EDITORS NOTE: this is one of 3 medias related to ChongQing LOL, i posted a short-form instagram reel along with a youtube video film that i'm super super proud of because the clips are absolutely insane and i spent prolly total 15+ hrs editing everything.

So this is the third year in a row im going to china, 2024 was just me and my mom and my dad to hohhot, 2025 was me and my mom and my sister to hohhot where me and my sister went out for like 5 days to chengdu, and now, 2026, is just me and my mom to ChongQing (7 nights), XiAn (3 nights), Hohhot (3+ weeks) in that order. I'm super excited because its literally ChongQing I've wanted to go here ever since it became viral and after doing lots of reasearch in XiAn theres SO MANY food spots I wanna try like all the you tiao and rou jia mo type stuff and noodles likeits all carbs but theres so much to be excited about.

ChongQing

Day 0

June 27, Saturday at 12 PM was our flight from SF, and we landed in ShangHai after like 13 hrs, then had a pretty long layover and ate some airport hundun and i did some streaks in the airport and my mom slept a bit and at this point its basically like 8 AM Sunday in SF so were really tired. We landed in ChongQing at like 12 AM or something local time. That car ride to the air port was really cool as we immediately drove on that famous bridge to get to what I call the Manhattan of ChongQing aka that main island where everything is. Technically in ChongQing it's not an island more like an island peninsula but if you get what I mean, geographically speaking it's very similar to NYC. The driver also gave us some tips for ChongQing and he said to never take the yellow taxis cuz they be scamming a bit by taking longer routes and also just some random other stuff I forgot about how like ChongQing locals are really pure people like northeastern china and random stuff like that. None of the lights or stuff were on and there werent many ppl out cuz its 1 AM and the lights close at 10:30 PM. Our hotel is literally like less than a 1 min walk to JieFangBei which is a main attraction in ChongQing and kinda like a center point and times square.

So after getting to the hotel at like 1 AM we IMMEDIATELY cashed in our luggages and went out to eat some random street food near. There were quite a lot of shops open and a lot of people out, we ended up getting a watermelon juice, a like dessert thing like its like mango sago or like those desserts at MeetFresh idk how to say it in english or even in chinese my mom calls it zhou or something but it was rly good at cold. And then we had this street for 串 stuff, got one of beef, one of corn, and one of bread and it was SO GOOD especially the bread one like it was inherently super sweet but it had that barbeque aftertaste which was kinda funny but i liked it so much and it was super crunchy. But its so easy to spend money here cuz all I said combined was prolly like at most 40 yuan which is literally less than 6 USD.

slept at 4 AM and woke up at 8 AM cuz of jetlag.

Day 1

So it's day 1 now and due to how timezones work now it's already Monday, June 29th. We wake up at 8 AM which means we have the WHOLE day to ourselves but realistically we know were gonna get super sleepy later in the afternoon.

But anyway we head out and from 9 AM to 4 PM just straight walking everywhere. We went to near hongyadong but didnt go down cuz that would invest so much energy with all the stairs, we walked to kuixing lou, then west and around to ShiBaTi where we spent a good amount of time there. After exploring ShiBaTi we went to eat hot pot along the way and we ended up getting 为辣 and it was still very spicy like immediately got chengdu hotpot vibes like its so oily down your throat and you start coughing and needing to spam liquids. But at the same time its rly good. I think I can handle a bit spicier level but the fact that was 为辣 was really scary。

So during that whole like 7 hour walk, we stopped by mixue for coffee and guava juice, during shibati i bought a fresh orange juice and a bag of dried oranges cuz it was rly good, and a thousand layer bread thing i forgot what its called but it was really good, and also an avacado drink from chapanda which was SUPER GOOD like they added some random lettuce stuff to the drink and the boba was so chewy and top tier like the boba was so good bruh like normally i dont glaze boba cuz most of the time its just normal but man that boba was so like smooth and chewy it was so good like chapanda is STRAIGHT PEAK im gonna at least spam one a day.

ShiBaTi was also really cool like it's similar to some stuff touristy ancient towns in ChengDu except this one is super mountainous and theres stairs everywhere and so you get some really nice views from the top and also its just really fun and messy everywhere with the routes and I really did enjoy it a lot. Also it was raining during like all of this and literally not hot at all like it was so optimal for walking around. ChongQing in July is supposed to be the hottest ever like 100+ but we got lucky with just how the weather works, otherwise we would've been so tired and drained from the heat. Our taxi driver yesterday did mention this and say that we are in a lucky streak of weather.

Then we went back to the hotel to take a quick nap and I did a bit of duolingo and stuff. It was like 430 pm now. We planned on waking up at 6 PM but we ended up waking up at 6:40 cuz it was so hard to get up cuz were running on like 6 hrs of total sleep over the past 2 days or something lmao.

