Overall, the food was rather hard and salty and I was not very used to eat ice-cold noodles in chilli oil.

We spent 1 and ½ hour traveling on our coach before we reached a restaurant for our lunch. The city of Chongqing was covered in haze in most part of the day; hence, the city was blurry for me to take much shots.

Based on my past experience traveling in China in the last few years, after we were served with dishes in the restaurant, we took bits of food from each dish on our own plates till the white rice was served in the last part before we started tucking in. Then, we continued our journey for the next few more minutes to go to our destination- Hei Shan Gu (Black Mountain Valley). Along the way, the haze was so thick that I could hardly see the settlement below the valley. There were mixture of suburban areas and terraced vegetable fields.

Upon reaching Hei Shan Gu, we took cable cars in pairs up the valley. Mum and I joked our way upward. She was taking 2 trips of cable cars, as she did not want to walk a long way (6km) back later. As it was drizzling, the stone steps were wet and slippery. To make matters worse, I had to cross the jerky bridges, which shook whenever people moved on it. As a whole, the scenery was breath taking, but seeing too many of them dampened my enthusiasm in the hazy mountains and running rivers. Around 5-6pm, we took a vehicle back to our coach. Dad bought 4 cup noodles for all four of us.

At dinnertime, I had a good view of night scenery of the busiest part of Chongqing. There was a number of steamboat restaurants along our way and many used flashing neon lights for their advertisements. Due to the quality of my digital camera, I couldn’t take many of the night scenery. We turned in to our hotel around 9pm.

We had our instant cup noodles. Mum’s was braised beef favour while mine’s spicy beef. After finishing our cup noodles, mum and I took a walk in the nearby shops.

There was a change in our tour schedule. We were supposed to visit Hei Shan Gu on the 7th day of our tour and to tour Three Gorge on 3rd day. In the end, we visited Hei Shan Gu on the 2nd day and our Three Gorge cruise was pushed back to 4th-6th day of our tour.

I had last minute rush to Changi Airport at 4:30pm after work.

While waiting, I rushed to terminal 1 food court for a bowl of ban mian at $2.50 before returning to terminal 2 to rejoin my parents waiting for bro.

We went to Gate 5 to get onto our flight. There was a short disruption at the check point for there was a pair of scissors in dad’s bag, so after a short delay, we finally got onto the plane to Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport.

My seat was 15A which was next to a window. We were served with choices of chicken with rice or fish with rice. I took minced chicken mixed with egg and rice. The rice was not very thoroughly cooked and the minced chicken did not go well with mixed egg.

Toilet on the plane
However, the sunset scenery outside the plane was great as it took off from the ground. During our 4-5hours’ journey, I spent time reading my notes and the flight magazines in front of our seats. Though there wasn’t much to watch from the television that only screened Japanese variety show and ‘Just for Laugh’ shows, time passed easily. This was the first time I ever enjoyed the freedom of not turning on my mobile phone since I started my current job. As the plane touched down to Chongqing airport around 11:50pm, there was a small delay due to trash blocking the runway. As a whole, the journey was pretty jerky and there was very little walking space on the plane.

In Chongqing airport, dad spent a lot of time looking for his luggage when all along, it was moving before his eyes on the tray. As a result, we were the last to leave the arrival hall at 12:30am and were greeted by our Chongqing guide with our other 12 tour members. Though the announced temperature was 19 degree C, I found I could manage in my short sleeve shirt easily. The Chongqing guide told us that there was only one flight between Singapore and Chongqing at 12am midnight.

Around 1am plus, our coach reached Holiday Inn hotel to stay for 1st and 2nd nights.

The best part of this stay was that mum and I had a key card each so I could run all over the place anytime I liked. In addition, the bathroom was in shower style, so I would not have to worry about falling in bathtub.