i woke up at 6am this morning, after having slept for nearly 9 hours, the most amount of sleep i'd had since i've been on vacation. it helps that these seem to be blackout curtains, so the room was in complete darkness. i had weird dreams, that the room was filled with mosquitoes, stinging me all over unless i was under the covers. i would then snap out of my dream intermittently, frantically checking my body for mosquito bites (there were none).

since i was up early, i used the bathroom and took a shower, before trying to get some blogging done. there hotel actually has breakfast between 7:30-9:30am but it was still too early. instead i finished the two remaining egg tarts and tried the fermented sweet rice. it was a little too sweet, i don't know if you're supposed to eat it or mix it with something else. i ate what i could then threw out the rest. even though i planned on staying here another night, i packed up my things anyway, don't like stuff left outside when they clean the room. i used the bathroom again, washed up, and headed downstairs for breakfast.

there was nobody in the breakfast area. it made me think that maybe i'm the only guest in this hotel and they made breakfast just for me. there was some rice porridge, and some buns in a steam serving tray. there was nothing to drink. i ate something just to make a show of it, so the people who prepared the food don't get their feelings hurt if nobody ate anything. originally i ate in the breakfast area, but moved outside so i could look at the inner courtyard while i ate even though it was kind of dark. the place is very pretty. i'm paying extra for the ambience. the rooms are all numbered weird. they all begin with 8 followed by the floor number and the room number. so my room is 8302. while i ate, two more people showed up. they looked local, didn't look like outsiders, so i wonder if they're workers.

i finished up and went to the front desk to pay for another night's stay but nobody was there. i went back to my room. SM was already up. her parents went to chongqing city this morning to see her maternal grandfather who's getting a biopsy for possible kidney cancer. SM wanted to meet and go into new city now, but i told her we should wait until after 9am, for rush hour traffic to be over (if there is even such a thing in changshou). it was still just 8:15am so i had 45 minutes to kill.

i left the hotel but not before paying for another night's stay. there was no discount even though it wasn't the weekend anymore and i might be the only guest. i paid RMB$180 using the money SM transferred into my alipay account. it wasn't over RMB$200 so i wouldn't have been penalized with the 3% foreign credit card fee anyway.

SM suggested we take the bus (170) but i said it'd be quicker taking a didi. maybe she felt embarrassed for suggesting we take the bus, because she took out her phone immediately and called a didi before i could even mark our destination. i'm trying not to have her spend anymore money than what she already did. so just our luck, as soon as she did that, the bus came. our didi driver showed up a short time later. walking to new town would've taken a while but in a car it took just a few minutes.

we got dropped off in front of the breakfast bun place i saw yesterday. this was our breakfast spot back when i worked in changshou. our bus would pick us up right in front, so a lot of people going to work would also get some food: meat buns and soy milk. i did that, or if i woke up early enough, i might boil an egg while i took a shower. i did that for over a year, that was my life. and here i was now, 12 years later, coming back. nostalgia is kind of a sad thing. it's a yearning for something in the past that can no longer be had. seeing all these places, it's bittersweet. at least this place is still here, while so many other places are now gone. SM got a rice porridge, we got 4 meat buns, and i got a soy milk. total? RMB$8. and SM said that was expensive. the buns were smaller than i remembered. they came in two flavors, dark soy and a lighter version. they were good but not like travel halfway across the world good, even though that's what i did. i chatted with the bus and told him how i used to live and work here and we came to his shop every morning. i paid by scanning a restaurant QR code. the amount would then be broadcasted on a little tabletop speaker, that's how the owner can tell if somebody's paid or not. it's kind of ingenious.

after breakfast we went to explore new town. SM went to her bank to deposit the RMB$1200 cash i gave her yesterday. we went to a china unicom office to ask why i can't make or receive any phone calls. the woman took out the SIM card and put it in a blank phone. she was able to call the number just fine. SM tried it to and it worked. that means the problem has to do with my pixel 9 pro phone. that makes sense since google services is entirely banned in china, so it stand to reason a phone made by google would also not work. this is the second time i've bought a phone into china thinking it'd work and finding out it doesn't. last time it happened, i just bought another phone. i could probably do the same this time, but i'm leaving china in 10 more days, not worth it. i can text at least. lesson learned.

i also went to the underground produce market. SM stayed outside because it was gross. there used to be a vendor who sold yarn, that person wasn't there. another woman made fermented tofu, she's long gone as well (she had already left when i came here 10 years ago, so not a total surprise).

we got as far as the old yonghui supermarket before SM said she was tired. i said she could go home and rest while i stayed in new town (i could explore new town all day i told her). i'd find a hot pot place for us to have lunch. she was going to take the 170 bus back to ancient town, but i offered to pay for a didi ride, which only cost RMB$3.6 (the bus ride itself was RMB$3). the driver showed up but was parked on the other side of the street before he pulled a u-turn. once SM got home, the rideshare contacted me so i could pay the fare.

i tried looking for a hot pot place. the street where there used to be a bunch of hot pot restaurants, they're all mostly gone. i went there to have hot pot with workers and i took my parents there as well. i did come across a chicken entrails restaurant, which seemed to have moved. instead of hot pot i want to eat here for lunch, and move hot pot for dinner.

i went through the courtyard of where i used to live. i was tempted to go upstairs into the apartment building, but i think that would've gone a little too far. there was the pool where SM and i visited once, now it's too cold for swimming. back outside, i walked to the courtyard then followed the perimeter of the mall. i remember seeing some food chains earlier from yesterday when we took a taxi to ancient town from new town. sure enough i found them: a starbucks and a mcdonalds! i also found the entrance to the apartment where andy pan used to live, and that i lived for a while after i left the company but still hung around chongqing. i visited the KFC, which i came 10 years ago as a pilgrimage because they were building it but i left before they could open. it seemed pretty beat up now, attached to a decrepit mall, so decrepit that the down escalator wasn't even working to save money.

back at the mall across the street i sign a for food palace. it looked promising so i went downstairs and discovered the mall's food court. the mall itself was a little old, but this area was all brand new. in all there were 42 different shops. i could spend weeks here, just trying out a different place every day. why go elsewhere when you can have the convenience of a mall food court? i tried to get some tangyuan but the woman said they were still cooking the glutinous rice balls and there was another 15 minute wait.

i left the food court and went to explore another street i don't remember seeing before. there were several large hot pot stores, a bit fancier than your standard place. that's when i contacted SM and made my suggestion. chicken innards for lunch, hot pot for dinner. she told me that her parents were coming back tonight, and she wouldn't be able to go out again because she had to make dinner for them. so i had to choose between chicken innards or hot pot for lunch. i ended up picking hot pot. SM told me to come back to the hotel, that she knew a good hot pot place in ancient town.

i hailed a didi for RMB$6. i got back to the hotel by 12:20pm. i dropped off my jacket back in the room before meeting SM on the plaza outside her apartment complex. we then walked through ancient town to the hot pot restaurant. i saw people playing mahjong with fat tiles the size of a zippo lighter but thicker. there was a store selling animals, i tried not to look too carefully, but they had birds, turtles, axolotls (pink, orange, black), and puppies. we kept walking. they really expanded ancient town since my last visit. SM told me it basically stretches down forever until it reached changshou museum more than a mile away. it's probably one of the most extreme example of a chinese faux ancient town. SM said more adventurous foreigners have visited, which is just a half hour high speed train ride from chongqing city.

finally we reached the hot pot restaurant. this is the place SM and her parents come to when they have visiting guests. because it was lunch time the place was basically empty, as they waited for the dinner crowd. though honestly, with so many hot pot restaurants in changshou (and through chongqing in general), how does a restaurant stand out from the crowd? this place is famous for its lamb tripe. we got that a bunch of other hot pot favorites, like duck intestines and regular tripe. lamb tripes come in these pouches that look like dumplings. they don't really taste like lamb, and aren't as strongly textured as regular tripe. they're okay, but i prefer regular tripe. SM picked the least spicy option, i told her i wouldn't mind spicier, and had the waitress bring me slices of hot peppers to add to my sauce. we ate for an hour until almost 2pm, to the point of bursting. i could probably skip dinner at this point. i insisted on paying for the hot pot, which came out to just US$20. same meal back in the US would easily cost $80.

walking back to our section of ancient town via the outside road, SM got a text from her parents that they didn't need her to cook tonight, so she was off the hook and could hang out some more. i didn't get back to my hotel until 2:40pm. we scheduled to reconvene around 6pm for dinner plans even though we both couldn't eat another bite. maybe just to grab some dessert.

so i had the next 3 hours to kill back at the hotel. after a shower, i went about fixing my pixel 9 pro (P9P). i did some research and it's entirely possible to get a P9P to work in china. the secret is to turn on voice over LTE (VoLTE) for the local chinese sim card. for whatever reason pixel turns it off for all chinese sim card, even though chinese carriers use it for making phone calls. that's why i can still get data and text with my china unicom sim, just not any calls. it involves installing 2 apps on the phone: shizuku and pixel IMS. i have no idea what either of those apps do, but i just followed the steps to turn on VoLTE. it seemed to have turned it on, so i restarted the phone but i couldn't be sure unless i made a call. i then found another app - VoLTE toggle - that made the procedure even faster using just one app. i used that to check if VoLTE was on for my china unicom and it said it was off so i turned it back on again.

SM contacted me around 4pm, said her parents were coming back from chongqing after all when they realized her grandfather's kidney biopsy isn't until tomorrow. that meant she had to make dinner. neither of us could eat another bite after our hot pot lunch. she suggested i could go to old town on my own. i was fine with the idea, and said i could contact her again when i came back so maybe we can grab some dessert in ancient town.

i didn't leave until 6pm, and spent time up to that point updating my blog entries. SM gave me the address of where i should go to see that tree-lined street flanked with hot pot restaurants on either side. i set it as my destination and hauled a didi for RMB$7.

when i got there it wasn't as i how remembered it. a few restaurants had shuttered, and the canopy of trees seemed a little sparse. maybe i was remembering it through romanticized lenses. the first few times i ate there it was like magic. mingling with coworkers after work, delicious food, good company, it was the best. i can still remember it like it was yesterday. i walked the length of the street taking photos before leaving.

adjoining this hot pot street were two tunnels that formed a former air raid shelter. google lens tells me it's called the huangjuewan (黄桷湾隧道) tunnel, and was actually built fairly recently, 1996-1997 (so not sure if the air raid shelter story is true or not). it used to be filled with vendors selling clothing and makeup and all sorts of other stuff. so i was surprised to see it now empty, simply used as a passageway. inside were lined with photos of old changshou. the tunnel opened up to another decrepit mall. at one point i remember it used to be filled with people, but hard to imagine that now. it was a little scary because a lot of stores had already closed and turned their lights off, so i was just wandering a near empty mall, trying to find an exit by following people around. does anyone know where they're going? where are people going anyway? this dark and empty mall would be a great place to get murdered, as i kept looking behind me to see if i was being followed. finally after much walking i came out of the mall.

down below was another plaza. this place used to be filled with seniors dancing at nights. tonight there seemed to be a special event, as tents were set up selling cheap clothes, foods, chinese medicine hacks, and old junk. loud music was blaring, not sure if it was related to the tent sales or the seniors relegated off to the sides were blaring their music in protest for having their space taken away. the whole time i had an uneasy feeling about this place. i've been here before, so it's so far removed from my semblance of a safe space, i just wanted to get out of there. the place was creepy in an unfamiliar way, hard to describe what it was. i climbed up a steep sidewalk to get to an open street that i could hail a didi. i remember there used to be lots of people here but now it was just empty. what do they call it? liminal spaces. i felt like i was trapped in a liminal space. i hauled a rideshare for RMB$8. a little more expensive than before, but i just wanted to get out of there.

the didi took me back to the hotel. it was only 7pm. i texted SM, said i was back, but hanging out in ancient town. she said they were down with dinner and she was doing the dishes. she said she could meet me afterwards. so i slowly meandered through the main street of ancient town. i'm glad they expanded and somehow this faux tourist destination continues to survive, but the stores are depressing. it was depressing 12 years ago when they first build ancient town, depressing 10 years ago when i came back to visit, and depressing now in 2026. what they need is some genuine franchise stores, like a starbucks or mcdonalds. only then will you know the place has finally made it. in the meantime, it can only attract chinese brand stores. the most international place i saw was a watson, a HK-based CVS-like chain.

eventually SM came out to meet me. first thing i did was ask for her phone number so i could try calling with my newly hacked pixel phone. at first it didn't seem to be working, but then her phone started ringing. it worked! i can make phone calls now. i joked that means i can start ordering meituan takeout meals from my hotel room.

