Chongqing Trip

Chongqing, as the starting point of the Yangtze River Cruise, is a modern city with time-honored culture and wonderful natural scenery. I have been a great interest in this city and want to take a tour around it for a long time. And I really made it before the trip to the Three Gorges.

The most bustling place of the downtown is the Liberation Monument Business Street where our journey began in the morning. My first impression on this street is that there were so many high buildings of shopping malls, banks and hotels that it seemed I was in middle of Manhattan, New York. The Liberation Monument with 27.5m, which was the highest building around this district 30 years ago, is the lowest one today. Of course, this street is also one of biggest gathering places of Chongqing belles. I enjoyed the unique scenery  by walking along this street. When I reached the end of the street, I was a little tired. But it was just the warm-up of the whole trip. More wonderful places were waiting for me to visit.

Chaotianmen Dock, just a few miles away from Liberation Monument Business Street, is another landmark of Chongqing. When we arrived there by light rail, it was almost noon. We were all hungry, and the hotpot lunch was indispensable. When we finished our feast, I almost had no other taste than spicy. It was really a big test for people who did not enjoy spicy food. Then we walked along the bank of Jialing River, there were some boats in the middle of water, I cannot see clearly the boats because of a long distance between us and a light piece of fog. After a long walking, I arrived at a square, where we could see the crosspoint between Yangtze River and Jialing River. This was an interesting scene. The crosspoint was apparent because of different colors of water between the two river, light yellow of Yangtze River, and light green of Jialing River.

The curtain of darkness had fallen gradually. We rushed to Ciqikou Ancient Town by bus. This ancient town was famous for its snack, especially fried dough twist. It took me 10 minutes before my turn. Another characteristic of this ancient town was caff. There were many caffs and people played cards or sang Sichuan opera here. In the middle of this ancient town, I felt that I were in the old Chongqing. The history and traditional culture is preserved here. Unconsciously, it was 6 pm. We must leave now to board the cruise ship at Chaotianmen Dock.

Because of limited time, I had no enough time to visit other beautiful places, such as the Dazu Rock Carvings and Jinyun Mountain. This trip gave me an interesting experience of this beautiful city.