After our amazing Yunnan adventure, we took a quick, nonstop, and cheap flight from Lijiang to Chongqing 重庆 to my bucket list destination – Zhangjiajie National Park 张家界国家森林公园 also known as the Avatar mountain. There is an airport at Zhangjiajie but the flights are expensive so I searched nearby main cities and found a domestic budget airline called Lucky Air for around $100 per person. The flight was on-time (most important) and it was a unique “experience”. During the short 1+ hour flight, the flight attendants constantly advertised and sold stuff like stuffed animals, toys, and collectibles LOL. I guess that is how they make extra profit, how clever! After we landed Chongqing, we took DiDi to our hotel – voco Chongqing Chaotianmen. We arrived early in the morning but luckily, our rooms were ready.
I booked a kid-themed room and it was well worth the little extra money. I like the welcome gifts from the hotel – local snacks! The beef jerky was spicy and tasty!
Our room has a direct view of one of the iconic architectures of Chongqing – the Raffles City.
Our kid-themed room was so cute, from bedding to the little tiki tent that our kids enjoyed so much.
The bathroom was carefully furnished with kids’ amenities from kids’ step stool, amenity kit, and a toilet seat!
After we settled down, it was raining so we decided to have lunch first and hope for the best. We walked 15 minutes to Shou Chai Lu Roast Duck (守柴炉烤鸭(解放碑复星旗舰店)), it’s a chain restaurant specialized in roast duck in Chongqing. The restaurant is located inside a mall and when we arrived, they just opened so we were one of their first customers of the day. What I noticed with restaurants in Chongqing is that most (if not all) have a self-serve “snack” area where you can mix your own sauce and freebies like white rice, soup, sweet soup, and local snacks.
The food is already cheap but for further savings, there are discounted set menus and combos that you can purchase and redeem at the restaurant. We purchased the Peking duck set menu and then showed the redemption QR code to the waitress; she placed the order for us. This was the Peking duck set and only cost 142 RMB (~$21 USD)!!! A whole Peking duck for $21 and also included the hot pot, it was an unbelievable deal! We chose the Yunnan mushroom chicken soup base and it was the most delicious and flavorful soup base I have ever had in hot pot!
Our table has a view of the temple next to the mall. The Peking duck was so good that even my picky daughter loved it.
In addition, we ordered fatty beef for the hot pot and a “side order” of egg fried rice for our kids to share since they don’t really like hot pot. The picture of the “side order” of egg fried rice on the menu looked like a standard bowl size; we were shocked when the actual order came – it was a full plate of fried rice! It tasted good too!
We were so full and couldn’t finish all the food, $25 for Peking duck and hot pot, it was the best deal we ever had! After lunch, it was still raining so we checked out the shops in the mall. Even though we get free breakfast with our IHG status at the hotel, we couldn’t resist to buy the pastries in the bakery, they all looked so yummy! I got the matcha mini-cake, it was the right size for me 🙂
This cream-filled cake looked yummy too!
We bought cream puffs and egg tarts.
The rain stopped wohoo! On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by a wholesale mall and checked that out too. Inside, there are countless wholesale shops selling everything you ever need…phone cases, jewelry, accessories, toys, and so on. Things that have sticker price, you can still bargain if you are buying multiples. I got some sterling silver earrings from one of the shops and the kids got some small toys. I realized along the way back to the hotel that most of the high-rise buildings are wholesale malls and each mall is specialized; for example, this one is for jewelry and accessories, another one is women’s clothing. I didn’t know Chongqing is a wholesale city before the trip!
Once we went back to the hotel, we didn’t feel like going out since the ground was wet and the weather wasn’t great. The kids enjoyed their time inside the tiki hut with pillows and plush animals.
For dinner, we took DiDi to General Ba Hot Pot (巴将军·非遗原味火锅(解放碑店)) located inside the pedestrian shopping area. The driver dropped us off at the nearest street and then we walked in. The hot pot restaurant is located on the 3rd floor. The shops on the ground floor are all selling hot pot soup base….Chongqing is famous for its hot pot!
The self-serve area is huge at General Ba Hot Pot, they offer so many kinds of sweet soups:
The sauce station selection has a huge variety:
We ordered a half and half pot with chicken soup and mild-spicy soup bases. We asked for “very mild” and it turned out to be fully red! I took a sip and it was burning!!!! Usually, I have spicy Szechuan soup base in hot pot and I could take the numbing spiciness. Chongqing’s spiciness is another level, even their “mild” is too spicy for me :O
We bought the set menu from Dianping once again, this hot pot set cost only 122 RMB! We added a beef set for 13.8 RMB and also a cute panda milk shaved ice for 10.8 RMB for the kids.
The kids loved the panda dessert!
We heard loud music so we walked over the rooftop section to see, they even have the “face-changing” performance! The “face-changing” is famous in this part of China where the performer constantly changes his mask in a split second.
The performer came over to our table and changed mask, the kids were so excited to see that and asked how it was done haha!
Their chicken soup base was super flavorful as well, I miss that type of soup base so much! After our full dinner, we walked to the pedestrian street to experience the vibes. We came across a bun shop with a huge line of people so it must be good! The shop’s name is “Ghost Bun” so I lined up too to give it a try.