SM took me to a place selling tangyuan. i was the only one who ate, she wasn't hungry. she couldn't understand how i could eat something cold on a cold night while still having a cough. she said she'd come with me to the train station tomorrow. we'd take a didi but she'd take a bus back home. i didn't say no, i could use a little hand-holding making it through the train station. it used to be a difficult thing to buy train tickets as a foreigner. i'd have to come early and line up for a ticket even if i purchased in advance. my foreign id wouldn't work on the ticket dispensing machines. but things are different now. this is a rehearsal for when i take the train on thursday to chengdu to see LXL.

i got back to my hotel room by 8:30am. a nearby KTV was blaring some music, but the woman thankfully stopped after a few minutes.

i went to sleep last night at 1:30am and woke up at 7am to get ready to return my hotel room and leave for changshou. the more i see of this room, the more it reminds me of just living in somebody's house, more airbnb than an actual hotel room. like there's a box of q-tips attached to the bathroom wall. what hotel room has that? there's also a soap on a rope. i was intrigued but afraid to use it, who knows what kind of germs it might harbor. VPN wifi on my phone keeps on failing. i wonder if it's part of china's great fire wall, and after noticing the same VPN logging from the same location after a few days, it can somehow restrict it from working? who knows. i do however have another VPN - windscribe - which is what i use on my computer - and once i turned that on, the connection seemed more stable for now.

i was only bringing my backpack. i packed some change of clothes. i'm only gone for 2 nights, but i brought enough for 4 days just in case i have to change clothes more option. i also took out a bunch of stuff. things like spare cables. after being out for over a week now, i kind of know how many cables i need already. i also left behind some battery stuff. and all my spare lenses, which turned out to be completely unnecessary.

i left the room by 9am. i contacted the cleaning lady, asked her where to put my suitcase. i swear, she lives inside the walls, because a few minutes later she just showed up. i wonder if she lives here at the hotel? we went up to the 21st floor where i put my luggage in a pile of hotel supplies. she asked me if i was staying here again when i came back. i told her honestly that i'm probably going to move to a more central location. she seemed to understand, didn't seem offended. i didn't tell her i already booked the hotel room for tuesday and wednesday, jet bear hotel.

i left the hotel and walked to the linjiang lu station. i had my backpack, my camera bag, and a tote bag with SM's taiwanese pineapple cakes. this was a sunday morning, so commuting traffic was relatively light. i switched to the blue line and headed to hongqihegou station. when i arrived, the station had changed. 12 years ago, it was a brand new station. they put renaissance art on the ceiling, it was quite beautiful. now the ceiling murals had been removed and it looked like any generic station.

i walked out and headed to the bus station. it too had changed. the building that houses the station now seemed empty, while the working station was in a smaller building in the back. i bought my ticket, just RMB$18. it was still the mess of people crowding the ticket counter, shouting, throwing down cash, yelling for their ticket. it made me realize something: buses are for poor people. if you had slightly more money, you'd take the high speed train, or maybe you have your own car that you can drive to changshou. any place where you see people use cash instead of online payment, you know you're in a poor area.

buses leaving for changshou don't have a schedule. they leave as soon as it fills up. when i first got onboard there were plenty of empty seats, but then more people started filling in, so i put my heavy backpack and camera bag on my lap. a man sat down next to me, saw how crowded i was in my seat, and told me i should've put my backpack on the bottom cargo storage. i told him i had a laptop and didn't get my bag to get jostled. he scoffed in chinese. in the back of a bus was a child crying and screaming. from what i gathered, his grandmother was taking him home but he wanted to stay in the city with his mother. he cried for about 15 minutes before finally tiring out and stopping.

the route was slightly different than what i remembered. either more trees grew in the decade i've been gone so i can't see the usual landmarks, or this was a new highway. we also didn't stop at the toll both to submit our manifest. that was always a weird thing when i took the bus. a guard would come onboard and do a head count. it seemed like a waste of time, not sure the reason for it. but they don't do that now.

it took us an hour to get to changshou, got there by 11am. they used to let people off right after the toll station, but now they drive a little bit further and drop people at the gymnasium. SM said she was there waiting but i didn't see her. turns out she was in the opposite side of the drop off and we didn't see each other.

it had been raining heavily earlier during the day here in changshou (it was dry but cloudy in chongqing) but dry now. we walked into new town, where there was an ICBC bank that's opened on sundays. SM took me there to fix my alipay issue where i couldn't link my ICBC bank card to my alipay. that short little walk brought back so many memories as i saw familiar locations. that's where i used to live! that's where my coworkers lived! a lot of stores had changed, but i was happy to see the meat bun place was still there after all these years.

the people working at the ICBC bank were really helpful and patient, but this was a problem they'd never encountered before, not too many foreigners come to changshou. two workers were trying to solve my case but it seemed like a lost cause. i was ready to give up. then SM said how come i can't take out the money from my account, give it to her, and she forwards it into my alipay account? i said alipay told me i can't do person-to-person transfer with my linked foreign credit card. she tested it by sending me RMB$10 into both my alipay and wechat. they both worked. so i went to the ATM and cashed out half - RMB$1200. i gave it to SM, and she forwarded me RMB$1200 right into my alipay. it worked! that was easy.

next we went to the nearby mall where SM took me to eat barbecue. the mall now caters to children, a lot of amusement areas and rides and children stores. it's a children's mall now! upstairs was the food area. i even saw a peking duck restaurant. barbecue turned out to be korean barbecue. SM took out her glasses as she was now near-sighted. "it's not for reading! my eyes aren't that bad yet!" it was a pretty good spread, the first time in chongqing where i had a nice quiet meal. i was going to pay but SM had already paid. RMB$130 ($19.50). i told her to let me pay in the future as she's currently unemployed.

we went downstairs to the basement where there was a yonghui supermarket. i'd already been to the yonghui at guanyinqiao. we tried putting my backpack into the storage locker but it didn't fit so i just strapped it to my back. i got some portuguese style egg tarts for less than RMB$10, some preserved yangmei, and a jar of fermented glutinous rice with osmanthus flowers. when we went to pay i saw it was self-checkout. no! so even in china they do self-checkout now.

we hauled a taxi and went to ancient town to look for a hotel. the stretch of road from new town to ancient town used to be very quiet and lined with residential housing. now it was a commercial boulevard, i don't recognize it anymore. i remember seeing a chinese ring-neck pheasant in one of the empty lots more than a decade ago. now it's hard to imagine this use to be open space.

the hotel SM found was one right across the street from her house, in ancient town. it seemed pretty new, built in an faux ancient chinese style with a courtyard. price? RMB$180, a little high. i was ready for pay for 2 nights but SM told me to just pay one night for now. the room on the 3rd floor was decent. feels like i'm the only guest here as i didn't see anyone else. we agreed to meet up at 3pm after getting some rest. SM said she'd come and pick me up in her car.

i took a shower. my clothes smelled clean enough i could rewear them. at 3pm i heard a knock on the hotel. it was the front desk lady, said somebody was trying to reach me but couldn't get through. i checked my wechat and SM had sent me a few messages telling me to go wait outside. so i did. i was looking to see which car was SM's. a white SUV pulled up in front of me but i didn't recognize the driver. after a few seconds, the window rolled down and SM yelled at me to get in. i didn't recognize her! because she went home and changed and was wearing glasses.

she drove us to the changshou museum. this was a gas-consuming chinese-brand chang'an car. lots of fancy features, like front facing camera and talking assistant. SM drove okay (a little on the timid side) but swore the whole time she was driving, like everyone was stupid and everyone was trying to get in her way. she said she bought the car a little more over a year ago for RMB$100,000 (US$15k), so not very expensive even though it looks very pricey. there's an adjoining parking lot that was pretty full, it took SM forever to park in one spot. she insisted rear first which is more difficult than head first. she even went to find a taxi cab driver to help her move her car. he just redirected from outside. i even tried moving the car but i wasn't familiar with the controls and didn't want to damage it. after she finally parked, she put suction bumpers on the sides of the doors to prevent other cars from dinging into hers.

this is a new changshou museum, within eyesight of puti mountain. this area used to be empty, but now it looked so old and used, seems like all the stores had been here forever. it hurt my head just thinking about it. i didn't think changshou had very much history, but this museum tried to prove otherwise. SM said she'd been here before so let me browse the museum while she went to a nearby supermarket across the street.

i found out the old name for changshou was lewen (樂溫) and was established in 619 under the tang dynasty for more than 600 years. besides historical relics, they've also found dinosaur bones in the area, a large one on display when you first come into the museum. the displays were okay, the bigger wall signs in english, but a lot of the individual items were only in chinese. the back of the museum opens up to the ancient town. the museum seems like a play for children to play on the weekends, and there were a lot of little boys running around. one little boy even asked me, "uncle, are you a photographer? do you think they have terracotta soldiers here?" he answered his own question, said he thinks yes.

SM texted me, said she was waiting in the car. i left the museum and met her around 4:15pm. from there we drove to sandaoguai in the old city. she went a way i wasn't familiar with, drove to the bottom of sandaoguai where there's now a parking lot. i got another chance to witness her parking skills and it needs some work. she's too reliant on her GPS telling her where to go, and a lot of times she was driving slow, trying to focus. i was chatting with her but she said not to talk because it distracts her and she can't here the voice directions. when we finally arrived, she moved her car three times to find the perfect spot. the final time she moved was because she didn't like the way a nearby street sign was looking, and was afraid it might fall and hit her car. i stood in the parking lot and waited for her to finish parking.

supposedly the old streets of sandaoguai had been refurbished into a tourist attraction, with shops and tea houses and restaurants. but the steps only went up a little bit before we faced construction - apparently they're rebuilding a large section of it. preservation is not really a thing in china. yes this is an authentic old street, but easier to tear it down and rebuild it in a faux old style than trying to actually keep any of the old buildings in danger of collapsing. and who will these properties belong to once they're rebuilt? come back in another year or two to see.

we walked back down and went onto a side street next to sandaoguai. i've also been here, this is the street you come you when you ride the mountainside trolley. it used to cost money but now it's a free tourist attraction. i've been on it before so wasn't worth riding again. instead we found a little place to eat nearby. we had maocai, which is like chuanchuan where they cooked the food for you. in our case, they only cooked half, and the served the other half cold as they were already prepared. it made for some interesting eats on a wet and chilly night. i asked SM about her job situation. she'd been unemployed for 3 years, her last full-time job was 8 long years before the previous boss went to jail for embezzlement and a new boss came in and basically replaced everyone with people he knew. since then she's had some odd jobs but nothing permanent. i remember her telling me about working in a company that made ebikes but currently she doesn't have any work.

we finished eating and SM drove us back to ancient town. she missed a turn and we ended up taking a detour through old town. i kept my mouth shut, what watching her get so worked up over driving made me realize why we broke up. we just have two very different personalities.

we finally got back around 6:30pm. SM drove her car to an underground garage below her building. she bought a parking spot for her car (she told me how much, i forgot), and that's a monthly maintenance fee. in the trunk she had gifts for me and my family. she was going to return the trader joe's bag but i told her it was for her to keep, a gift. she walked me outside and pointed to my hotel across the street.

i took another shower when i got back to my hotel room. i was tempted to go back outside as it was still early. maybe take a walk through ancient town, or if i was more ambitious, take a didi into old town. but it was still a little drizzly, better to take it easy. i ate two egg tarts for dessert and finished the preserved yangmei. the room has a weird smell, that somebody had been smoking in her and they used some kind of deodorizer to mask the odor.

i decided instead of taking the bus back tuesday morning, i'm going to take the high speed train from changshou north train station, which is only 4.5km away and takes 11 minutes by car. the train ticket costs just $5.60 ($2 of which is a booking fee) and takes only 30 minutes to get to chongqing. from there it's just 8 stops via subway back to my riverview hotel to claim my suitcase.

i went to sleep at 9pm, the earliest i've gone to bed.

my fitness tracker said i went to sleep at 11pm. i personally don't think i fell asleep until midnight. regardless, i woke up at 6am and couldn't fall back asleep no matter how much i tried. first my digestive system decided it was time to wake up so i had my morning poop. it was still dark outside so i figured it'd be easy to slip back into bed but unconsciousness did not come. i also remembered a dream i had where every time i fell asleep, a new suitcase would be added to my bed which got my really distressed. dream logic. i just have too many things on my mind. it's not easy to rest when i have to change hotel room again, have to figure out the logistics of where to watch the drone show tonight, and then travel to changshou tomorrow (sunday 1st). i've decided to spend sunday and monday in changshou, come back tuesday morning the 3rd. i'm meeting XL for lunch that tuesday. i also conferred with LXL last night, i'm leaving for chengdu thursday 5th, coming back to chongqing saturday morning the 7th. supposedly that saturday night there's another drone show weather permitting.

