AinoInChina: Beijing, Chengdu and Chongqing

Couple of weeks ago I visited Beijing during weekend and also met my daughter and her boyfriend travelling around China for three weeks. It was interesting trip and we visited Forbidden city, Mutianyu - Great wall, Ming tombs, silk and jade factories, got some footmassage, met tibetan/chinese doctor and walked around taking lot of photos and eating spicy foods.

One evening we witnessed interesting episode in a restaurant while waiting our food. In kitchen area we saw very big fish jumping on the floor and several persons trying to catch it. Fish was supposed to be dinner to somebody. One can see lot of living animals in restaurants to garantee that the ingredients are fresh when you order your dinner.

Also in supermarkets it can look like kind of akvarium with living fish, lobsters, frogs and all kind of other animals that you can buy and take with you home for dinner.

Forbidden city was mighty and there was so many beautiful and fascinating details in architecture and objects shown there. Weather was horrible with hard wind, rain and we were freezing but still it was exciting place to visit. I really hope to be able to visit and explore the place several times.

Last weekend my daughter and her boyfriend was visiting me here in Chongqing and during saturday we made daytrip to Chengdu located west from CQ. Now I was able to experience travelling by train here in China and it was like travelling by train in Sweden. This fast train
to Chengdu was really modern and travelling was very comfortable. It only took about two hours to get there.

We took taxi to Chengdu Panda Breeding and Reasearch center. We were lucky to see several Giant Pandas in action. We saw some baby Pandas, yound Pandas playing around and older animals mostly just walking around. We also saw 'Red Panda' that looks very different from 'Giant Panda'.

In Chengdu we visited also beautiful Wenshu monastery, buddhist temple with many buildings made in traditional chinese style. Vegetarian restaurant was supposed to be really good but unfortunately it was closed when we visitied the place.

Yesterday was saturday and weather here in Chongqing was quite warm and sunny. We went first time with cable car over Yangtse river and scenery was really nice. We walked around in downtown, Jiefangbei. We found an area with older, lower houses with very poor living conditions for people living in the area just 'under' luxury, modern streets in city center. Along steep staircases lives people in quite unbelievable living conditions. Still we could meet many smiles, curiosity and kindness while going around like turists with our cameras.

Today in the evening I had good dinner at nearby restaurant with some nice people. We made also some plans for different kind of activities. On wednesday I have birthday and we decided that these nice people will come to visit me in the evening and bring some birthday cake with them. We were also talking about visit to Dazu stonecarvings, swimming, visiting hot springs, visiting salsa class in local dancing school, walking along trails on mountains, ... and other nice things one can experience here in Chongqing area.

Photos ... will be uploaded as soon as possible ...