But the lights all turn on at 7 PM so we missed it but its fine cuz we literally have 7 nights here in ChongQing which is a lot like most locals say 3-4 nights is more than enough LMAO. It's all to catch the drone show on Saturday.

So we head out at like 7:10 PM or something and we start to head to HongYaDong which is the most famous attraction and theres just so many people. It really reminds me of ChengDu because there were so many people everywhere like you only really understand it once you experience it. And yup it's the same thing here just crowds of people everywhere. You have this long gate against this insane view of the bridge and city skyline and theres just layers of people. And when we were crossing stairs that were like 1-2 people wide it was moving so slowly and theres just so many people you start to get a headache. Anyway, we try to get on the bridge AND THERES LITERALLY A SUPER LONG LINE JUST TO GET ON THE BRIDGE to control like the amt of ppl otherwise it would get congested and my mom just straight crashes out after waiting for 5 minutes and says shes not doing this 😭 so we end up walking to chaotianmen square which was way more peaceful and such a hidden gem because the view was equally if not better cuz you can even get some sections of hongyadong where the viewpoint before was right on top of hongyadong and you couldnt see it. Ended up recording tons of vehicle timelapses on my GoPro like literally spent more than an hour just recoridng viewpoints and the videos turned out like stunning like seriously cuz there were boats that would come along. And in one of them was literally a 36 second video which means I recorded for 36 min timelapse and caught all the lights turning off in it too cuz all the lights turn off at 10:30 PM.

So after this then we havent even at dinner yet and oh yea along that chaotianmen square route we boughth this avocado yogurt drink which turns out had nuts in it so my mom didnt let me drink it but it was funny cuz i would ragebait her by trying to snatch it out of her hands and trying to drink it. Anyway we end up finding some random noodle shop and i order this like spicy beef + bean noodle and it was honestly kinda mid but it did get the job done. Then we took a taxi to jiefangbei cuz we were pretty far out. Once we were back in familiar territory, at this point it was like 11:30 PM or something, we went back to that street food street which was popping like there were a ton of ppl out and we bought a cucumber juice which was super fresh but not sweet at all but really unique like you literlaly saw the person just straight putting cucumbers in the blender but anyway. We also bought a watermelon juice and I think that's it we didnt buy any food cuz they all were too much load. Went to bed at like 2/3 AM.

So that's how day 1 went prolly missed some stuff but a ton of walking which wasn't tiring due to the weather and at night there was so many people and it was just next-notch because there were so many ppl and the skyline is insane like it doens't feel real sometimes. The weather was honestly so peak it was foggy + rainy and not hot at all like super relaxing weather. I think it only get sunny + blazing weather like on Friday which is so underrated and im definitely gonna take it for granted bc i havent experienced the sunny weather yet. Also traveling with my mom is super nice compared to my sister in the sense that shes native in reading chinese cuz a lot of the menus dont have english translations and especially for those chinese apps sometimes its just straight chinese texts and having my mom where she can just read off everything to me is SO CONVENIENT my sister and I would have to run up google lens before and it was just a layer of complexity. I remembevr I was gonna mention something else in this summary section but I forgot now.

Day 2

We wake up at like 10 AM I write blog post baout days 0 and 1, then we head out. Our plan is to first head to CiQiKou but the netherlands morocco game went extra time so i wanted tow atch it so we spent like 20 min walking around trying to find somewhere that shows it and literally no where was showing it. So instead we just try to find the train station to go to ciqikou since its super direct and we ask around and on the train me and my mom end up watching the PKs on my phone and wow one of those goals the one where the dutch goalie saved it but then own goaled it off his leg was crazy. I thought it was a save and I couldn't tell what happened until I saw a replay clip on instagram later. Morocco ended up winning which was fire but honestly the PKs were so bad like everyone kept missing and hitting wide like LOL.

So then at ciqikou we walk around and its just so copy paste literally commercialized stores everywhere with those horns blaring and spamming messages and its so loud. Actually not worth going at all from my experience.

Ok I'm writing this on Day 3 morning and we gotta head out so I'm gonna basically start summarizing more.

After that we took train to nearby the air raid hot pot place, couldn't navigate and find it cuz our amap isn't working and we were relying on my moms gemini to navigate LMAO, found and took taxi to there, ate hotpot which was pretty solid but it was just the experience being in such a long tunnel, like 5 mins to walk from onen end to another. After we ate hotpot it was a nice weay to take a walk.

Then we took taxi to GuanYinQiao which was such a funny experience, there was this main road and billboard and it was just all young people and photographers taking pictures and there was an absurd amount of people. When we first got there we were like why is there so many people and what are they all looking at and someone said that the billboard turns into “我在重庆” once every like 3 mins for like 3 seconds. Super funny experience my mom was so confused how there were this many ppl here and on the side everyone was AI editing the photos it was so crazy.