i checked out of my hotel room around 10am, contacted the cleaning lady about offering me a different room. she didn't reply so i figured maybe the room wasn't ready yet. at the very least i could go drop off my suitcase while i go out. once i got out into the hallway though, i ran into her coming to get me. she told me she has a room on the 20th floor, room 2020. she said the room normally costs RMB$200 (US$30) but she's giving me a discount. the room was okay but old. it wasn't worth RMB$200 but we previously agreed RMB$180 (US$27) so that's what i gave her. since i have a foreign alipay account, i can't do person-to-person transactions so i gave her cash. i didn't think she had changed but she came prepared, had a few paper notes stashed in the back of her phone case, she fished out a RMB$20.

i didn't want to wait for WWY to get back to me so i went out. i read there's a ganji at 红土地 (hongtudi) station every weekend. it wasn't very far from here, just 5 subway stops. so i decided to take a look. i was hoping to get there before noontime, that's when the action typically stops and people pack up and go. it'd also give me a chance to try my old chongqing subway card, figure out if i need to add money or get a replacement card.

the closest subway station to me is linjiangmen on the green line. i traveled down into the station and was trying to figure out which machine to use to check my card balance. a helpful subway worker helped me out. he tapped one card, it read RMB$22. he tapped another card, RMB$25. so both cards work even after these years! they must be 12 years old. i wanted to add money to the card but the guy told me i still had plenty enough for multiple rides. he asked where i was going. hongtudi i told him. he looked at the chart. "that's just RMB$3". at that rate i can ride 8 more times before i need to add money.

i used to ride the subway all the time when i came to chongqing, it was the fastest way to get around. there was a time where i could recite station names in order by heart. i visited a bunch of stations and knew their layouts and where the best exits to get out. from linjiangmen i got off at zengjiayan to switch to the purple line that would take me to hongtudi. everything was going great until i suddenly realized today was saturday. the ganji only happens on sundays. so no ganji! instinctively i figured i'd go home and get some food, but took a quick pivot, and decided to go to guanyinqiao instead, which was on my list of places to revisit. it involves riding the purple line one stop to liyuchi then switching to the brown line one stop to guanyinqiao.

the last time i came to chongqing in lived at guanyinqiao for 2 months, so i know the area fairly well. when i exited the station though, i was totally unfamiliar with the new landscape. i came out of an empty plaza, underneath the shadow of a building that seemed like it was supposed to be a mall but was now empty. i totally didn't have my bearing. it was also lightly drizzling. i figured i'd just start walking until i begin to recognize landmarks. i came out on a street that felt familiar. there used to be a bunch of telecom stores here. i got my last china phone number here. in its place was now a chongqing hot pot ingredient store. across the street was something even more familiar: chongqing food street. it was time to eat.

back when i lived at guanyinqiao, this was my daily stop for food. bamboo rice, fried chicken steaks, binfeng. i can even recall the layout of the food court, where my favorite shops were. i came at least once a day, often times more. so when i saw again today, i didn't recognize it. all my favorites were gone. in its place were AI glamorized food stalls, glaring colors, bright lights, loud, noisy, in your face. i took a tour, making a mental note of places i'd like to eat. i was looking for some kind of fried chicken but no place had what i wanted. after searching, i settled down to a guiyang beef rice noodle place. not too crowded. i got their signature beef innards noodle soup for RMB$22 (US$3.30). the order came quick, i scooped some hot chili oil sauce and some pink paocai. after a chilly morning of wandering around, this really hit the spot. the paocai was my favorite, it was pink because they mixed it with ginger.

after i finished i went back to the entrance of guanyinqiao food street and pulled out my gopro so i can do a walkthrough video. i've never done it before and it felt a little awkward, but i think people will get a kick seeing all the different food selection.

i left the food court from the back, to a sky bridge i could see was packed with people. it was a bunch of young people taking selfies. they didn't look like they were on vacation, just teenagers hanging out on a saturday. the rained continued to fall. this area is interesting because at nights it becomes a wholesale mushroom market. so there are so hidden parts of chongqing that i've only had a peek at. for example, further up guanyinqiao there's an outdoor flower market. and a place that sells nothing but aquarium stuff. i found both while i lived there, just wandering the neighborhood. it's really what i like to do when i'm vacationing, exploring. unfortunately just 2 weeks in chongqing doesn't give me enough time.

i spotted a post office from the sky bridge and went down to look for stamps. a soft-spoken woman worked behind the desk, dispensing postage until she got to RMB$6 per person i want to send a postcard. i asked her about the food market that used to be behind her building 10 years ago. she can't recall, but said there was a food market upstairs.

i went back up the sky bridge. sure enough i saw the entrance to the food market. i went inside. the first thing i smelled was the strong stench of public bathroom. maybe my nose was deceiving me, maybe somebody was doing construction and i was smelling moldy plywood, but it wasn't pleasant. there was a gift shop and through the window i saw postcards so went inside to take a look. i bought 3 for RMB$30. markets are a morning ritual, and it was already late so the produce dealers had already packed up their foods. however the butcher shops were still open and some dry goods vendors. the floor was slippery from the rendered animal fat, it was gross, i try not to think about it. i looked around and left.

i walked down towards the guanyinqiao open plaza.

(to be continued)

i woke up this morning to the news that patrick stewart had passed away. i didn't sleep long, less than 5 hours, waking up at 5am and couldn't fall back asleep. had a window bed is a lousy idea. even though i've yet to see the sun in chongqing, the sky does brighten in the morning, like a natural alarm clock. i was also monitoring my parents' progress on google maps. i could see them at the beijing airport. they should be leaving for taiwan momentarily. today i had to go back to the bank to change the chinese local phone number tied to the account. i couldn't get my ICBC bank card to link to my alipay account, and one reason i think is because the phone number is wrong.

i didn't leave my hotel room until around 10:30am, went out the 22nd floor. it's nice to not have to change room, but i still packed up my things for when the cleaning woman arrived. first thing was to find some breakfast. i didn't have to go far before coming across a quiet food court. i found a place selling guizhou lamb beef rice noodles and ordered a bowl of lamb innards. the manager asked if i wanted 1 liang or 2 liang. a liang is a chinese unit of measurement equal to 50g. i told him 2 liang without thinking and got a big bowl of rice noodles (RMB$15 US$2.25). the soup was very good and really hit the spot. i might come back again tomorrow if i'm too lazy to find a new breakfast spot.

after breakfast, i came out onto jiefangbei plaza. i walked around the bend to a bunch of food stalls. i went to a 好想来 snack convenience store to get a korean banana milk before finding yet another food court. this one was more hidden. it featured a buffet style eatery where you pay by weight for your food. they were itching for customers and the worker was practically begging me to eat there. i told them i'd come back some other time.

they were pruning the manicured osmanthus trees in jiefangbei. clumps of fragrance branches fell to the ground. i wish i could take some cuttings with me back home to the US. these are the ultra-fragrant fudingzhu orange blossom osmanthus as well, the variety we bought twice but both times the plant ended up dying. and here they grow to the size of tall trees that need ladders to prune them.

i spent an hour at the ICBC bank. there was one tall woman there who was the least interested in helping me. it wasn't until i bumped into the lady who i saw yesterday before i got some real help. once again i was relegated to an online agent. it was the same girl from yesterday, but she made no sign of recognition after all the things we've been through! she changed me old phone number to my new number. when i tried to bind the bank card to my alipay, it still didn't work. another bank employee - a short stocky man wearing an oversized jacket - said it takes two weeks before new bank cards can be used with alipay. "in two weeks i'm going to leave china," i told him. i left with my bank card alipay situation still in limbo.

today was i the search of the yarn street where my mother got a bunch of yarn that time my parents came to visit chongqing. i located the place entirely through memory. i went by the luohan temple, where they finally finished their renovations. it looked nothing like it was before. it could be worth a visit if i run out of places to see. but seeing the luohan temple meant i was close. i kept walking until the location clicked in my head. i was afraid they tore it down, but the yarn district was still there. i took a bunch of yarn photos to send to my mother.

walking back down the hill that's when i saw the skyscrapers that form raffle city. it's quite the sight, and to think the architectural firm that designed the building is based in somerville, just a few blocks from where i live. i immediately took out my camera to get some telephoto shots.

walking in the direction of raffle city meant passing through the chongqing whole district. maybe it wasn't as bustling as 10 years ago, but it's nice to see it's still there. i wasn't interested in the clothes, but instead i went inside a building that sold chinese lanterns and wedding decorations. further up, there was a department that sold kitchenware and glassware.

(to be continued)

i finally went to bed last night at 2:30am after an exhausting day of traveling from taipei to guangzhou to chongqing. i couldn't sleep long, waking up at 8am to start my day. it was a foggy grey day outside. the tops of some of the taller skycrapers were obscured in clouds. i used the bathroom, showered, then finished the food i bought last night. the most urgent thing was finding a new hotel room as i was only booked for one night here at jing mu xin yue hotel (景幕心悦酒店). i greeted the front desk and took the elevator from the 6th floor up to the 19th.

when i got there there was nothing, just an unfinished hotel front desk with a sign for time mix hotel. a notice written in chinese said check-in was on the 21st floor. so i went up 2 more floors (tried the stairs but couldn't find them) to the 21st. i walked around i found a cluttered room with a woman sitting a desk. i told her i was looking for a room. she was about to show me the rooms - all on different floors - when we bumped into the lady i met last night. apparently she's the cleaning woman. she ended up showing me. last night she spoke mandarin but today she spoke a mix of chongqing dialect, which i could understand most of. first room was meh, second room was whoa. mostly white, with arched walls leading to a tub in the middle of the room before a large king sized bed up against a round window overlooking the river. it looked like the honeymoon suite. the third room i saw had two twin bed and a hammock made of bamboo/wood up against a riverview window. i decided to take the honeymoon suite. it was RMB$180 per night ($27), a bit of a splurge, but worth it to stay in a swanking room for a few nights. i wanted to book 3 nights, but they already booked the room for saturday. the cleaning lady said she'd take me to a different room on the third night, even better, for the same price. instead of paying the hotel, i'd pay her directly.

so i went back downstairs, checked out (the front desk guy asked me to rate their hotel online), then moved into my new room. it didn't have a hotel card, instead there was a 8-digit code i punched into the keypad on the doorlock. is that safe? who knows. the room itself wasn't very practical, but worth saying i said in a place like this.

i set out to explore chongqing. it was about 11:30am. i took the elevator from the 17th floor to the 22nd floor. it brought me to a cantilevered bridge that crossed over into an open plaza. so it's this place. i've been here before, before there was a hotel, before there were bridges. the bridges seemed safe for now, but chongqing also occasionally experiences earthquakes, and i wouldn't want to be on the bridge when the shaking happens. apparently this place is quite the tourist attraction, and hordes of them came just to see this place.

it was rainy, a very light drizzle, more fog than anything. i had my umbrella. for the first time since leaving boston, i finally had a reason to take out my dSLR camera, which i'd been carrying where ever i went just never used. i didn't need a map to navigate, i did it all through memory. i lived in chongqing for over a year back in 2013-2014. it was actually changshou, a town about an hour away, but every weekend (sundays, since we had to work monday-saturday) and every holiday i would make my way to the city to explore it in piecemeal. it was all organic, i barely had a smart phone, i just basically wandered around and found interesting things to see. for now i was making my way to jiefangbei, what can be considered the center of chongqing city. i saw a pharmacy and went inside to buy a bottle of cough syrup SM recommended.

i continued making my way to jiefangbei. that's when i smelled it. osmanthus. i stopped to look around. i was standing underneath a grove of flowering osmanthus trees. that's one of my memories of chongqing, walking the streets, smelling the fragrance of hot pot and osmanthus. that really picked up my spirit.

i walked in the direction of chongqing theater, an unmistakeable chongqing landmark, with its matrix of black and red lines forming a complex that looked more like alien structure than anything man-made. from there i got my bearing, and walked through a tree-lined plaza to jiefangbei.

