China: Like a Bullet from a Gun

Another morning in our nice hotel meant another free breakfast. Thankfully they had steamed buns, which I'm sure I will be turning into shortly, along with nicer-than-instant coffee. Afterwards, a 40 minute bus ride to Colourful Alley proved uneventful, and set us up for a morning of shopping.

I wasn't quite sure what Colourful Alley was before we set off, but it turns out it is a walled area of souvenir shops and food stalls. I had already completed most of my shopping for others by this point, but there is always myself to buy for! We spent about an hour and a half wandering, and I bought a couple of things and generally had a good time in the picturesque and very oriental streets.

Lion watch: the child looks startled, but not to worry as the mother appears to be priming some sort of mouth laser

The entrance to Colourful Alley. Christine looks pleased to be there, but those 2 Chinese girls don't like the look of us

It was quiet this early, and pretty as mentioned!

You can buy this to eat. Can anyone tell me what the hell it is?!

The big and small turtles in the water were having a slap fight

One of Alfredo's finest

We got the bus back to the hotel, and nipped to the supermarket for lunch and dinner supplies; I wasn't hungry enough to order anything for lunch, and dinner is not included on the boat tonight. I'm not up for paying cruise ship prices for food, squirrel flavour crisps will keep me going!

It's not chowhound, just an adorable mouse. They aren't actually squirrel flavour... I don't think...

At 1 o clock we checked out, and got a minibus a short way to Chengdu East station, where we would be catching the bullet train to Chongqing. Chongqing is actually China's largest city, which surprised me as I'd never heard of it before. The population is over 34 million; half that of the U.K., and more than 6 times that of New Zealand! As for the train, it doesn't mess about, doing just shy of 300 km/h, a proper bullet train. There was a lot of leg room, and some nice views too, though I napped half the time (the journey was an hour and 40 minutes).

Where we are going, we don't need rails! (Because it is mag lev)

Kind of makes you laugh at HS2

That'll be me soon!

We did not see much of Chongqing, as we only drove through it for 40 minutes, but it definitely seemed busy! It was only a short walk to our boat, and boy did it exceed expectations. My previous experience of cruise ships had me expecting bunk beds that come out of the walls and maybe a porthole. What we have instead is more like a hotel room, there's even a balcony! The ship is called "Hua Xia Goddess Number 2" if anyone wants to look it up.

Forest of giants

The pollution plus the mountains makes it super hazy, but it looks good at least

Are you sure this is a boat?

There was an evening orientation meeting, outlining the itinerary, and then a few of us went up on the sun deck to enjoy nighttime Chongqing, which was much nicer than I expected! Tomorrow we have a visit to the Jade Emperor Palace and a free afternoon to drink in the Yangtze!

Electric scenery

As this is a fairly short post, I have decided to add some bonuses.

Firstly, I was talking with my friend Leo the other day, and she mentioned the toboggan at the wall. This made me realise I had made a terrible mistake! They was actually a very funny thing that Alfredo and I saw on the Great Wall, that I thought I had put in the blog but apparently did not, so here goes:

As we were walking along, an incredibly deep voice, with an African accent sounded from behind us. "FATHER, I AM GETTING TIRED", to which the father replied, equally deep and African "ENDURANCE SON, THAT'S WHAT YOU NEED". We looked round to see a black guy and his 10 year old son conversing. The son was the owner of the first voice, which put many grown men to shame. "LETS GO TO THE NEXT ONE (tower) AND THEN GO DOWN THE TOBOGGAN OK?" He continued. Alfredo and I sped up so didn't hear any more after this, the reason being that we were both trying to stifle our laughter at the kid saying kid things in a man voice, and as it was basically just us and them on that bit of the wall it may be obvious what we were laughing at. We did not want to attract the ire of the father, his muscles were as large as his voice was deep! After we had stopped at the next tower to have a good laugh, the father son pair began to catch us up. "FATHER, I NEED TO SIT" the son rumbled. At this point we needed to retreat again for another good laugh, and they went about their day unaware of the hilarity they caused. They probably went to the toboggan.

I think this story probably isn't as funny to read about as it was to live through, but it is definitely blog worthy, especially to remind myself when I read through this in years to come!

I'll finish up with a couple of photos I have received from other people on the trip. I only have a few people's numbers at this point, and I only have a random assortment, but some are rather good so I don't wanna leave them out! I'll do a little section like this again if I get nice photos that are from previous days.