After that we took train to Raffles city, did the sky mirror + sky walk which was so insane and outlived the hype. Like so worth it for $30 and my mom was scared and chickened out it was so funny I got it all on video I can't wait to rewatch that again. Met a French guy during the skywalk and tried to practice a bit of french and he took a lotta videos ofme which was hype. Insane experience easily best thing to do in ChongQing I think like top 3 if not top 1. There were a ton of foreginers here like almost half were europeans like not even exaggerating.

After raffles city we got a yogurt drink at the mall there, then took train back to jiefangbei area, walked around for a bit then got back at hotel at like 10/11 pm.

Basically spent entire day out again, highlight was easily raffles city and then guanyinqiao and then hotpot, didnt have as many drinks today, only one set at chapanda at ciqikou and one set at raffles city.

Day 3

Today we woke up very early like 8 AM, went out and ate some breakfast nearby the hotel where my mom bought this ma hua and i bought this youtiao + niangao + oreo sprinkle creation apparently its from JiangXi but it was not bad.

Took trian to longmenhao on the east, it was ok like way better than ciqikou but this was the first day that it was actually super hot like im getting flashbacks to chengdu cuz man your entire face is just wet from the heat. After that we walked around for a bit and found a residential area with a mall and were looking to get my haircut and also i wanna dye my hair and my sister says its cheap here. So it ends up taking us a long time to find one and we asked around a lot but we found the haircut salon, and i just randomly googled some pictures of some nonchalant dye images like i dont want my entire head and not too bright of color cuz it might be hassle wheni shower at relatives place.

End up paying 855 rmb for the hair dye + hair cut and they just basically dyed some random glands red and you lowkey can barely notice it at night and in general and im overall pretty happy with it. I do wish they dyed more glands in general but im not gonna complain with this cuz its rly lowkey. My only other time belaching/dying my hair was back in covid when my sister was dying her hair and she used me as her test subject and drew a W on the back of my head

So after that stuff which took an hr, my mom and i went out near some really quintessential chinese neighborhoods like this is chongqing for what it is it was super pure communities and stores and all that and we found some random small restauraunt where we ordered some beef thing and this eggplant egg thing i forgot what its called but it was actually super good like i love rice and enjoing rice with some spicy beef stuff with all that tiao liao and spices mixed up and the egg it was FIRE i honestly ate too much. Had some conversations with the restauraunt owner cuz he was like running everything himself and just vibing.

Then we found a train station and basically the rest of the day is a lotta sidequesting cuz we took the train to nan'an and started walking towards like the center of nan an and along the way we drank some lu dou tang and then we went out and stumbled upon this big outdoor tea spot where all the old ppl were just drinking tea and yapping and we ended up buying some tea and sitting down for like 1+ hrs and in the middle i went to watch them play mahjong and they had the electric table and they didnt have any zi like dong nan xi bei, fa, bai ban, hong zhong so the games were super quick and stuff and they were betting like 10-100 RMB every game lmao it was pretty content.

Then we started walking towards the world's biggest hot pot restauraunt, i forgot the name already you can search it up but im literally just walking towards the google maps pin and the routing becomes scuffed and my mom crashes out and then we end up not risking anything and taking a taxi and turns out the google maps pin even was wrong like yea i learned my lessons and i think i got baidu maps to set up.

Anyway tho, now here we are at the world's biggest hotpot restauraunt which can sit 5,800 people. There were only like a few hundred at most ppl there tho, and a lot of the tables near the edges and stuff had the hotpot stuff detached but it was still really cool like there was still a ton of people and it was massive and you had to drive like 20+ minutes onto this excluded mountain to get there. The scenery was solid youre looking at like a mountain and the buildings dont light up at night and theres no river but its still really solid and theres lights everywhere and the whole restauraunt is almost like a theme park like near the top theres a whole park for kids and stuff. Now the hotpot was insanely spicy like it was the spiciest ive ever had here cuz previously at other restauraunts we ordered like mild which for chongqing standards is relaly hot. But here we just got the spicy and man like u eat one piece of meat and ure just dying and u have to take a break and ur lips are numb like its seriously so spicy. I didn't even eat that much we ordered one meat total and we only ate like half of it. I did eat a lot for lunch so that did play a role but I did not expect myself to eat this little and im glad i didnt push myself. Really fun experience tho and worth going, took a taxi back to jiefangbei where we walked for alittle while and bought some breakfast for the next day, some ma hua which was pretty fun cuz we gotta try a ton of flavors and we picked the zi ma one. We gotta wake up at 6 tomorrow so i AM GOING TO SLEEP NOW ITS 12 AM.