here was an ICBC bank, where i could resolve my bank account issue. i had an account when i worked in chongqing. i never closed it, and there's still some money left, i don't know how much. my card has long since expired, but i wanted to get a new card and check how much is still left in the account. chinese banking is kind of a nightmare. it's like going to DMV, where you take a number and wait. and wait. i ended up being their for over an hour, from noontime to 1pm. i wasn't even sure if they'd see me - maybe it was lunch hour - but they did. instead of a regular teller, they used a remote teller from some other branch to deal with my issue. i finally got a new card and checked that i still had about RMB$2400 in my account - about $360.

next i went in search of food. next to jeifangbei is 好吃街 (food street) which is a street lined with food places. i'd never been much impressed with the jeifangbei 好吃街 - i've always felt guanyinqiao had a much better food street. however i was not ready for what i saw. in the decade i've been gone, they really expanded, and now that entire street is like a las vegas style food street. it's probably one of the heaviest concentration of food places anywhere in china, i'd totally believe that. just food where ever you looked. what's even more interesting is a lot of places seemed to have used AI to design their storefront, so everything is very high contrast and in your face and aggressive and flashy. there was almost too much food, impossible to pick a place.

i kept walking until i saw a place that wasn't very crowded that sold tangyuan in fermented glutinous rice (dessert soup). i was just going to eat that but saw they also had sour and spicy lamb over rice noodles so i ordered that as well, make it an official lunch. they asked me if i wanted spicy. chongqing is famous for its spicy (and numbing) food. i actually kind of get offended when they ask if i want spicy. maybe because i look foreign. but of course i want the spicy! i ate close to the entrance, that hot and spicy and mixed with the sweet and the old air made for a great lunch, my first official meal in chongqing gets off to an auspicious start.

i continued walking down food street (yes, it wasn't over yet). so many places to eat, it was obscene in its decadence and abundance. come to chongqing for the sites, but eating will then be like 90% the rest of your visit.

i walked until i saw a monument dedicated to the lives lost during the japanese bombing. chongqing was the chinese war capital during WWII, after the japanese took nanjing (the previous capital). as such, chongqing was subjected to frequent bombings. this monument was the site of an air raid shelter where too many people packed inside and they eventually trampled themselves and suffocated to death. it used to be just a little alcove with very communist style block figurine carvings, but it's now a museum. i went in to take a peek. i found it funny that the descriptions were in chinese, english, and japanese. not sure if chongqing is popular with japanese tourists given its history.

my walk took me to shibati. it used to be an old street of chongqing that hadn't been torn down or made way for progress. i came with my parents, and we ate some buns for breakfast next to an open garbage dump. i also remember people selling old cellphones and buttons. but since then it's been renovated into a proper tourist spot, with restaurants and souvenir shops. there's even a starbucks, a tim horton, and a diary queen. i watched videos of it online and it looked like a great place to visit, but once i was there, i found it kind of meh. especially compared to the glitzy sensory bombardment that was food street. here at shibati the understated was kind of underwhelming. at the bottom of shibati was a shop selling silver ear mushrooms. they were growing them live on inoculated wood branches and you can actually touch them, felt like sponges. it's kind half museum and half store, ending in a large gift shop selling various flavors of silver ear mushrooms.

i was all walked out. but i still had to traverse yuzhong peninsula to get back to my hotel room. it took close to an hour, i got back around 4pm.

i had a chance to relax a bit, enjoy this fancy hotel room. wangyan contacted me yesterday, scheduled for us to meet to have dinner and a show, kind of mysterious. i was supposed to meet at 6:45pm, in a place accessible by public transportation so i have to take a didi.

i left by 5:40pm. i went downstairs to call the didi. it took a bit of time before the driver arrived, i didn't fault him, it was rush hour, and i noticed he had to do a u-turn on the expressway just to get to my location. the ride took almost half an hour. i got to the designated location around 6:25pm. wangyan said she was coming with a friend but they were running late. she sent me the QR code to retrieve the tickets for the show which started at 7pm. i was still sitting outside when it began, i could hear the serious production but couldn't see anything. wangyan and her friend didn't show up until 7:15pm, we quickly hurried inside. she said her friend is a lawyer, but i recognize her as someone from our old company. inside were rows of tables and in the center was a stage where performances were happening. it was very glitzy and well produced, ideal tiktok fodder. the food itself wasn't that great. periodically they'd have games where they got people from the audience to go up and participate. wangyan and her friend egged me on but i wasn't going to go. it was loud so it was hard to hear when wangyan talked to me. i wore my hearing aid and finally turned it on it "hear in noise" setting which made it easier to hear.

the whole thing was over by 8:30pm. you could go up on stage and get your photo taken with some of the cast members. back outside people could use their ticket to enter a drawing for prizes. wangyan won me a notebook and a fan. we went to a waiting area next door to chat. wangyan and her friend were complaining about their long hours. most nights wangyan works until 11pm. she barely gets to see her kids, who her parents and in-laws take care of, one each, while she and her husband her. her husband works in chengdu, so they only get to see each other on the weekends. as for her friend - who's a lawyer - they don't get any holidays. actually, they might, but because she's a freelancer, she basically works all the time. she specializes in contract litigations.

we chatted until 10pm, before all the cast members already ate their dinner and left. it's funny that they never kicked us out. when we finally left, it was pitch black outside. i called a didi to take me back to the hotel. it was much faster going back, no traffic.

i was afraid i missed the light show across the river - that was the whole point of booking a riverview room anyway, right? - but they were still on. i think they stay on until midnight. i took a shower and went to bed, no time to blog.

in hindsight i wouldn't have scheduled my chongqing departure in the middle of the day. that basically meant i couldn't really do anything today but just get ready then leave for the taoyuan aiport. there was a direct flight to chongqing from songshan airport - which was something like 8 short subway stops away - but it cost $200 more and i didn't want to pay extra for the convenient. what i gain in savings i lose in valuable time and basically wasted the whole day just traveling.

instead i got the cheaper flight, which involves leaving taiwan at 3:30pm, a 2-1/2 hours layover in guangzhou city, then finally arriving in chongqing around 10:30pm. i imagine another hour before i actually get into the city to my hotel room (which i only booked yesterday).

what i didn't mention was yesterday i spent a chunk of time packing my suitcase for chongqing. after fitting everything, i discovered i was over the weight limit at 53 lbs. it was an easy fix, i just took out a large bag of candy and put it in my carry-on backpack. but going over the weight limit meant SM would only be getting the pineapple cakes and not the ferrero rocher candy i originally planned for me, so the chocolate stayed behind. it's funny, i bought 3 of those chocolates as gifts and will only end up giving away one.

i woke up around 8am. used the bathroom, took a hot shower, felt a little weird to have hot running water. the flight was 3:30pm. originally i wasn't going to leave until noontime, but decided to go earlier instead, 11:30am. rest of the morning was doing some cleaning, throwing out the trash (in specially marked taipei municipal trash bags with a hologram sticker), and just waiting around. i chatted with my parents, checked to see how they were doing with their own vacation preparation (they leave tomorrow night for shanghai via beijing-taipei). i ate a tongyi pudding i bought on my first day in taipei, had to eat it before it went bad. it wasn't as good as i remembered it, no egg taste, very gelatiny and artificial.

i ended up leaving even earlier, a bit after 11am, just because i was tired of waiting. it wasn't raining at least, but i did have my umbrella in my backpack just in case. pushing a large suitcase through the city is not a fun thing to do. uneven sidewalks, stairs, pedestrians, all obstacles to avoid. fortunately i've been scoping out the route for the past few days, rehearsing it in my head, where to go for optimal suitcase travel.

i took the elevator from da'an station exit 3. inside the station was another elevator that took me to the train platform. you learn to spot where the elevators are when you're hauling a suitcase. at CKS station i switch from the red to the green line, to get to beimen station. i could've stayed in the red and gotten off at taipei main station, but i tried walking from the express airport train to the main station and it was confusing and hard to navigate, and that was without a suitcase. i ran into a filipino couple here in taiwan on vacation. i brought them to the express train station, even though it was actually my first time (though i was here yesterday scoping it out). i used google pay on my phone to get through the fare gate.

the express train was okay, but because it was my first time, i sat with my suitcase, and kept a careful hand on it the entire time, afraid it might roll away. once again in hindsight, i should've put it in the luggage rack while i didn't notice when i first got onboard. many of the scenery i remember from when i took the bus from the airport to my godmother's place.

i got the taoyuan airport a bit before 1pm. i went to go find the check-in counter for china southern airline. not sure if it was on purpose, but all the chinese airlines were relegated to the far end of the airport, crowded together in a mess of passengers looking to check-in. the long was line and i was glad i decided to come early.

check-in for me flying to taiwan and china is always a confusing affair. i have on hand three different travel document: my US passport, my taiwanese passport, and my chinese born-in-taiwan travel card. this time into china i didn't apply for a china visa in my US passport, so i can't use that. however, i still need it because i think i bought the tickets using my US passport. to get into china, i'm using my china card, which sometimes work like a chinese citizenship card and sometimes doesn't (depending on the political climate). i held my breath when they weighed my luggage, and even though i was pretty sure i was below the weight limit (though luggage scales can always be wrong). i got assigned aisle seats for the two legs of the flight. when i asked if they had any windows, the woman said know even though i overheard the western guy next to me get window seats.

(to be continued - i have arrived in chongqing safely - it's the next day and i have some errands to run like maybe change hotel room even though this one is fine)

my flight to guangzhou wasn't until 3:30pm so i had some time to kill. so i explored the airport, went upstairs to an observation station. there was an outdoor viewing platform where you could look out onto the tarmac. i didn't bother going out. there were also many tables and seats a some food shops along with a few convenience stores. i decided to have a late lunch since i didn't eat anything this morning but a pudding and some water. i picked a ramen place, got the beef bone broth with kimchi for NTD$340 ($10.40). it's nice to have a relaxing sit-down meal. the ramen was pretty good.

i wasn't sure where to put away the bowl and tray and brought it back to the restaurant when they told me there's a food tray return station. afterwards i was just casually browsing cosmed (taiwanese pharmacy chain) when i saw round cans of menthol gumdrops. those are one of my favorites, and even better it's buy one get one free, so i couldn't resist and got two. i paid using my visa card. checking the time, i realized i had just one hour left before my plane departs. i still had to get through security! so i hurried to the departure gate.

security was a breeze, they're not as sticklers about inspecting every single piece of electronics as they are in china. i flashed them my taibaozhen card and went right through the gate. passed security, it was like walking into a mall, just nothing but high end name brand stores. after that a bunch of eating places. the boarding gate seemed very casual, even had a children play area (with a sign asking people to remove their shoes before going inside). once they started boarding, we went downstairs and there was another waiting area, this one more formal, just long rows of seats.

i got onboard the plane. the seating configuration was 3-3-3. i was in the middle row, with an aisle seat. an older man was already sitting in the middle seat. i was only 5 rows away from business card, i could see the roomier seats. further front were a few first class seats, those i couldn't see. once we were in the air, the flight attendants pulled the curtains between our classes. after 30 minutes they started serving food. it was some kind of minced chicken noodles, it actually wasn't bad, better than the 2 meals i had with hainan airlines. the old guy sitting next to me was alseep, but i pulled down his tray table and put the food on their in case he wanted to eat when he wakes up. our seats had entertainment consoles and i was surprised when i checked the flight map and saw it only takes 1-1/2 hours to get to guangzhou.

arriving at guangzhou i had to go through customs and security. i was looking for the HK/macao/taiwan resident lines that usually mean a quicker pass-through, but i only saw the foreigners lines. there were also special lines for some kind of guangzhou trade convention. once it was my turn, i showed the agent my card and was quickly waved through after a photo. with everyone else they needed not only a photo but fingerprinting as well, and a more thorough questioning. next came the security check. once again, they had to go through every single electronic item. they also found a nail clipper but i was able to talk them into letting me keep it even though it had a 1 inch blade (i don't think they saw that).

guangzhou airport is just like any standard international airport. long distances between gates, a few shops, a few food places, bathrooms. they had water dispensers but only warm or boiling water. i was looking for cold water and got a bottle of ice tea from a convenience store using alipay (nice to see my alipay working again now that i'm in china). my flight to chongqing wasn't until 8:05pm so i had about 2 hours to kill (actually just an hour since they start boarding at 7:25pm). i sat at the gate and waited. it wasn't long before a horde of chongqing people arrived at the gate as well. i've been away from chongqing for a decade so i've kind of romanticized it in my head. but i totally forgot that chongqing people ARE THE NOISIEST AND LOUDEST PEOPLE IN CHINA. i think the whole airport could here them. each person had a million carry-ons, bags of purchases. i thought i could bare it but after a while i took a stroll to go use the bathroom just to get away from the noise. chongqing is such a popular tourist destination so i wasn't surprised when i saw a few foreigners. there were two black guys with mcdonald's that i thought were americans but later i heard them speak and realized they're african-african. i also got to use my new china number, called the chongqing hotel i was staying at to let them know i'd be arriving late and not to give up my room.

