29 April 2018
Sick polluted and awesome
Walking to Erling Park and Testbed 2 in Chongqing
Today I am still sick. I really would like to be not sick tomorrow. Despite being sick, I managed 25,000 steps by 1pm, hiking through the city into Erling Park and then back via the hipster coffee and art gallery area known as Testbed2.
It was also very polluted today, and very hot, and I was sweating huge amounts, drinking huge amounts and taking a tour of every public toilet in Chongqing - all side effects of having a cold.
I have 2 stories to share, I was walking along minding my own business through a neighbourhood market and a small child decided to start kicking me and yelling at me. I could not understand him. He kicked me 3 times, quite hard, and no one did anything about it at all, so I kicked that little bastard square in the face and sent him flying across the footpath. Actually I didnt I fled, I was defeated by a 3 year old angry at white people.
For my next story, I was making one of my many visits to a urinal, standing there making sure my aim is optimal, cleaning lady comes in. Nothing unusual about that in Asian countries. She comes right over to me, leans against the partition thing thats between each urinal, and yells excitedly, Ni shi meiguoren? Which is of course, are you American? So I had to have a chat with an old lady in an orange jump suit and huge plastic sun bonnet while urinating.
First up, I walked through the nice city area, and took photos of hydrangeas. I am an expert on plants, and dancing.
A rubbish bin, a taxi, a tunnel a temple. Exciting.
I scaled this ladder to assault the temple. They were really surprised anyone would do this. There was nothing stopping me from climbing the ladder.
Nice temple, nice plants. There was a lady spinning around with a real sword out the front but she put it away when she saw me so I could not get a photo.
This is the market area where I got assaulted by a small child.
In what is becoming a regular Chongqing event, I walked past the end of a building and suddenly realised how high up I was. Before now I had no idea I was more than a few metres above the rivers. You can see the green spine with the buildings I had walked up the middle of.
In the previous photo I was standing on the start of this bridge, now I walked out along it half way.... then crossed the road in the traffic! When I walked back up the other side I passed a security hut and the guy in it yelled something at me that included the word danger, presumably he watched me cross the traffic on camera. It was very slow moving traffic.
It looks like the end of the world, yet somehow awesome.
Everywhere is huge buildings.
I was getting sun burnt standing out here, time to head back into the shade.
The view up the river the other way.
The slow train Chongqing train station, I think its reclaimed land.
You cant really tell how steep that is, but people do walk down there to get to their homes. So much of Chongqing is like that.
Now I am in Erling park. I went here last time to enjoy the view too, however last time I caught the train here. The view as seen above is actually more impressive outside the park. Inside the park, you can go fishing for turtles.
Thats a different river on the other side of the tall green spine.
I was trying to get down this way, but could not, time to double back!
This took me back past the sacrificial altar. I lay on it for a while but no one did me a favour.
Unexpected!
A fairly boring looking building, but if it really was built in the 1940's its in very good condition.
Eventually I found a road to take me where I wanted to go, people live in this building! I could see clothes hung out to dry on the top level.
This is Testbed2. Built on the site of a crumbling money printing factory, they have deliberately left it crumbling and installed a lot of cafes and art galleries. Chinese girls love to come here with their boyfriends to have their photos taken.
One of the gallery spaces, a few of them were enforcing the no photo rule.
To me, there are lots of crumbling places in Chongqing which would be just as good for photos. I guess some of the buildings had graffiti on them which is a novelty. You can also order an $8 deconstructed coffee here, or hand made liquid nitrogen ice cream etc.
I also took a selfie in Testbed2, I may be doing it wrong.
To end my day out, I descended into this stadium and ran a few laps.