i took it easy on my last full day in chongqing. i chatted with my parents in the morning before readjusting my luggage. i packed everything, including the load of laundry i did yesterday and my spare pair of shoes. both suitcases were over the 51 lbs limit by a few pounds, but i was hoping the airline would be lenient with their weight requirements. worst case scenario, i had a shopping bag ready to carry any excess over-weight items.

i relaxed in the hotel until 2pm, eating spicy braised duck wings and trying to finish the bottles of leftover baijiu since i wouldn't be able to bring them back (since they were already opened).

the only important thing i had to was cancel my china phone number. i went to the china unicom office in guanyinqiao and asked them to cancel my account. unfortunately there was an unexpected problem. apparently the first and second day of the month are accounting days for phone companies, so they can't access my balance for the previous month. without knowing the balance, they can't tell if i owe them money, and they won't cancel an account until the balanced is paid in full. that basically means i can't cancel the account until the 3rd, but i will already be enroute back home to the US by that point.

i'd deposited RMB100 when i first set up my account, but the monthly charge was RMB55/month for 1GB of data, and for some reason i managed to go over my data allowance back in april (even though i only used the phone for about 2 weeks) to a bill of RMB80, leaving me with just RMB20 in my account. and since i didn't cancel the account before june, i also have to pay for june's service even though i won't be using it. my mistake was assuming phone accounts are managed like they are in the US, which is billing cycle is 30 days beginning from the day you signed up; apparently this is not the case in china. so that sucks if you need to get a phone number at the end of the month because you're required to pay for the entire month, even if you just use one day.

the only solution was to make a copy of my id and write a letter, authorizing a friend to cancel the account for me, after they pay off my remaining balance. fortunately i can ask sunmeng to help me out, but it sucks that i have to involve her at all. i got them to get me a photocopy of my taiwanese travel passport (the least they could do) and left. i noticed everyone in the store were wearing red scarves, in honor of children's day.

on this last full day in chongqing i decided to pay a visit to jiefangbei, which to me represents the city center. i went to hongyadong, to eat some oasmanthus (桂花) tangyuan and do a bit more souvenir shopping. there was a bittersweetness to all of this, as this would be my last time seeing all these sights, and i'm not sure when i'll come back again. i ate my tangyuan (RMB10) and went downstairs to the souvenir shops, where i bought a few keychains.

after returning to the hotel, i went out again to get some yiansuji and a drink. i stayed in the hotel and waited for sunmeng to arrive from changshou.