we boarded the plane. from my seat number i was a suspicious i was in the last seat and sure enough it was all the way at the end, right across from two lavatories. at that point i could care less. i was willing to bear the stink if it means we'll be in chongqing soon. my overhead compartment was stuffed with safety equipment, i ended up using a compartment a few rows further up. this was a smaller plane, the configuration was 3-3, no middle row. there was also no entertainment console. i kind of miss having an interactive flight map. another interesting thing: nearly all male flight attendants, just one young female and an older female who seemed to be their boss.

it'd only take 1 hour 50 minutes to get to chongqing. we'd actually get there sooner than i expected, before 10pm. like the previous flight, they served food, but nothing fancy, a meat pastry and a bottle of water. i had the aisle, a squirmy chongqing man had the middle, and a chongqing woman had the window - her head pressed up against the pane like she'd never looked out an airplane window before. middle man was kind of a dick, took up the armrest. i gently pressed knees with him which made him eventually move his leg. airplanes are where i practice my passive aggressiveness. there was a very tall western young man sitting diagonally from me. i wasn't sure his nationality unless i saw his passport: russia. he had very pronounced checkbones and had the body of a tennis player. he was also an asshole, put his backpack between his legs so the people sitting inside can't easily get out and stuck his long legs into the aisle. he was reading something his dimly-lit phone for most of the trip.

we landed in chongqing before i even knew it. i thought were still adjusting or air speed when i heard the landing gears deployed and we fast stopped on the tarmac.

as we disembarked, it was a long walk to the luggage carousel. the light strip accents and the shiny polished marbled floors gave the airport an already futuristic cyberpunk vibe. i stopped to use the bathroom before continuing to luggage.

there are points in an airport plane that makes me anxious. going through customs. security check. landing. and of course claiming your luggage. i always think my luggage will get lost. i'm trying to think if it's ever happened, or happened to people i know and it was traumatic enough that i've incorporated it as my own experience through empathy. when the suitcases started rolling and i saw mine, i was so relieved. it's a miracle!

i put my suitcase on a cart and pushed it outside the airport, following the sign for rideshare pickups. there were a few riders looking for snag customers, but everyone's been warned that these are mostly scams. you'll get to your destination, but you'll end up paying more. there are also taxis - many taxis - but those also seem like some ancient service soon to disappear. ridesharing - didi (chinese uber) - is where the action's at. you know exactly where you're going on (you track your ride with a gps) and you know how much you're going to pay.

i found a ride to my hotel. that was the easy part. hard part was trying to find my driver in the mess of taxis and other rideshares. did i mention it was raining? what followed were a few harrowing minutes. my driver kept asking me for numbers, but i had no idea what he was talking about. i tried to relay the fact that i have a chinese number he could try calling. at one point he was ready to give up because he just couldn't find me. he then told me to go inside (the parking garage). by some miracle he did finally spot me after he got out of his car. he sent me a few english texts which i discovered later the rideshare app can do autotranslation to english. he was an affable guy, told me if i wanted to hire him as a personal driver for trips out of the city i could contact him. it took us 20 minutes to get the hotel, driving in the rain.

once i got dropped off, i really had no idea where to go next. a lady was outside asking me if i was looking for a room. i told her i'd already booked one. she looked at my booking and said the hotel was right upstairs, take the elevator. she also told me that she also has rooms, cheaper and bigger than the one i booked, and on the 17th floor. i told her i'd check it out tomorrow.

i went upstairs. the elevator panel was dotted with various different hotels. mine was on the 6th floor. there was a main desk with employees helping out two guests. i showed one of the agents my card. this was the same girl i called from guangzhou, about keeping my room. she gave me my room card and i went to my room.

the room wasn't too bad. the layout was kind of weird. the bed was big, king size. yes i had a window, yes it was a river view, but it was from an awkward corner of the building, so i only had half a view. it was adequate for what it was, a single night stay to sleep. i'll look for another hotel tomorrow. or stay in this room if i can't find anything else.

i called my parents to let them know i arrived. they were at the cafe, their last day before they close for the next 3 weeks.

i should've gotten ready for bed but i couldn't resist. i just had to go outside, especially since from my room i could see some food stalls. so i went downstairs to look around. so many food places, many of them still opened. how about spicy hot pot at midnight? if that's your thing. i bought a sausage from a vendor but it wasn't very good (dried and salty) so tossed it after finishing half. further down i came across a trio of ladies. one of them was selling bingfeng so i had to get it. another talked me into getting hairy tofu, which is tofu fermented in such a way that it's covered in white hair mold. supposedly it's a delicacy. finally the third woman got me to buy some of her boneless marinated chicken feet. i went back to the hotel to feast, stopping at the convenience store to get some drinks as well. it was 1am.

only a few hours in chongqing and i'm already eating some delicious foods. it took me way longer than that in taipei. i couldn't finish it all before i finally had to stop and take a shower and get ready for bed. i was able to get unrestricted internet using the vpn on my macbook pro. on my phone i used the VPN trick i learned in beijing.

sleep. wake up. find a new hotel room. explore chongqing. tomorrow.

i woke up around 8am again this morning but stayed in bed until 9am. my fitness app said i got a good 8 hours of sleep. i was meeting my taiwanese aunt for rice noodle soup this morning, but she wakes up late and told me to contact her in the late morning. that gave me time to finally book a hotel room for when i arrive in chongqing tomorrow night at 10:30pm. i looked on trip.com and it immediately gave me some incredible deals that i didn't basically picked the first one i saw. it was in jiefangbei hogyadong with a view of the river for less than $20. i would've settled for just a little room with a window to sleep in but i wouldn't say no to a view. i booked it immediately. problem solved!

i washed my quick dry travel towel. i didn't think they got funky, but this one did. i hand washed it with a bit of detergent before drying it out on the balcony. most of my other clothes from yesterday were already dry, with the exception of the shorts and some socks.

i went back to bed surfing reddit on my phone. i lost track of time and before i knew it it was already 10:45am and my taiwanese aunt called me to see where i was. i told her i was still at the apartment, but quickly got ready to go. i told her half an hour but it took at least 40 minutes. i didn't realize just how far we live from one another.

i ended up not arriving until 11:40am, apologizing profusely for not leaving earlier. she took me to the local rice noodle place which used to be just downstairs for their old apartment, but they've since moved to a new bigger location. we got all the favorites: rice noodles, tofu, intestines, innards. i noticed they were even featured in a taiwanese youtube food vlog. everything was very good, whatever my taiwanese aunt didn't finish i helped her eat. we took a quick stroll through the outdoor market before returning to her apartment.

inside the apartment was my cousin christina's toy terrier with a weird trim. he wouldn't stop barking but eventually calmed down. they don't walk the dog but put down training pads for the dog to go to the bathroom on. i gave my taiwanese aunt my wooden chop my 2nd aunt needed to get into my bank account. i left before my taiwanese aunt was about to take the dog for a shampoo, a bit before 2pm.

instead of going home, i took the green line to beimen, to check out the airport express train. that way i won't be surprised tomorrow. the inside was pretty impressive, all fancy and new and spacious, with this slate marbling. had i known, i would've taken it from the airport when i first arrived. beimen supposedly connects to the main taipei train station so i walked to find it. i ended up traversing an underground mall. i think at one point it must've been glorious, but these days ever store was occupied by anime merchandise, whether that's trading cards, models, or video games. i did see a indonesia food place at the very end.

after a long walk, i ended up outside, and had to wait for the traffic light to change to get to the taipei train station. this place has also changed, but the central plaza remains. i came here on a mission, was told by an online source that the 7-11 here sells chia te pineapple cakes. it was a request by SM. i was already going to give her some ferrero rocher chocolate, but looks like she's getting this instead. it's expensive too, like NTD$640 ($20) for a box.

after some more up and down walking, i finally found the subway station. i got back to the apartment by 3:20pm.

all my clothes were dry now, even the travel towel.

i was prepared to lounge around until evening, eat my leftover fried chicken, and if there's still time, visit a night market. aunt wu contacted me, said she spoke with the gas company, and they told her to reset the gas meter. because taiwan is earthquake prone, gas meters have automatic shutoff valves in case of leakage or other unforeseen events. it involved unscrewing a black dial and pressing a button underneath. i did that and saw an led flash for a second. then i was to wait for a few minutes before testing the water. i did that multiple times but nothing worked. it seems like there's air inside the gas line, preventing it from coming out.

i finished my wings before aunt wu called me back again. she told me the gas company was going to send a technician tonight at 6:30pm and asked if i was going to be home. i said sure, anything for hot water. the gas company guy came, looked like a chubby student with a long gash scar on the back of his neck, carrying a backpack of equipment. he fixed the problem right away. first the stove. he turned it on a few times, fanning the top to get the gas to dissipate faster. on his 4th try, the gas finally came out and ignited. as for the hot water, he said he couldn't hear the starter, which meant the battery was dead. i looked in the kitchen drawer and luckily found a spare size D battery. he changed it out, i turned on the hot water in the kitchen sink, and i could hear the water tank clicking to ignite the gas. all this for a NTD$200 service that will go onto my godmother's gas bill.

after the gas man left, i took a hot shower. i've already been traumatized and used to "sponge" showers that now a real shower feels weird.

i decided to hit the raohe night market in the songshan district. that involves taking the red line to the green line and riding it to the end. it took half an hour to get there.

raohe night market is one long street, which makes it easy to navigate, no side streets to get lost in. at one end is a temple. i wasn't very hungry, just came here to browse, see what they offered. if they had yiansuji i wouldn't say no. the place seems like a hangout for young people and tourists. not just western tourists, but a lot of asian tourists as well, like filipino, korean, and japanese. i noticed a good amount of stalls used AI to design their signs, they got they eyepopping quality to them. the only place i stopped to eat was a shaved ice restaurant. i got an assortment of taro "dumplings". cost? NTD$85. $2.60. the same thing would easily cost $8-10 in the US.

while i was snaking my way to the other end of the street, it started to rain. i didn't see rain in the forecast. fortunately taiwanese architecture typically features a built-in awning over sidewalks. whether that's maintained our not is a different story, but i was able to stay dry until i made to back to the subway station.

i made it back home a bit after 10pm. i took another shower and started getting ready for bed. i don't plan on doing anything tomorrow morning. just get up, pack my things, and leave for the airport around 11:30am-12pm for a 3:30pm departure.

i went to bed last night at 1am. the bed was comfortable, soft yet firm, and i had a good night's rest. didn't need the blanket, and the slightly opened screen window allowed just enough cool breeze to act like a natural air conditioner. no fever dreams unlike the previous night, maybe because i was less anxious. i woke up at 8am out of habit, but stayed in bed until 9am. i saw on the news that brazilian left-wing president lula won the runoff election against bolsonaro's son. i'm pretty surprised since all the things i read before said lula was in a dire situation.

i did a small load of laundry, mostly clothes i wore during shanghai. i decided to wear shorts the few days i'm here in taipei, saving my pants for china. the front-loading washing machine turned on without a hitch, i added my clothes, poured in some detergent, and let it run for over 1-1/2 hours.

i waited for my clothes to finish washing so i could hang up them outside to dry. i think they'll be dried by wednesday, today isn't as humid and there was a gentle breeze.

i left the house by 10:45am in search of rice noodle for breakfast, or possibly stinky tofu. i went to dongmen market, which was like a maze, but i couldn't find the old rice noodle spot. i did buy a bag of roselle confections for just NTD$100. there was one place with a line selling meat nuggets i was tempted to try, but i prefer squid nuggets and didn't have the patience to wait. i finally gave up. i think a lot of shops are still closed for the holiday, or maybe i came too late, and they only cater to morning customers. i went across the street to yong kang street. despite it being morning, there were still crowds of people outside the various food shops, so no go there. i also learn that it's better to have a plan then just randomly walking around hoping to run into a good place. all my mental maps from 12 years ago are completely useless now.

i was trying to figure out where else i could go when it dawned on me that ximending (XMD) would have places to eat. so i grabbed the red line from dongmen station to CKS memorial, then switched to the green train to get to XMD.