Day 4

- daytrip to the national parks

- dinner at barbeque fish

i am currently on gao tie (aka high-speed train) to xi'an on day 7, the last few days i had absoltely no time to write besides these brief bulletpoints because i was tired and started having stomacheaches

but on this day, was SUPER fun because we woke up at like 7 am or somehting and did this tour bus thing where we were in a van with a family of 4, and a grandma and his daughter and it was really fun. We drove for like 2 hrs and got to sightsee just all of the mountains everywhere. And then there was fog everywhere for some portions or some river view portions which was so beautiful and tons of mountains and windy roads and it did remind me of the 17 highway except it was 1 lane and even more windy. And tons of long tunnels that we went through.

We first stopped by in the morning in this temple thing i forgot the name but the old hmong ppl lived there or something i lowkey forgot everything i can ask my mom right next to me what it was called but it was kinda sleeper we just looped around the mountain and there was this big plaza thing where they were blasting some traditional music like can this country plz stay quiet sometimes

Then we hopped back on the van and went to get dinner at some random restaurant that they dropped us off in. It was pretty mid and forgettable just something to make us not hungry.

Then we drove to the main attraction which is like the fairy mountain three bridges geology park thing and this was some scenery that ive never seen before. Like it was actually crazy. We first went on this glass platform thing which was pretty fun and then we just walk along the top and overlook everything, and then you hop in this 360 degree spinning elevator down and this is where the real joy starts cuz from the bottom you walk through these natural huge rock bridge things that i can rly only describe in pictures. It's just massive and the national park is so well designed like they didn't interfere with any of the nature they just had this nice path and the weather was so nice it was literally like chilly over here. It was so optimal the whole route and experience and I think anyone that comes to chongqing has to take this daytrip to visit. You can't take train or anything you have to book a tour bus on trip.com and stuff.

Then after that, we essentially just did the 2 hr drive back to the city and talked a lot to the driver in the van about chongqing culture and stereotypes and that typa stuff like its pretty unique like chongqing women generally just stay at home or play cards all day while the men go out and do work and give all the money to their wives like the men never seen one paycheck and the women are super fierce and in some regions like hainan or shandong its the exact opposite and stuff but anyway its super nice having my mom cuz we have these more deep conversations and can really experience the chongqing experience more rather than if it was just me and my sister there would be a sizable gap in communication.

ANyway, the van driver actually dropped us off at this like old street where a lot of the locals eat and we had this barbeque fish thing where we saw them literally grab the fish out the water and kill it so i thought it was dead AND AS SHE WAS DRAGGING THE FISH BACK TO THE KITCHEN IT WAS STILL ALIVE LIKE IT WAS STILL WIGGLING LIKE i literally fidgeted hard and had to look the other way and my mom was laughing at me. Anyway we waited like a good 20 min and we were super tired from waking up early and everything and the fish had a ton of the bones idk how to say it in english but u gotta pick all the small bone stuff out which was pretty time consuming since im bad at it. It was pretty good and flavorful but i think my like immune system isnt used to all this typa food and spicy stuff generally cuz this is basically when the stomachaches started lmao. Now i dont remember what we did after this but i think we just went back to the hotel, we bought dragonfruit drinks i remember hwich was super good like all they do is put an entire dragonfruit and ice in a blender and its legit so good, im gonna try that tech when i get back to america but i think that the dragonfruit here is such a vivid purple and its so sweet that its prob impossible to match.

Day 5

- stomach not feeling good

- shan cheng

- sidequesting to the old town place and booking hongyadong tour

- eating hun dun for lunch

- back at hotel

- moms friend and her daughter arrives, we go to liziba and the place above it e ling er chang

- night tour

So on day 5 we walked to shan cheng, which took a long time to navigate using baidu maps as this city is truly 3d and sometimes it tells u to go straight when theres literally a wall right in front of u like ight but anyway we ended up doing the shan cheng wrong cuz the views we saw were mid and our taxi driver afterwards was crashing out saying you have to walk like 40 min to the other side where the main attraction is which makes sense cuz my friend who is from chongqing said shancheng is really nice and i knew that what i saw wasnt all of it. But anyway the taxi driver recommended a ton of stuff for us to do and dropped us right next to this trip booking place where we booked a nightview tour thing since thats what the taxi driver said to do. My mom said afterwrads that all of this is connected like the taxi driver gets paid if he commissions us to make these tour purchases but anyway we booked 4 spots for my mom's friend and my mom's friend's daughter since they just arrived to chongqing.

Now we walked nearby to eat hundun at this random place and we actually recognized the store owner as the sister of the barbque fish stor eowner from yesterday since they were yapping together yesterday. Now this entire day and entire las tnight my stomach was killing me like i had to wake up and head to the toilet twice in the night and throughout this day so just know that.