The bite-sized bun was so juicy and the meat inside was so tender!
We took Didi back to our hotel so we can use the bathroom before we headed out again. The bathrooms at the restaurant were the squatting ones. Chongqing’s skyscrapers at night were so beautiful.
After the bathroom break, we walked to its iconic landmark – Hongyadong (洪崖洞). It was flights and flights of stairs down so that means in order to get back up, it’ll be flights and flights of stairs up urg!
There it is the famous Hongyadong (洪崖洞)…a huge ancient-styled building built along the cliff!
The stores are mostly food stalls!
I have never seen watermelons this big!
A beautiful bridge lit up at night and some people recommended seeing Hongyadong from that bridge for the best views.
More and more shops:
And more and more people as we approach the “front view” of the structure.
People described this as like the buildings in Spirited Away.
It is beautiful but the amount of crowds was unbearable, we walked inch by inch being pushed by the waves of people. We held on tight to our kids to try to get out of the craziness. We finally made it out to the bridge, crossing the street for this view. I can’t imagine how many more people during holidays, this was considered the “low” season!
We tried to get Didi back to our hotel but it was impossible due to the traffic and the demand so we had to walk up those flights of stairs to get back up 🙁
We were out of breath by the time we got back up and luckily because of the rain, it was cool that night.
We finally made it back to our hotel; we were exhausted from the walk!
The next morning, we had a good breakfast at Voco.
I couldn’t believe my eyes….MahJong cake! It was too sweet though.
They have made-to-order noodle soup.
It was good.
I like that they have a Lego table so the kids can get entertained 😀
After breakfast, we took Didi to Ciqikou Ancient Town (磁器口古镇); it was around 25 min drive with some light traffic. The driver dropped us off at the entrance of the ancient town as it’s pedestrian only area. The street where we were dropped off has a lot of noodle shops.
We walked across the street to the entrance.
The entrance has a huge teapot fountain and is decorated with artificial flowers.
After visiting all those amazing ancient towns in Yunnan, Ciqikou felt so much smaller and also commercialized.
We were telling the story of the Monkey King to our kids and look, there’s a statue of Monkey King!
The small ancient town is decorated with Chinese elements.
We saw a traditional melted-sugar sculpture stand so we let the kids pick the design and watch how the guy drew the picture with melted sugar! They were amazed :O
The most beautiful candy, wouldn’t you agree?
This street has a huge dragon created by lanterns.
This street is ocean themed:
We strolled the few streets within an hour, the ancient town was that small. Then, we took Didi to have lunch at the famous grilled fish restaurant – 沈姐烤鱼(沙坪坝总店).
We ordered the garlic-sauce grilled fish – it was so delicious!!! We also ordered a chicken pot, it was flavorful too. It does live up to its name so I highly recommend it even though it was far away from the city center.
After we got back to our hotel, we took a bathroom break and then walked across the street to check out another wholesale mall. It has like 7 floors full of shops, this floor is accessories and this shop is for water bottles!!! Can you believe it a whole shop dedicated to water bottles, all sorts of sizes, colors, designs, you name it!
It was overwhelming; it has way too many selections. One thing I don’t like it is that they don’t have sticker prices so it was annoying to find a staff and ask for price. Small things like kid sticker sheets, I didn’t even bother to ask as I know those are cheap anyways.
Bracelets, phone straps……
We were there for hours browsing each floor and shop and surprisingly, this mall was quiet, not many customers. I prefer this one than the one yesterday, their stuff looked higher quality.
For dinner, we went to 鹅冠港式茶餐厅(来福士店) at Raffles City, a luxury mall….a real mall (not a wholesale one LOL). As Raffles City is 3 connected buildings, it was a maze to find the restaurant. We finally found it, located on the restaurant floor. After days of Yunnan and Chongqing cuisine, we were craving for Cantonese non-spicy food and found this one. It was actually pretty good!
Their roasted baby pigeon was good, the skin was crispy and the meat was tender and flavorful.
The clay pot rice was not good, off course, can’t compare to the ones at Jason’s hometown – Shunde.
We had a good dinner and their prices were not bad consider the location inside a luxury mall. After dinner, we walked down to the open area facing the Yangtze River as that’s one of the viewing spots for their world’s largest drone show! They have it every Saturday night, we were lucky to be there on a Saturday 🙂 We found a good spot and waited for almost an hour. Fortunately, it was breezy and not too humid; the temperature was lower than average due to the rain yesterday.
Raffles City lit up at night:
Many sightseeing boats passing by the Yangtze River.
It finally got dark and the drone show started!
It was our first time seeing a drone show and it blew our minds; the designs and the arrangements were wow.
A space-themed arrangement:
Who doesn’t like a diamond in the sky?
A Chinese blessing for scholars:
I love this flower raining down petals:
Chongqing’s iconic structures:
The finale was fireworks:
It was an impressive show! Our short stay in Chongqing was more interesting than I anticipated; lots of wholesale malls, excellent food, and the world’s largest drone show!