ximending was not how i remembered it 12 years ago. the complete unfamiliarity with this new version made me queasy as i walked around the pedestrian streets. there was supposed to be a large yiansuji store but i couldn't find it, looks like maybe it went out of business. i kept searching until i found a place that sold squid nuggets for NTD$50. just a small bowl but that was enough, plenty of squid nuggets, broth stuffed with bonito flakes, bits of eggs and mushrooms. after that i found a place that sold suanmeitang (actually smoked plum with black tea) for NTD$50. another NTD$50 was spent on a taiwanese sausage. i found an empty bench were i could sit and people watch, enjoy my sausage, drink my tea. just for a little while i could relax. i then felt something hit the top of my head. normally it's condensation from air conditioners, but i checked anyway. when i checked my hand, it was covered in bird poop. i looked up. sure enough there was a tree canopy above me. a bird pooped on my head. this has got to be one of the unluckiest vacations of all times.

i only had some much paper towels. i cleaned up the best i could then took the subway back to the apartment.

it was around 1pm when i got back. i was hoping to go over to my taiwanese aunt's house in the afternoon to take a hot shower and get some pants hemmed. i called her but she didn't answer. i figured i'd try again later. regardless, i'd meet her tonight for dinner with my big cousin and his family and my little uncle and his wife.

my taiwanese aunt still wasn't answering her phone, so around 2:30pm i decided to head out again in search of stinky tofu. both my godmother and aunt wu recommended a place 8 subway stops north of da'an. i got out of the subway station and saw a giant mall with a ferris wheel. however the stinky tofu place was not there, but on a different street. i walked towards that direction. i knew it going the right place because i could already smell the stink. those poor neighbors! there was a crowd of people outside. you take a number, they call your number, you go and make your order, they give you another number to pickup your order. i ordered the large stinky tofu extra hot NTD$110. i waited a good while. one of the managers was so embarrassed by my long wait that she came out to apologize, said they were frying a fresh batch, i said no worries. when my order finally came, it didn't look spicy (because it wasn't). there was a heap of pickled cabbage, but also shredded pickled daikon strips. on top were sprinkles of basil leaves. i tasted one of the fried tofu. not very good, even though it didn't look it, it seemed to be fried too much, to the point where it tasted bitter. i also found out while i was eating that the dinner scheduled for tonight was at 7pm like i thought but rather 5:45pm. i had 2 hours to get back home, grab my things, and go to my taiwanese aunt's place in xingdian.

i arrived in qizhang station in xingdian with 15 minutes to spare. i barely recognized the place. there seemed to be more stores, and in places where i remember used to empty, were now new stores that were already so old that looked old. once again i had that same queasy feeling i did this morning in ximending, like buck rogers getting thrown forward in time, or rip van winkle. i saw a few places selling betel nuts, a taiwanese classic. i don't think any place in taipei proper sells it, it's frowned upon.

the restaurant was practically next to the subway station. but since i had time, i walked to my taiwanese aunt's place, maybe knock on her door, or maybe run into her. i've been here enough times through the years that even though things have changed, i can still locate the apartment. sort of. which floor? which buzzer? which building? that i wasn't sure. i called her again one last time but she didn't pick up. i was about to leave when i heard someone walking down the steps. that's when i saw my taiwanese aunt. she let me inside so i could drop off all the bone health vitamins my mother bought her. the only thing i took were the two bottle of wild turkey whiskey for my little uncle and big cousin. we walked to the restaurant, using a hidden alleyway i'd never noticed before.

my cousin and his family were waiting for us on the main road. the last time i saw my cousin's daughter she was a little girl. now she's a senior in college. my cousin looked chubby, but later i learned he actually lost a bit of bit ever since he went on a weight loss drug 6 months ago. my cousin's wife told me they're going to beijing and harbin end of next month. my little uncle and his wife showed up a bit later at the restaurant.

the place we went to was tokiya, a western-japanese fusion restaurant. bear in mind i just a large serving of tofu with cabbage 2 hours ago. food was the last thing on my mind. yet i was asked to order, pages after pages of selection, each pick felt closer to death.

goes without saying dinner was an ordeal that i was relieved to be finally over. after we finished, everyone went their separate ways. i followed my taiwanese aunt back to her place where she let me take a hot shower. i also asked her if had my taiwanese ID card. she let me search and sure enough i found it. why it was doing at her place we won't know. i also looked at the bank records and found a copy of the chop seal i used (the wooden one, just as i thought). my little uncle actually came up, not sure why, came to talk stock with my taiwanese aunt. after i showered and got ready to leave, he left as well.

my mother phoned me while i was waiting for the train on the subway platform. i couldn't hear her because i took out my hearing aid when i showered and never bothered to turn them off, so they were still synced to the phone. but she was smiling, which told me she had some good news, which could only be about hainan airlines. i video chatted her back the next opportunity i got, when waiting for a connecting train. yes, hainan airlines finally agreed to make the changes to their booking, after she said they were an elderly couple traveling and couldn't sleep for the past 2 weeks worried about the plane ticket.

when i got back to the apartment i washed all the clothes i wore today because they stank of smelly tofu. i did a hand wash in a plastic basin before hanging them up to dry. if they don't dry by wednesday it's okay, i'll just put them inside.

i made plans to meet my taiwanese aunt tomorrow morning to get some rice noodles for breakfast. she told me not to come too early because she sleeps late.

i woke up at 4am this morning to get ready to return to the beijing airport. my flight was 8am but i wanted to get there early so i'd have plenty of time to get my drone back from the customs department. i left the room by 4:30am, taking one last look to make sure i didn't leave anything behind. good bye guoce hotel!

i went downstairs. the main rotunda foyer - which was packed with people on friday and still busy saturday, was completely empty now. they took down the huge conference wall and the place was dark. the check-in counter looked empty, but i saw a woman sleeping in an office chair with a jacket as a blanket. she must have super human hearing because she woke right up to check me out, which was basically returning the hotel key. i asked about the ride to the airport, and more importantly, that hainan airlines would foot the bill. she pointed to the entrance and said someone would take care of it. that someone was another young man whom i didn't see at first. seems like his job is booking transportation for the hotel guests. i told him i was a hainan airlines refugee, he said there were already cars coming to take guests to the airport, but he saw that had two large suitcases, so ordered a car just for me. we chatted a bit, he was very soft-spoken, i could barely hear him with my poor hearing made worse by the cold. i told him i rather get to the airport earlier than later. he told me a story of a foreigner who had an 11am flight and only came down from his hotel room at 10:20am asking for a ride. goes without saying he missed his flight.

the car arrived, a sedan. the trunk was just big enough to fit my two suitcases. the driver took me to the airport in silence. he must not go to the airport regularly, because he went the wrong way and we ended up in a parking garage. i love it when didi drivers assure you that your destination is just a few meters away. i've learned usually when they say that and let you off early, the results will be wrong. there was an elevator which i took to the second floor. when i got out, it just opened up to the roof of an empty parking garage. i had to walk out, turn around, then across a busy airport highway to get to the airport itself. this is the beijing international airport! how could this be a thing?

i went inside and found the check-in desk for hainan airlines. i had a choice of aisle or middle, no window seats. i picked the aisle. i also asked the clerk where i could go to pick up my customs confiscated drone. he said there should be a blue desk that can take care of it for me. while i was leaving, i saw the belgium guys arriving. so even though i left earlier than them, it didn't seem to have made much of a difference in time saved. i found the customs desk, which is the desk you come across before you get to customs. there's usually a few bored individuals sitting behind a counter, but everyone once in a while they have something to do, like with me today. i told them i was here to pick up my confiscated drone. what followed next was more bureaucracy. i was told to fill out a form in duplicates. could i have a pen please? we don't have pens, someone is bringing some up. it took forever for 2 customs officers in overalls to bring the drone. why two? who knows. two to verify with their body camera. i filled out one form but before i could fill out the other, the clerk said i could skip it (took pity on me for my poor chinese handwriting).

i proceded to customs. but i noticed one of the agents was following me. maybe he was seeing me through the customs gate, but he came inside with me. i casually asked him how long he's going to follow me. "until i see you at the boarding gate," he said. also when my carry-on was getting screened, i got some extra screening, with everything taken out of my bags and examined one by one. maybe to teach me a lesson about bringing in a drone. they found no contraband other than a 5mm hex wrench i didn't realize i had in my backpack. they confiscated that. didn't want me to secretly take apart the plane while it was flying. having a customs agent shadow me actually made me feel like a VIP. people must see us and wonder what's going on. when we finally got to the gate, i asked the agent is he was going to stay, but he said no. he told me not to open my bag until i leave china. i said okay, but not sure how they would know if i did or didn't (probably surveillance videos). there are a lot easier ways to bring a drone into beijing. you could just bring it via car, no way they're checking everything vehicle. besides, all of beijing is geo-locked, so a drone can't even get airborne unless you somehow hacked it.

the departure was 8am but they allowed us to board by 7:15am. this was a smaller plane, so there were only 2 seats per sides plus 4 seats in the middle. a chubby taiwanese girl wearing all black sat in the window seat next to me. she seemed a little grouchy, immediately pulled down the shade on the window. when they started serving the in-flight meal, she didn't want anything. this meal was better than the two i had on my boston-to-beijing flight: chinese sausage with hainan habanero hot sauce over fried rice. unfortunately i didn't have much of an appetite, only ate half. everything seems so salty, maybe all the drugs i'm taking is change my tolerance for sodium.

the flight from beijing-to-taipei did not take 3-1/2 hours. it didn't even take 3 hours, just 2 hours and 50 minutes. most passengers were filling in the foreigner checkout lines, but i and a select few native taiwanese could use the quicker taiwanese citizens line. it looked like you could scan your passport and walk right through the gate, but i tried a few times and it didn't work. an agent came to my aid. he said my passport had been used in more than 2 years, so i have to go through a real agent. it was pretty simple, agent took my passport, read my name, then said i could pass through.

i met the belgium guys at the luggage pickup. i was curious why i didn't see them around the hotel, especially during breakfast-lunch-dinner. turns out on that first day they stayed at a hotel they had already booked that was closer to the city center. they said it took an hour to get there, but it allowed them to sightsee beijing much better. they came back to the airport hotel last night (where they still had free rooms booked, just didn't stay) to make it easier to get to the airport. turned out their friend rescheduled the wedding, so they're going to make it after all. it seems people had trouble getting to the wedding during a typhoon, so it was in the best interest of everyone to reschedule. plus they had 3 more days to explore taiwan.

customs didn't even bother screening us after we got our luggage, just waved us through. i said good bye to the belgiums, then followed the navy blue line to catch the city bus that'd take me into taipei. i'd already missed one bus, the next one wasn't until 40 minutes. i could try taking the subway to get taipei - which would be cheaper but more of a hassle - but in the end decided to go the bus route. one ticket was NTD$175, a little over $5. it's really hard shuttling between two countries with different currencies.

i saw a vending machine and decided to try my luck. it would only take currency up to NTD$50, and the smallest amount i had was NTD$100. then i saw an option for alipay. when i tapped my alipay app though, the app told me alipay doesn't work overseas. i was about to give up when i saw it accepts credit cards. so i tapped my visa card and sure enough, it accepted it, allowed me to choose my beverage. the can of heysong soda must've jostled hard enough when it landed that when i went to open it, it started fizzing everywhere.

i decided to do some exploring of the airport. for an international airport it's not really big. i picked up some helpful taipei maps, then managed to walk outside the airport where the city buses picked up passengers. immediately i felt this wall of humidity. yup, this is the taiwan i know. it's great for your skin, but this pervasive humidity is year round. i quickly went back inside to where i originally bought the ticket.

i went to go wait for the 12:40pm bus around 12:30pm. there were already a few people waiting. second time around being outside i was ready for it mentally, so it didn't feel as bad. they put tracking number stickers on my luggage before storing it underneath the bus. there didn't seem to be many passengers, but we stopped at terminal 1 and picked up a few more people, including a korean mother and daughter. i knew they were korean because i saw the mother scrolling through a korean app but they also wore a lot of makeup.

i was nervous about missing my stop so i tracked our route via google maps. fortunately they announce it before we arrive, so plenty of time to ring the buzzer. my stop is only 3 stops after we left the airport. the whole ride took about 45 minutes.

i got dropped off in front of the howard hotel. from there it was a 10 minute walk, hauling two suitcases with tiny suitcase wheels on sometimes bumpy and uneven sidewalks. i ended up going the wrong way before finally getting my bearing and locating my godmother's place. the key was just exactly where the upstairs lady hid it for me.

