One Week In Chongqing

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog - I know lots of you are furiously clicking refresh looking for more information. We have been spending time with Lexi, adjusting to the time zone and the sleep schedule, and trying to keep sane.

Chongqing (pronounced Chong-CHing - we have been doing it wrong for a while) is a very large industrial and somewhat ugly city. Karen has aptly described it as a cross between Detroit and Pittsburgh on steroids. It sits on the confluence of the Jailing and Yang Tse Rivers and is divided by those rivers - however unlike Manhattan or even Pittsburgh, there doesn't seem to be any real city plan. There are just skyscrapers on top of other skyscrapers piled on teeming streets that seem to wind their way among the buildings. The streets are so busy, they have built fly-over walkways for pedestrian traffic. The streets are covered with a layer of dirt and the weather is perpetually misty and damp - probably due to the smog. There are 31 Million people in this municipality - a number so large it is difficult to process.

We are staying at the Hilton, which is an absolutely fabulous hotel. It is nice to know that we have an American oasis in this huge city. Since we are practically living here for a week, I promptly upgraded our room to a large suite with executive club access. Both have been a godsend.

On Tuesday, we spent a large part of the day getting acclimated to Lexi and to our surroundings. The morning was spent at the China Communications Bank making our "donation". As the teller scrutinized every bill, I wondered why we couldn't have just wired the money in and avoided the exchange rate hit (the dollar continues to weaken against the Yuan). We then went on a shopping excursion to another part of the city to get diapers and formula.

Here are some pictures - we quickly got Lexi into her new wardrobe...






We were then on to the "shopping district" Liberation Square:

You just cant avoid Oracle!






The next day, we went to lunch and a Silk factory, where they showed us the silk worm cocoons and the process to make silk blankets.
A note about the food - as you can see from the pictures, they serve all of us around a large round table and put dished on the lazy susan. We change location and the guides tell us they are ordering "something different" but it has become all the same. The food is somewhat tasty, but it gets old quickly. I am brought back to college when we had Hunan Garden takeout three times a day, then I didn't eat Chinese food for three years. The same is happening here. We have been avoiding dinner - thankfully they serve french bread and cheese and other snacks on the executive floor (our dinners). Last night, we got the guides to bring us KFC to the hotel.




Thanks everyone for their emails - keep them coming! We are trying to respond to everyone, but know that you are getting them through and that we appreciate the contact.

We saw Panda Bears yesterday at the zoo. That is coming up in my next post - along with a dancing Tibetan Bear!