Hot Springs Resorts of Chongqing (old and new)

Chongqing is known for HOT  SPRINGS  and SPAS.

The five of us rented this apartment for the day.

Qing loves her hammock on Sunday afternoons.

This was an old-style Hot Spring, with a mineral bath pool in our room.

All over China, this is how heavy things are carried.  This is a bong-bong man.

This was the most polluted water we've seen yet in China.  It was actually BLACK.

Click here to see the really cool Mah Jong table in action.

The Hot Spring Resorts all have plenty of   Mah Jong Tables.  This seems to be the national game of China, and is played with tiles, but is similar to playing rummy.  We found the coolest table EVER at this resort!!  You put the tiles down into a center hole in the table, and then the electric table automatically scrambles the tiles, re-stacks them into rows (correct side up), and sends the stacked tiles back up through the slots in the table.  Incredible! 

Another Hot Spring Resort:  Brand New

Senlin gave us entry passes to the big, fancy, new resort.  We had to take the motorcycle taxis to get there!

Click here to see what Chris saw on his motorcycle ride.

We spent our full 24 hours at the Hot Spring Resort.

Too dark for taking photos at night.....

We spent most of the night sleeping on the granite slabs, heated by the hot springs. We also had full body, foot-pinching, and "hot rock" massages.  Glorious!

It was like a big "Pajama Party", with hundreds of people, all wearing the same matching outfits: pajamas.

Really, quite fashionable!

The hot spring pools were each "flavored" differently.  This one was" Eucalyptus." There were 54 different flavored pools !!  We tried them all.

This pool was "Lavender."  Notice the wonderful foliage around each pool!

Some pools were partially covered.  Other popular water  flavors included:  Red wine, Licorice, Milk, Coffee, Green Tea, Ginseng, and Roses.

There were two pools with little fish that nibbled at any dead skin:  "Fish Treatment Pools."

It's fun, living in a Chinese city famous for its mountains and volcanic hot springs. 

Chongqing with Qing and her family (part 5)

Qing is making sure that we have a wonderful time in her home country!  We are thankful to have this year to see her often. 

 Melody, Qing, and Melody's friend, were our only trick-or-treaters for Halloween.

Sometimes we play English-learning games.

Melody loves to read.

When we take Sunday trips in the car, Melody usually falls asleep on "Grandpa Chris."

Qing likes to drive on our Sunday outings.

Chongqing City Life (part 3)

Cable Cars are available to take passengers back and forth across the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers of Chongqing.

Sunshine over Chongqing.....Usually we cannot see the sun at all, but occasionally it looks like the sun over a Montana forest fire.

We thought that the tip of the peninsula of Chongqing would be similar to the tip of Manhattan in New York.  Not so!  At night, the streets are blocked by huge delivery trucks, and workers are making piles of boxes of "stuff" everywhere.  Warehouses abound, along with small street-side stalls selling "food" items.

Boxes of Stuff......everywhere!

The Liberation Monument, downtown

My heart aches for the trees.......All over the city, people have nailed nails into the trees......LOTS of nails. Sometimes they also wrap them with rope, which must eventually strangle the trees......

It is often difficult to walk down the sidewalk, with all the poles nailed to the poor trees.  What do you think about this practice, (forester) Jared?

Plenty of interesting architecture

Chongqing Museums

We had 3 days off from teaching, while the students took the first set (of 4 sets annually) of government-mandated exams.  We decided to visit museums of Chongqing.  The first was the

"Three Gorges Museum."

There were many ancient artifacts that had been rescued, before the big dam  caused thousands of acres of land to be flooded.

Some very cool pottery

There was a section on the Evolution of Man.

There was a section with REAL MUMMIES  found in the western deserts of China.

Chris likes to photograph the really weird creatures.

There was a section about the 56 Ethnic Groups of China.

........and, of course, a model of the World's Biggest Dam. 

We visited the Science and Technology Museum on another day:

Lots of hands-on SCIENCE !

Inside this "big ball" in the Omni-Max Theater.  We watched a 3-D movie about life in the International Space Station (made by NASA.)

 

 

Optical Illusion

Everywhere we go, we are CELEBRITIES.  At the museums, groups of school kids on field trips continually want their photos taken with us.

"Chinese Bridge" exchange student performances

We were invited (as V.I.P.'s) to "Chinese Bridge",  a dance performance put on by exchange students from all over the world, each spending one year in Chongqing.

"Chinese Bridge" took place in this downtown Chongqing Concert Hall.

One of the many new bridges of Chongqing is the symbol for: "building bridges of relationships between people around the world," an outstanding goal!

The International Students put on a first-class show!!!

 Click here to see a little of the show.

And here to see a little more.