it was almost 2pm by the time i arrived. i'd been up since 4am this morning, flying from beijing. i was exhausted. all i wanted just to take a hot shower. i stripped out of my stinky sweat-soaked clothes and jumped into the shower. there was no hot water. i did a quick rinse before getting dressed and checking the instant gas hot water system outside. everything seemed fine. when i tried lighting the gas stove, nothing happened. there was simply no gas. i sent aunt wu (the lady upstairs) and my godmother a group text messaging asking about the hot water. aunt wu responded right away, told me to turn the gas main valve to different positions to check if the water was getting hot. i did that, nothing. she said she'd be home around 6pm and she could come check it out.

i also tried the wifi password my godmother gave it. that didn't work either. but it was a simple fix, i tried different cases and managed to find the right password. so that could've easily been another problem.

i felt sticky and gross. all i wanted was a hot shower. a part of me wished i'd stayed in a hotel instead, at least i know what i'm getting. i also couldn't find any bath towels so i used a towel on the rack that looked like the floor towel (it'd been washed at least).

in the meantime i had things to do. i needed to buy an easycard. i could've gotten it at the airport, but it would've been the generic version. i wanted something cool that you can only find at convenience stores. i also needed to eat something.

i walked towards dongmen market. yes taiwan is humid, but once you surrender yourself to the humidity, you hardly notice it. that is until you go into an air conditioned room and go back outside and realize how soupy the air is. day time temperature is 80 degrees, night time temperature 70 degrees. plants love it though. i see various succulents just growing out of gutters, the sort of plants we'd normally cultivate with great care in the states. here, they're just weeds.

at da'an park i got some egg cakes (NTD$25). i noticed the ding tai fung had opened up a much larger restaurant across the street from their own place, which still existed. was this always the case? i can't remember now. that little taiwanese dollar store where i got those good pairs of slippers is still there, i'll have to go back and see if they have anymore. when i got to dongmen market it was almost 4pm, and most places had closed for the day. any food adventures there would have to wait until tomorrow. i then went to yong kang street, which has recently become the mostly popular taiwanese foodie destination. every place had a line. that's because today was a weekend (sunday), but people have the day off tomorrow too (some taiwanese holiday). i just walked around and sightsee, i didn't have the patience to wait in line for food. i started making my way back to the apartment. the only food i got were the egg cakes and a drink from 7-11. i visited every single convenience store, browse through their stacks of subway cards, but none of them caught my attention. i passed by my cousin's architecture company, where i lived the last time i was in taipei. there used to be an underground supermarket that had some very good selection, but in the 12 years i've been gone, it's turned into a cosmetic store.

i was almost back at the apartment when i saw a place i thought was for mi-xian but was actually wontons. i decided to give it a try. i was starving by that point, anything would be good. i must've picked the wrong thing because i wanted wonton soup but ended up getting dry wontons. i ate it anyway, most for for the protein but without any food joy. two stores down was a place called fukdup fried chicken. i just have to give it a try. i picked their 7 wings meal which was NTD$279 ($8.50), maybe a little pricey, but would be much more expensive in the states, especially for freshly battered and deep fried chicken. i thought i was playing to cool, ordering like a local, but the waitress noticed i didn't understand some chinese words and showed me the english menu instead. how embarrassing! i read good chinese! i waited patiently for my order.

walking home, i saw a family mart. all the convenience stores i've visited so far have been 7-11. maybe family mart will have the subway card i want. i looked the stack, nothing really caught my eye, but one of them was sort of okay, and i didn't want to search forever for that perfect card, so i just picked that one. cards normally cost NTD$100, but this one was special so cost NTD$150. i then added NTD$500 onto the card. these cards can be used to ride subways but also used at convenience stores. also rent bicycles. various features. even though i put in NTD$500, i probably used up half because i bought a lot of drinks.

back at the house i dove into the fried chicken. tender, cooked to perfect, with a light spicy breading. because i ate those wontons i didn't have much of an appetite, but still managed to forced feed myself 3 wings. and these were full wings too, the "buffalo" section and the drumstick section.

at 6pm aunt wu came by to check on the hot water heater. she couldn't figure it out either. i'd taken a look at it again earlier. the numbers on the gas meter was moving no matter what i did. definitely the gas has been shut off. but from where? only the gas company would know. aunt wu said maybe because my godmother hasn't been back in taiwan for over 6 months, they shut off the gas for safety reasons, even though she continues to pay her gas utility bill (maintenance cost). i told aunt wu that was going back to china on wednesday, gone for 2 weeks. if the gas can't get fixed with the next few days, there's no rush, since i won't be here anyway. i spoke with my mother earlier on videochat, she suggested i boil some water with the electric kettle, mix it with cold water in a basin bowl, and do a sponge bath.

i was prepared to not go out tonight, but it was still 7:30pm. time is a premium when you're on "vacation" so i decided to try and hit a local night market, see if i could get some stinky tofu.

i went to the liaoning night market, which i'd never been before. it was just two subway stops and a bit of walking. there was a faint drizzle but google weather said it was fading so i didn't bother bringing an umbrella. it took a while to find, but when i finally did see it, it was unmistakable, a street lined with food stalls and restaurants. many of the stalls were closed, maybe because of the long weekend holiday, or closed for the typhoon. i didn't see any place that had stinky tofu and was ready to leave, when the lady owner of a restaurant yelled at me to try her food. "do you have stinky tofu?" i said? "sure we do!" she replied, even though the guy standing next to her said they didn't. i went inside and took a seat, wedged between two round tables of loud mixed gender patrons smoking and drinking and being very typical taiwanese. in small doses okay, but you wouldn't want this everyday. i saw a girl come back with something that looked like stinky tofu that the owner told her to go out and buy. when they finally brought out the stinky tofu, i almost wanted to leave. "this is stinky tofu?" i asked her. "yeah," she said, like i don't know my stinky tofu. it was stinky tofu drizzled with soy paste and some scallions thrown on top. "where the hot sauce? the paocai?" i asked. the owner said coming up. the girl brought out a small dish of soy sauce with a bit of chili paste. when i asked about the paocai, she played dumb. i ate quickly so i leave. yes it was stinky tofu, but the sort of garbage i could get back at home, not the authentic stuff. so i basically got fleeced. NTD$220 ($6.75) plus a apple sidra soda. i'm prepared to leave a very unfavorable review on google. basically if a place doesn't advertise stinky tofu, don't believe they can just make it from scratch. i don't know who fleeces me more - chinese or taiwanese. or an equal amount. this would never happen in japan!

i stopped by a convenience store to buy more drinks using my subway card. that NTD$500 i put in early had already been used up, so i had to pay the difference. when i got to the subway station i topped off the card (i could've also done it at the convenience store, but i was already embarrassed enough). i added NTD$1000 this time.

i got back by 9pm. earlier i saw a mosquito inside the house. my mother warned me about them, back when my parents stayed at my godmother's place. i thought i killed it but unless you see a dead body, assume the mosquito is very much alive. i was sitting on the toilet when i felt something and saw it flying away. i slapped it to smithereens. hopefully that was the only one otherwise it's going to be an awful night of sleep.

i took my mother's suggestion and filled a basin with half cold water and half boiling water. it was surprisingly effective, and conserved a lot of water. maybe hard to wash my hair, but for a basic body rinse, it was pretty refreshing. so yes, if the gas doesn't get turned on before i leave, i can still wash, just have to be creative. but my mother spoke with my taiwanese aunt and she said i can go over to her house tomorrow before dinner and take a hot shower.

this vacation definitely doesn't feel like a vacation. too much work! typhoon delays! drone confiscation! catching a cold! no hot water! at this point i can't wait to go back to authoritarian china. at least staying at chinese hotels i'm guarantee hot showers and clean towels.

i took two doses of nighttime severe cold and flu medication last night. i was feverish underneath the comforter, dreaming about fulfilling bento orders because i accidentally hit a button and now we had 1200 orders. i would wake up to tell myself only a dream, then fall back asleep and enter the nightmare state. despite the night terrors, i had a good sleep overall, going to bed at 9pm and waking up nearly 12 hours later.

i used the bathroom and took a shower. i cleaned up all my luggage in case the cleaning people came while i was gone. i then went downstairs for the morning buffet. this was my third time eating the buffet and the novelty has worn off completely. the smoked duck? too salty, and taste like they injected brine into the meat. i had very little appetite. it's ironic, because i came out with the idea of this would be a foodie vacation, sampling all the different delicious foods of both taiwan and chongqing. and now i don't feel like eating anymore.

i went back upstairs to my hotel room. there was also a free lunch, but if it wasn't like the free dinner i had last night, it was worth skipping. i heard a knock on my door: it was the cleaning lady. i told her i didn't need any cleaning but if she had any bottled water (she gave me 4 and took out the trash). i then went to sleep for 2 more hours, from 11am to 1pm. i don't think it was jetlag, i think i'm just tired from the cold.

today i had a mission: get a chinese phone number. that would save me the hassle of doing that in chongqing. i looked up china unicom offices nearby. the closest one was 2.6km. too far to walk, so i'd be trying out out chinese uber - didi - for the very first time. i walked out an entrance behind that hotel that looked out onto a desolate highway. across the street was a large orange building that looked to be an empty conference hall, or could've one time been a mall. there was another hotel behind me - mercure. i used the didi mini app in my alipay. i picked my location, where i wanted to go, and a list of vehicles, from luxury cars to standard to minivans. i picked the cheapest option. the app showed me where my driver was and how long before he arrived.

the car arrived and i got in. he asked the last four digits of my US phone number to confirm. i told him this was my first time using didi and i was trying to get a chinese phone number. we drove to this little commercial strip out in the middle of nowhere. there was a concrete mounted mixer boom pump parked in the middle of the road. the driver said he could go no further, but the china unicom office be less than 100m away. i got out of the car and walked underneath the legs of the mixer to get to the other side. kind of sketchy, not par for the course in china. i found the office but it was closed, seemed to have been empty for a while. while everything there looked old, nearby was a new convenience store catering in snacks. i went inside to grab some candy and a bowl of instant noodles. the selection was so mind boggling i found it hard to choose. i then went back the way i came, trying to find a good spot to call another didi. i passed by a few food places, but they all seem so dirty and dusty, i didn't want to risk eating there. there was another snack supermarket so i went inside to take a peek. i got a drink.

i found another china unicom office that looked more promising. i hailed a didi. this was a bit farther, in a town called shunyi (i don't know how beijing works, maybe that area is called shunyi and it's still beijing city). the people who worked there were not very helpful, they just assumed you knew how to do things. so i was supposed to pick a phone number and then get a ticket assigned to me. i basically store around there like an idiot before one of the workers couldn't take it anymore and helped me out. she was speaking very slowly, like i was retarded.

there were several agents working with various customers. one man was having a screaming fit with his agent, not sure what that was about, but everyone ignored it. my agent first tried to use my US passport but when she noticed it didn't have a visa, she went back to my taiwanese visitor card (taibaozhen). all the deals were crap, there was no pay-as-you-go plan, everything monthly. not only that, but i forgot in china they start the billing cycle first of the month, so even if there was only just a few days left in the month, you still need to pay full price. there was a monthly plan of RMB99, but i'd have to cancel it before i left china otherwise they will continue to bill me and i'll get bad credit. there was a 4-month RMB200 plan that did have an auto-cancellation, at least that's what the lady told me. in dealing with these agents, i can never be sure if they're telling me the truth or trying to fleece me. i did the math - RMB200 - about $28 - that's a deal i can take. my agent started doing the paperwork, took photos of me with my mouth open, eyes closed, nodding my head. it took forever to get right, maybe because of my beard. when she inserted the new sim card the new china number popped up right away.

there was a lot of stores in shunyi, and worth checking out if i wasn't still a little tired. i went to a post office to get stamps, but they only had very small denominations. i also found an outdoor produce market, that made the trip worthwhile. there was a yoshinoya i thought about getting lunch from, but it looked complicated to order and there were already a lot of people there, so i left.

i walked as far an the intersection that would take me directly back to the hotel before i hailed another didi. the driver arrived, but i accidentally picked the wrong spot to get picked up so i didn't see him. i walked to where he was supposed to be but he was already gone. i was about to hail another didi when i saw him and flagged him down. he actually wrote me english text in the alipay didi mini app, so he knew i was a foreigner. where are you from he asked me? i said america, but originally from taiwan, and we didn't speak anymore after that. while riding in the car, i discovered i picked the wrong destination. so i feverishly tried to change it, and finally got it changed. the price dropped from RMB50 to RMB20. as soon as he dropped me off, two other passengers got on the car, so at least his trip wasn't a total waste.

it was already 4pm when i got back to the hotel. i noticed i lost my hacked VPN wifi access. did the new sim card mess with my settings? my esim stopped working. it took a while before i finally figured it out. the esim has to be selected as the internet option and for data roaming. the china unicom sim is only for calls and texts. i couldn't get my VPN to work anymore but i'll worry about that later.

