Wendy was leaving in the afternoon today, but we still had the morning to explore the city, so we made full use of our time.
After our normal breakfast of baozi, a steamed bun filled with pork or vegetables, we headed to the hospital with a staircase to the roof of the building on one side and then a long drop on the other side. I loved our baozi breakfast stand right outside our hotel. I could get two baozi for 4 kuai (about 50 cents) or if I was really hungry, three baozi for 5 kuai. They were tasty, close, and cheap!
I helped Wendy to take some pictures and then I took her to the snack shop that I had been to with Jack and Clara. I got another bag of dog poop candy (that’s what it was called, but it was actually a crunchy peanut snack that I really liked).
We stopped by a road that Wendy recognized from a scene from a movie. Then we wandered around Hong ya dong for a few minutes. There were fewer people than the last time I had visited with Jack and Clara in the evening, but that also meant that most of the shops were closed. It seemed a bit creepy with the deserted streets, and it was hard to imagine that in a few hours when all the restaurants opened and the weather got cooler, the area would be crawling with tourists. For now, it seemed more like a ghost town.
Our next stop was the Immigration Guild Hall (Huguang Guild Hall; 湖广会馆). But on the way, we stopped for some noodles, and these were some of my favorite noodles from the trip. The nice lady agreed to make them not spicy or just a little spicy (I told her very very very very little spice), and they were delicious!
In the Huguang Guild Hall (which was a museum, not a modern immigration office), I learned that Chongqing and Sichuan had many migrants come in from all over China—including migrants from Guangdong province where I live. These migrants came because Sichuan and Chongqing had lost a lot of people to wars and famines. The migrants then set up guild halls to preserve their own culture, to build connections, and to do business. The Huguang Guild Hall was built during the Kangxi period (late 17th century).
Within the hall, we could see places of worship with a large idol as well as places where the people of the time would watch opera. There were two or three of these different places to watch opera performances. One of them had some chairs and tables set up with little drink shops. Wendy bought a drink and we sat down for a few minutes and watched a wedding ceremony on a TV set up where the opera would originally have been performed. Unfortunately, the area wasn’t air conditioned, and I was pretty hot. So we didn’t stay very long.
Wendy really admired the open courtyards that provided sunlight and rainwater. At one spot, a square was cut into the middle of the ceiling, letting in sun for us, but Wendy pointed out that when it rained, the rain would be collected in a little pond, providing water and beauty. Wendy thought about how beautiful it would be to live in an area with so much space and natural beauty.
I really enjoyed an embroidery shop that we visited. We walked in, and many of the embroidery was incredibly beautiful! One design of a horse looked more like an incredible painting than embroidery, and I was amazed at the hours upon hours of work that they must have taken. I found some earrings that I loved, but they were 160 kuai, and I didn’t feel like that would be the best investment. So I passed them up. They also had everything from wall hangings to tissue boxes to other jewelry to jewelry boxes. We admired the artwork while a worker followed us around. She told us that everything was handmade. It was all also incredibly beautiful.
We finally headed back to the hotel and rested for a bit before Wendy left for the train station. I was alone in that huge city where I didn’t know anyone else. In some ways, I was looking forward to resting a bit, but being alone in a city like that was also a bit intimidating. One of my biggest worries was food.
In a spurt of genius, I asked the hotel front desk girl for some food recommendations. As a local, she was excited and willing to give me some recommendations, and when I told her that I wanted something for one person, she suggested several nearby restaurants that had small dishes.
I chose one that wasn’t too far and headed out on my food adventure.
Everything was going well, until the map told me to go around to the other side of the building, and I couldn’t tell if I was supposed to go over the road or under the road. The roads in Chongqing were quite difficult to follow on my map. My map was always getting confused about where I was and where I was wanting to go. In Guangzhou, I love following the map because I can get anywhere that I need to go without problems, but my friends and I all had trouble with the maps in Chongqing.
So I stopped and asked a couple of older ladies for directions. The older of the two ladies replied in the dialect, and I had no idea what she was saying. The other lady seemed to be saying that I should go downstairs. The main reason that I had asked was that I did not want to walk down all of those stairs if it wasn’t going to be absolutely necessary. Apparently, it was necessary.
I walked down the stairs, paying attention to the shops on the side of the building as I passed them. I didn’t see my restaurant. At the bottom of the stairs, I felt like I had entered a different world. China is one of the safest places that I’ve ever been, and walking outside alone rarely makes me nervous at any time of the day or night. But that particular road did make me nervous. Perhaps it was just the fact that I was alone in the city, but the daylight seemed to have disappeared, and everything seemed darker and creepier. I also hate not knowing how to get to where I’m going.
According to my map, I now seemed even farther away from this elusive little restaurant. I walked down the creepy street a little bit until I came to another set of stairs going back up. And there were a lot of stairs. I climbed back up all of those stairs, and now I was back on the original road. I was just starting to think about giving up, but I had no other ideas for dinner and I was starting to get hungry. Then I looked back down the road that I had already walked down and saw the name of my restaurant on a sign above a door. I had missed it the first time.
I walked into the restaurant and the owner greeted me and pointed me upstairs. I ordered a set meal with the help of some nice attendants that looked like they could have been my college students. I chatted with them a little bit and they gave me a dessert soup to try. I’m not sure if that was part of my meal or if they just gave it to me to be nice.
The most interesting part of the meal was the main dish—pig feet. I’m actually a bit confused about this dish. When I order pig feet rice in Guangdong, I usually get delicious meet on top of rice. But if I order pig hand from a local shop, then I get a bone with some fat on it. This pig feet was more like the bone with fat on it. I wasn’t completely surprised since I had seen it around the city and I’d seen lots of pictures of it, but I was curious about it, and I did want to try. Even though it seemed to be mostly fat, the flavor was pretty nice, and I enjoyed the meal. First meal: success! (After some setbacks, haha!)