Then we took taxi back to hotel, we rest for a sec, my moms friend and her daughter arrives and we have like nothing left to do in this city atp cuz its been like 5 days in this city but they come up with going to liziba which is a good idea. I didnt have this on my list cuz u look at the videos and i truly dont see whats so marveling about it. Yea it is pretty cool like the idea of like heading out ur apartment and going up the stairs and there is a train and train tracks literally going thru a building but idk it just didnt look that appealing and like a tourist trap to me. But anyway we took the train that went thru the building and then headed out. It was kinda cool riding it thru liziba. Then, we take a train to this place above it called e ling er chang which is pretty cool theres just random decorations and stairs and stuff going on and nice views.

Then after that we take the taxi to ShiBaTi which is where our meetup spot is for the tour at 7 pm. We head on the bus and our first stop is this viewpoint where you climb a buncha stairs and theres this like red ring with glass walls and u get a view of this other side of the city i forgot which side but its pretty nice and its not nighttime yet like the sun is still very up. Then we drive for some time and head to this place near nanbin road where theres this pool of water and ppl take photos lining up the reflection with the city skyline and its super cool.

Then we go to a viewpoint on nan bin lu for only like 2 mins its pretty funny the bus just parks during a red light and we get off and we have to get back on during the next red light or something and the tour guide is yelling at everyone.

Then finally we finish at this skyview place which was crazy like we take the elevator to the 67th floor and yea its just insane i get some timelapses and actually talk to these swedish people and end up connecting on linkedin like they are from malmo and i actually know where that is which made them super surprised. Take a bunch of insane photos, walk back to hotel, and we were so gassed i basically just went straight to be as soon as i could at like 12.

Day 6

- ring mall

- nan bin lu and drone show

- trouble finding taxi

This day we slept good and woke up at 10 AM, i had these like mini fried baozi thing for breakfast and my mom had this stuff idk how to say it in english or chinese honestly but afterwards we went to the ringmall with my mom friend and my moms friends daughter, it was pretty cool mall and exactly what i expected from some reels iw atched about it. Ended up exploring a lot of it by myself and they were playing the egypt vs australia game ending with the penalties at some store and so i watched that and also mightve spent 30 mins in the bathroom too and then we met up again for lunch afterwards where we were at some like hong kong store and it was pretty good there were a ton of those like soup dumpling things and there was this like fried chicken type thing and stuff.

Then they left and my mom and i explored more of the mall. Oh yea the ring mall is super cool theres a ton of like usa brands compared to other malls here in china like theres lululemon, tommy hillfiger, calvin klein, and bunch of other random stuff that makes it noticeable different. And then the section with the garden is super cool the mall is designed by some singapore company so you can definitely see the influence. It was also super hot outside so it was def rly nice to be here.

After that it was like 4 PM or something, me and my mom left to take a taxi to nanbin lu and ended up chatting a lot with the taxi driver again which appens evevery time like we learn quite a lot about everyday chongqing life through these taxi rides and im mainly just listening to my mom talking to drvier and stuff.

THen we arrive at nanbin lu and its so hot and theres a ton of stalls and we buy this like fresh lemonade thing and this fried potato thing which is super good that i end up buying another lemonade this one has like this flower flavor and its super good you see them punch the lemons straight in the cup it rly reminds me of this lemonade stand in the davis farmers market by native americans like its the exact same technique.

Then we head to this like viewing platform which is connected to this mall so we chill at the mall for a bit and buy tang hulu and then at 8 pm we head out and theres already a huge crowd and some drones flying around. If you guys dont know the reason why we stayed 7 nights here is cuz to see this drone show on saturday LMAO and all the taxi drivers and friends who we told this to were like "yall are crazy" but anyway the drone show was so cool and so much aura and it was funny how for each formation they would show have to show it to each side and the formations were so cool and everyone was oohs and aahs and there were even some ads which was so funny cuz the ads looked so cool. Actually such a peak show like definitely worth scheduling to have a saturday in chongqing and to check the weather so it doesnt rain and they cancel it.

After that we walked aolng nanbin lu for a bit and couldnt find a taxi and ended up going under the bridge and did a ton of random walking and random sidequesting and there was this italian guy doing this ball soda can scam game like youll know what im talking about if uve gone to china but they were having trouble commnunicating and as we were walking by i was like i can translate so i translated to him in english and the dude spent 30 yuan it was super funny cuz the third time i was like "u should stop doing it cuz its a scam" and he looked me in the eye and in his italian accent he was like "ah you see this is only 1 euro, this is just for fun" 😭😭 like this is way too funny LMAO but also valid like honestly i wanted to give it a try at that point but i knew i would start getting hooked and mad at myself for missing and keep spamming "1 euros"

but thats how my day went what a way to go out with that drone show and i also got a really nice vehicle lights timelapse from nanbin lu angle. Once we got to the hotel we were so gassed we did some packing and basically went to sleep i had no time to do blogging and did like 5 minutes of flash cards. I have 470 cards due in chinese han characters and im doing them right now on the train its so cooked

Xi An

Day 7

Wakeup at 7 am, take taxi to gaotie and we have an hour to kill cuz we got there early. We eat breakfast and my mom gets some bread and a coffee and i get jian bin with beef and it was pretty good and a lu dou drink and it was pretty good. Then I kill some time by taking a timelapse and checking it out like there is SO MANY people at the gaotie station waiting like its just people everywhere its so many people.

