Chongqing

As lovely as the Yangtze River was, I think by Sunday morning most of us were ready to move on from the, uh, elegance of our tight quarters. The ending port was Chongqing, which has been the capital of China at various points in its history. One of those times was during WWII, or the War of Japanese Aggression, as its known in these parts. We visited a few museums in town honoring the American contribution to they Chinese, including supply flights over the hump from India, and US military service alongside the Chinese military.

What passes for towns, cities, mega cities around here also requires some translation. The Chongqing region has 33 million people, and the city proper has 9 million, and yet it is called a medium-sized city. They have a very modern downtown shopping district complete with ridiculous prices. We did enjoy a super lunch at a restaurant here, complete with a catfish staring at us from the center of the table.

An afternoon flight took us to Xian in north central China. I was ready for a ride straight to the hotel but thankfully I didn't get to make that choice. That's because the night market we visited was fascinating. Food of all sorts - lots of meat on a stick and full animal carcasses, pomegranate juice, naan, persimmons, and on and on. We had a feast of dumplings - 18 different varieties, many of them shaped to match their contents (chicken, cabbage, pork...).

The hotel here was built 3 years ago to cater to government and business travelers. 2.5 years ago, the government initiated an anti-corruption campaign, drying up the customer flow for the hotel! Their loss is our gain, as apparently rooms can be had cheaply for travel agencies booking groups.