i decided to take another nap, waking up at 6pm to go have dinner downstairs. i thought about eating the instant noodle instead but i decided to save that for taiwan. i choose the mapotofu - same as yesterday. it was kind of awful, super salty, and i only ate half. before i went upstairs to my hotel room, i asked someone at the front desk if i could book a ride to the airport early tomorrow morning. he said no need, there are always drivers hanging around outside. it'll take his word for it. it's only a 15 minutes ride back to the airport anyway that early (4:45am) in the morning.

i got back to the hotel and figured out how to activate the VPN. the secret is to first get online using the eSIM, since it's unrestricted internet. then open up the pixel built-in VPN, which will connect successful. after that, turn on the hotel wifi, which should connect to the internet without any restrictions. final step is turn off the eSIM so the phone doesn't accidentally use its data.

i bought a small package of beef jerky i realized i have to eat because i can't take it with me to taiwan. i'm trying for a 9pm sleep time, wake up at 4am to get ready to leave.

it was around 4am friday when i arrived at the beijing international airport after a 16 hours flight across what looks to be eurasia instead of over the arctic. i walked across a flight board and saw big read CANCELLED next to the flight for taipei. reason? typhoon champi. not good. there was a special office for taiwanese/HK/macao ticket holders looking to transfer. the clerk said i had to call the airline to reschedule a departure flight. but since i don't have a china phone number, my only other option is to go to the hainan airlines ticket counter and change ticket. the only way to do that is to clear customs as all the ticket counters are outside the security zone.

i passed by the luggage carousel for my hainan flight from boston. when i checked my bags they said it'd be shipped directly to taipei. but what happens when the flight gets cancelled? my question was soon answered when my two suitcases popped up. i grabbed them and started preparing to go through custom. everywhere were signs alerting passengers to declare their drones. just so happens i have a drone in one of my suitcases. i took the customs officer this. but i also told him the reason i needed to go outside was to change my cancelled ticket, and that i'd be back afterwards. they consulted, and said in this case i should put my suitcases back on the carousel. how transfers work is all the suitcases from cargo get dumped out. the unclaimed ones are sort and then rerouted to the connecting flights. in that case i wouldn't have to declare my drone and they wouldn't have to sieze it (drones are illegal in beijing, i think the only city in the world that has that policy).

after putting my luggages back on the carousel, i went outside. this early in the morning the airport was still pretty empty, but i found the hainan airlines desk, with two masked workers inside. i told them my problem. they were able to change the flight without any issues - EXCEPT the next available flight wasn't until sunday. flights to taiwan today and tomorrow were all cancelled. that means i'd have to stay in beijing 2 days. i asked if hainan airlines provided free complimentary hotels in cases like this. the clerk told me that for natural emergencies, they do not. so i'd have to find my own hotel, in a city i had no intention of visiting.

so i looked for alternative flights. hainan and air china might not be flying to taiwan for the next few days, but maybe other airlines were? the only ones i found were a few filipino carriers that first flew south to manila (for a 12+ hours layover) before flying back up north to taipei. it's still take something like 18 hours, but at least i'd get to taiwan tomorrow, leaving today. unfortunately those single trip airfares were expensive - $350-600 - and had multiple luggage restrictions. the easiest bet would be to take the hainan flight, even though it wasn't until sunday.

by that point i activated my esim card and told my parents the bad news. we were trying to figure out a solution, but we all came to the same conclusion that i had no choice but to stay in beijing for 2 days before flying to taiwan on the 25th. the question now is where to stay. does beijing airport have cheap capsule hotels? and there was the question of my luggage still on the carousel. would they transfer it to taipei on sunday or will it just go unclaimed, stuck in beijing indefinitely?

so i sat there exhausted from my long flight, my cough becoming increasingly worse. there was a family mart convenience store and i looked for cough drops. i found a chinese brand and went to pay with alipay, my very first time. i was worried it wouldn't work, but it went through without a problem.

i decided to go back to the hainan airlines ticket counter. they said they changed my ticket, but i didn't get an updated boarding pass. a different clerk was helping me, and this one said she'd check if there was a free hotel, even though the other clerk said no. i was surprised when she said yes, and told me to talk with the woman writing down a bunch of names of mostly foreign passengers heading to taipei stuck in beijing like me. my luck was changing! i spoke with 3 college looking guys, they told me they were belgians going to taipei for a weekend wedding. they'd miss the first day (saturday) but were hoping to catch the sunday reception. afterwards they were spending 3 weeks touring china. it only took them 6 hours to fly from brussels. the flight agent could speak english, but i helped her translate to the foreigners.

there seems to be a lot of paperwork. in all the flight agent corralled about 17 stranded passengers including myself. she was trying to organize a shuttle bus, but the hotel didn't have any at the time, so she had to book a felt of taxis to take the passengers. i helped her direct the foreigners to their cars. afterwards she told me to go and get my suitcases after she called and they told her i can't just leave them inside.

but how i get back inside, pass security? i waited in the special line for taiwan/HK/macao passengers disembarking. it was a long wait - 20 minutes - and my backpack was killing me. when i showed them my boarding pass for beijing to taipei, it got flagged immediately. so hainan already changed the ticket, so when they entered the booking number, it said my flight wasn't ready until sunday, not today friday. so i had to get out of line and find another way to get to my suitcases.

i went back downstairs to customs, where i originally exited. there was a side door for employees, i explained to the guard my situation, she said a flight agent was looking for me, and waved me inside. i found my suitcases and told them i had a drone. what followed was 25 minutes worth of bureaucratic theater. drones are entirely banned in beijing. if you have a drone, you have to declare and they hold it for safe keeping until time for you to leave, in which time they'll return the drone. there was a lot of paperwork, and two additional customs agent came with body camera to co-sign the paper before taking the drone. while that was happening, there was a customs crisis where a chinese man who just returned from mauritania had a suitcase full of raw camel (or was it turtle?) meat. all of it had to be confiscated. he was getting quite incensed, said everyone was bringing in raw meat, why was he flagged. he was lucky they didn't fine him for not declaring.

so with my drone temporarily confiscated, i left customs with my two suitcases. now i just had to find my flight agent. we added each other as wechat friends earlier so we could find each other better, but i couldn't add her, because she had a government account, and i needed to through another level of security before i could add her. i scanned my face and that allowed me to add her. by that point i returned to the hainan ticket counter (for what seems like the millionth time today). they helped me contact the agent before i was able to do it myself through wechat. i waited there for another good 20 minutes. feeling thirsty, i returned to family mart and got a honey jasmine tea, the kind we used to sell at the cafe, but this was just RMB$4.

finally the flight agent showed up. i was the last of her stranded customer. the hotel was sending a car, a great big minivan all for me. i thanked the agent, got in the car, and was ferried to the hotel. i heard it took 20 minutes to get to the hotel, which made me think it was probably close to the city center. it only took that long because of traffic, it was actually very close to the airport, still on the 6th ring circuit. the gouce hotel but more like an exhibition hall. the concierge said something strange when i first got out of the car, said i could keep my luggage in the foyer. why would i do that? i told him need stuff from my suitcases.

i checked in. hainan airlines provides free room and board and transportation. but here's the catch: it has to be two passengers per room. otherwise you have to pay for a single room. which is what i did. i'm too old to share, and rate was something like $30/day, so i took it. i paid with alipay for the third time. how would it do with bigger numbers? it worked, but i saw on the receipt there was a 3% foreign credit card fee.

the hotel wasn't just a hotel but a conference hall. there was some kind of chinese colon cancer expo happening and the place was very busy. i went to go find my hotel room but couldn't find it. a man saw me and said i had to keep on going, actually leaving the hotel which was really just the exhibition hall. the hotels were something like 2 dozen identical buildings that looked to be apartments before they were converted into hotels. 24 hotel buildings! china please! there were also groves of orange trees, which i later discovered with large persimmon trees. are they edible? they looked dusty though.

i finally found my hotel building, 21 floor 4. so that's why the concierge was asking me if i wanted to keep my luggage in the foyer. it's a long ass walk! when i got to my room, it was okay, i was overly impressed, but it looked clean and relatively new, a good place to rest for the next 2 days.

first thing i did was use the bathroom and take a shower. i smelled a little ripe. the shower head featured a wand and a rain shower, i used the wand which was already set high enough for me to stand understand. at first the water rain tepid, but eventually got hot enough to be comfortable. that shower was so soothing!

the whole time i've been updating my parents through line, either audio or video. they were concerned i was coughing, but i had high strength cold medicine i began taking immediately. it was 9:45am, i had enough time to make the buffet breakfast cutoff, so i quickly ran back downstairs.

the buffet was pretty good. i grabbed as much i could and started eating. their smoked duck was amazing. but at exactly 10am the chefs came out and started throwing away the food. what a waste! all that good duck! i briefly video chatted with my parents while i was eating.

lunch would start in another 1-1/2 hours. in the meantime i went back to my hotel room to rest. the hotel has free unlocked wifi but you can only use chinese apps like wechat and amaps. i tried my macbook pro and discovered when i activated a boston area VPN that i had unrestricted internet access. i did a speed test: 6 Mbps download, 40 Mbps upload. while upload is so fast is a mystery. i checked my airalo esim: even though it's unlimited, the esim will restrict to me only 1 Mbps speed if i got over the 3GB data limit per day. i was at 500MB because of the few video calls. otherwise i'd be a lot lower. i couldn't get the VPN to work on my android phone. when i switch to the hotel wifi, my VPN app says there's no wifi access, so it looks like VPN is somehow disabled when connecting with a phone.

i went down to lunch around 12:30pm. it was supposed to be free but my name wasn't on the list. instead of trying to contest it, i just out of pocket (via alipay) RMB$100 for the buffet. i was ready for another magnificent spread, but it was a lot of the same stuff i saw this morning. and there was less food this time, because a lot of the convention goers had already eaten through the buffet. i ate as much as i could, but nowhere did i eat RMB$100 worth of food. it left me a little disgruntled.

after i finished lunch, i went back to the counter to ask if i had free food because i was a stranded hainan airlines passenger. the clerk wasn't sure, but she called the flight agent i was working with earlier this morning, and she said hainan airlines would pay for all my food. the clerk gave me a few meal tickets so i can claim my free food.

there were several vending machines on the ground floor and i tried to use them to buy drinks, but i couldn't get my alipay to work. i gave up and returned to my hotel room.

as much as i appreciate a free hotel room (actually not true because i paid for the single occupancy upgrade), this hotel was situated in a bleak area of beijing, out the 6th ring. there was no restaurants or markets nearby, the close was a mile. it was like a commercial desert besides the hotels.

i ended up staying inside until evening. it struck me as ironic - i paid nearly a $1000 to fly halfway around the world, only to stuck in a beijing hotel room streaming videos with my VPN-hacked wifi. i could be doing all this back in cambridge for free! vacation time is money, and i felt guilty just wasting so much time when i should be out exploring. but i was fighting a cold and needed the rest. resting is okay, but i didn't want to sleep, because they would fuel my jetlag. neverthless i went to sleep at 5pm (under the warm covers), waking up at 6pm (dark outside) for dinner.

i discovered my pixel 9 pro has built-in VPN as part of the operating system. i was able to turn it on using the hotel without giving me an error. lo and behold, unrestricted internet access! all google services, reddit, new sites, the works.

i had my meal ticket this time. instead of the cafe, i went to adjoining small restaurant, that was served by a pair of serving robots that delivered food from the kitchen. i was kind of amazed. how lunch and dinner works is instead of a buffet, you pick an item from a set menu and that's it. i saw the price, i picked mapotofu was which RMB$35. i made sure to drink as much as i could since i have a limited supply of bottled hotel water back in my room and i don't know how to use the vending machines. i saw a few foreign passengers from earlier, but i didn't see the belgian guys, maybe they went into the city. good for them. maybe i'll do that tomorrow, to get a china phone number and check my ICBC bank account.

i returned to my hotel room. it was getting a little brisk at night, i wore my two layer jacket from when i left boston, about the similar amount of chill. once i got back, i prepared to sleep early. i flossed, brushed me teeth, took a hot shower, took my pills. my parents connected me via video to ask how i was doing. i learned earlier that my 2nd aunt has said she'd help my parents at the cafe while i was gone, so i wouldn't have worry about them getting swamped with orders.

i took my night time portion of my cold medication, it's got the good stuff that's like taking a sleeping pill. i'm ready for a deep recuperative sleep, hopefully waking up tomorrow good as new.