We head on the train and its like 6 hrs from like 10 AM to 4 PM, really chill ride where i finally caught up on 3 days of blogging, caught up on flash cards, and did a lot of cubing, and there was a grandma and two kids behind us who were playing cards and they had some funny content too.

Then at 4 PM we take a taxi to our hotel, drop our stuff, then head out to eat da dong kao ya and while were walking we get lost or something idk our gps was just tweaking out so we gave up and took a taxi and got there. Now i didn't realize that this was like some super fancy stuff like the meal was like 400+ yuan which is like 10x the normal cost for a meal but its crazy cuz its less than 60 USD which is literally a STEAL for any restauraunt dining over there especially considering tipping. So yeah u rly do live like a king in China with the USD.

Now the duck was so cook like they cut it up in front of us, gave us like mnultiple courses like the hui guo rou was SUPER good and my mom barely ate so i ended up finishing like eveyrthing and became super full like man the duck is just so good with the crispy skin like absolute peak.

After that we basically walked out and did a bunch of side questing i bought a white airism longsleeve from uniqlo for 120 yuan (<$20 usd) which is like $30 in america like literally half the price here. But anyway like it was super hot and we were trying to get back to our hotel but my didi was still buffering cuz the internet was bad and basically what ended up happening was we were trynna take the train back but the train staff were like "its literally way faster to just walk there" and so we walked there and there was a guy driving a tuktuk basically like chinese tukutk and that ended up being ABSOLUTE PEAK because its like a grown 50 yr old man driving this tuktuk and the beeps sound like some bumper car type beeping like i coudlnt stop laughing. And we were driving against the direction of traffic and there wer epeople everywhere and this driver was just bullshtting the entire route and he was talking about how he got divorced like my mom was instigating so much it was acutally so peak.

Then we just walked around a bit and bought some fruit and bread for breakfast tomorrow since we have to wake up early. Then we went back to the hotel and thats how the day went.

Day 8 - Terracotta Army Tour

Ok I am currently on like day 11 on a 14 hour train ride to hohhot, so time to catch up on 3 days of activities. This day day 8 was we booked a tour on trip.com. We woke up at like 7 AM or something i forgot early in the morning, some bus picked us up and theres around like 20 ppl here or something. We first went to this famous like hmong place and basically this place has a ton of history. So XiAn is a huge history city and i know nothing about chiense history but today i learned a lot because we visited where the like yea im just not gonna explain it cuz my mom explained it all in chinese and its kinda complicated but honestly really interesting cuz we watched this very elaborate play with a ton of random stunts and moving buildings and stuff like it was very immersive and made me super curious about the history and some of the dialogue i coudlnt udnerstand or i could if i put a ton of effort into it.

Anyway that was super cool and we got to visit the sites of where stuff happened like where that taiwanese party person hid in the mountains like that was kidna cool.

Then after that we took a bus to get lunch together and they dropped us off at this restaurant with a ton of like local xi an food and all of the people in our tour group ate together and it was pretty good. Had a lot of fun converestaions too.

Then we drove to bing ma yong aka terracotta army and spent some time there, it was super cool like the pit 1 easily was the most aura as it's just literally so much of the terra cotta army pressed up together and these things are literally THOUSANDS of years old. Like the history is pretty interesting about it but whats funny is the backstory about how it was discovered. Like it used to be a rural village in the 1970s and some old man was goingn to dig up a well and then discovers this LMAO bro thats such a funny story. We had a nice tour guide during this part who gave some rly nice insights and it was super hot but the buildings all had AC which is good.

Then after, some people in the tour booked this performance thing while some people didnt. We did tho, and so they dropped us off at like 6 pm or something at a mall across from teh stage. And there we ate at some place and tried biang biang mian and rou jia mo and some rice cake i forgot what its called its like liang gao. Anyway this mall literlaly was just restaraunts and foot massage and its literally just spamming these places cuz its designed to be this way because most people are here to kill time before watching the show, and so after eating we went to foot massage and this was my first time doing this i first put it in this like hot water flower mixture thing for a bit, then some person massaged my foot for like 30 min and she was going super hard at first and im not used to it and its also like ticklish too a bit so i told her to calm down a lil politely and im ngl this is not for me ig it does feel kinda comofrtable but the whole time iw as just lowkey wincing and realisticlaly id feel better if she stopped but its rude so i just grimaced thru it. Anyway tho during this time I got a tonna flash cards done and stuff it was pretty relaxing like the chairs were super nice and you coudl put them down flat and lie down and everything.

Then at like 8:50 PM or something we left to wtach the show and this show was really cool too like it was outdoor with 3,000 seats like a ton of seats. Our tickets were like 298 yuan per person or something and we were in the front section so we got a super good view but there were some times during the show where there'd be flames and stuff and its literally like were getting bbq'd alive like some old ladies in front of us were tweaking out LMAO. But anyway the show was super cool there was so much random stunts with the fountains and the lights and the mountain behind lit up like crazy and it was such a backdrop aura. There were likt ehse like firework sparks too and just a tonna random stuff.

After that we just took a taxi back to our hotel, and then found some street vendor nearby selling fried mushroom and fried popcorn chicken and it was SO GOOD like i think its the best popcorn chicken ive ever had. ANd it was like 30 yuan total and it was rly fire. Also it like randomly started STORMING and being insanely windy while we were finishing up.

Day 9 - QiZai + sidequesting

So this day we are going to the zoo to see QiZai, the world's only brown panda. His name is Qi Zai which means seventh son because its the 7th ever discovered brown panda. So with this much aura attached to his name, i found the zoo opens at 9 AM, so we have to leave at like 8:20 cuz it takes 90 min to get there, so then we have to wake up at like 7:30 or sum. ANd we go to sleep at like 2 or 3 AM cuz the show yesterday was super late and we had to eat and stuff.

So anywya we get there like 10 min early and i thought itd be super hyped up like huahua from last yaer but not rly like there was not even a line. But like 5 min before there was lowkey a sizable line and good thing we were near the front. So we enter, we follow the rest of the ppl who are buying the golf cart tickets and we buy one and were on the first car to leave and literally everyones there to see qizai so everyone gets off at the same stop and were all trynna find him and we take like 2 wrong turns but we end up figuring it out and when we get there theres already TWO SWEATS pressed up with cameras like they def knew the route and ran here and came faster then us in the cart. QiZai has his butt pointing at us at first and then after like 10 min he gets up and starts walking towrads his indoor area to eat some bamboo.

So then everyone IMMEDIATELY dips and im like this area is cleared out, what if qizai comes back out then i did some bias for action and ive seen how pandas behave from last year and i know that qizai is going up there indoor to chomp on some bamboo for HOURS and i was like yea im out so I didnt do the 10,000 iq aura move of staying here and i also sprinted up and QiZai was chomping on bamboo and we got a super good view of him. He was super cute and honestly very personable like he literally moves like hes 80 yrs old even tho hes 17 yrs old, idk how much that is in panda years but like he would take hesis and freeze up while eating or start sleeping. And the exhibit right next to him was like yaya or i forgot the name i think it was anothe rpanda but this other panda who was older than him literally was moving super fast and super young and qizai was just like acting like an old man it was super cute. There was not many people at all like there was a staff member yelling and pressing us to keep moving and form a line but wed just go back in line and since we got here right hwen it opened there basically was no line like the line was only later on.

Then we explored the rest of the zoo with some kid we met who was super excited to see qizai too and saw huahua last year too. We saw some like goat cow things like it was like a cow-sized goat. We saw some really random birds, we saw monkeys, we went over to the bears and red pandas but it was too hot none of them were out. We dipped out after a bit, i slept a bit on the taxi ride, we went back to the hotel and took a calm nap cuz we were running on minimal sleep.

Then afte rlike a 1 hr nap or something we went out to get some calm lunch and then came back and our hotel provides this free service where we dress up in the qin dynasty clothing and take some professional photos so we did that and it was super fun. My mom looked so funny and cute with the qin dynasty makeup and hair and hat and everything.

Then we took a taxi to visit old muslim street i forgot how to say it in chinese or english but its a super massive attraction in xi an and it was super fun. Like there were a ton of random performances going on, a ton of super cool statues and buildings like it was super grand. And the road was super wide and stuff. And there were a ton of people like so many people it was super fun and just going on random sidequests. Then after that we took a taxi back to our hotel area ish and walked to see the bell tower which is called zhong lou in chinese and it was super aura and kinda like guan yin qiao of xi an because there were so many photos going on and all the setups going on.

Then we went on an insane amount of side quests we took a tuktuk to the north gate and there was lowkey not much there but it was cool to see it and walk thru the south gate all the way to the bell tower and take a tuktuk all the way to the north gate. It seems pretty short distance on google maps but nah its super long like it is not walkable at all.

Then we took another tuktuk on the way back and did some sidequest at this other like old muslim road like most hte ppl behind the stalls were muslim and it was super fun i ate this rou jia mo and it was super good and drank a bunch of random drinks and bought ton of random stuff. Super satisfying man and so fun honestly, my back lowkey started hurting just by cumulating like these so many days of traveling and stuff. ANyway tho we took a tuktuk again back to the hotel late at night and thats it.

Day 10

So it is not today and today i am on a train to hohhot. Today I woke up at like 9:30 AM and we decided not to set alarm cuz of the lack of sleep we've been getting lately. My mom woke up way earlier and did some sidequesting and helped out a russian girl with trying to buy something. So basically what we did was we met up with the russian girl for lunch at a mall nearby and it was pretty fun had some nice conversations like russia and china are quite similar but anyway.

We had to check out at like 1 PM so we went back to the hotel, I took a quick shower and we packed and headed out. We kept our bags at the hotel since our train is at 4 PM. We took the tuktuk to another mall near the one we had lunch in and did some exploring and bought a drink at naixue. Then killed some time and bought some food at a chaoshi aka super market.

Then we go back to hotel, get our bags, i get a didi to the train station, we get on the train. Right now it's 9:52 PM on the train and lights are gonna go out at 10 and i finished all my flashcards and all this blog catching up right on time so that feeles satisfying. This train ride is SURREAL like its exactly like this one chinese movie that i watched. There's beds here and so many people it feels like a family in here were all just crammed on this train and its like super oldschool vibes and super asian vibes its so fun. I'm boutta head to the bed now, so that's how day 10 went. Lowkey a lot of stuf fbe happening on this train but i have no time to write about it.

Conclusion

So that was my ChongQing + XiAn trip, which was only like 25% of my entire china trip. I was in hohhot for like 3+ weeks after which was so fun. It's a different kind of fun like in chongqing and xi an its just me and my mom and there's absolutely nothing to care about. Like seriously it's so lightweight and you forget about everything, which is definitely true for me in hohhot but there is more of a sense of stress. Cuz of so many family members and you feel like u have some tasks of people to see and talk to but on the other hawn I'm not a tourist when I'm a hohhot. Im a true chinese/mongolian citizen you know just living with my relatives and going thru every day life and playing with my cousins and seeing people that im blood related to. Anyway tho in between my stay in hohhot i went on a 2 day, 1 night trip to DaTong too which was so much fun, we went to yun gang shi ku which is this like carved limestone statue thing buddism it was so cool. But yeah i have aboslutely 0 CAPTACITY to write about it like i was so exhausted writing up the daily wrapups in chongqing cuz i was doing so much every day. It was honestly so emotional some parts being in hohhot and spending quality time with my cousin. Like towards the end I spent a good amount of time with guoguo and even had some deep conversations with him and its just so emotional leaving. I cherish those little moments so much, just walking with my cousins around the mall, playing board games with my cousins, watching yueyue or dousha show me what she learned in dance class, practicing english with qiqi, and going gokarting with kangjunyi and him being so sad when i was having an allergic reaction and looking after me better than my uncle. Most kids don't have that transactional connection like adults do when they see that im from america, instead genuine curiosity, so its just so special being with my cousins. SO many memories and emotions.

Anyway though what an incredible trip like always like we spent 7 days in chongqing and me and mom were saying like we're so down to go back. It was such a warm time of our life just vibing out all day and it was so fun just side questing and talking to locals and spending so freely cuz everything is so cheap. So many great memories and honestly I just feel so rich. Like I literally saw the only brown panda in the world basically. And I saw the terracota army. And I went to ChongQing china like EVERYONE wants to go there right now. And just so many other scenes and views that i was able to see like it doesnt feel real. And I experienced it all.

I'm now in this phase where I wanna go to Asia so bad like I'm so fixated on Asia. It's like a comnbination of cuz I'm asian but also cuz of the spending power. I wanna go to malaysia, indonesia, kazakhstan, singapore, vietnam, bhutan, so bad. Japan korea thailand are cool too. India is cool too. But like Europe I"m done with like im so invested in Asia I love it so much there. Idk it feels like in europe ure just doing luxury stuff and its so high-profile idk how to explain it but then in asia ure just so much more humble and theres so much more to do. Like the night markets and just sitting on those stools eating noodles. I will say if i were to go to europe switzerland would be fire, or like norway or sum. But yea anyway man insane trip. Hopefully u saw the editors note on the top because im pretty sure no one actually reads this blog post but yea i have this blgo post, i have a long-form video, and a short-form video which is ENOUGH EVIDENCE that i went to chongqing LOL.

Lyric(s) of the Post:

“你眉眼弯弯漾漾

目光似水悠悠晃晃
我心也微微上扬
因为你就在我身旁“

颜人中-缓缓

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