YowCH & Grace

YowCH attended the 2016 TYLin China annual dinner at Chongqing on his own. The trip started on Wednesday night for the Thursday 01.15 flight to Hong Kong, arriving at 05:30, then the connecting flight from Hong Kong to Chongqing from 08:30 to 11:00. The return trip was from Saturday afternoon from Chongqing to Hong Kong (17:00 to 19:30) and then from Hong Kong to Singapore (Sunday 01:50 to 05:30), essentially planning for teh shortest time away from Singapore, but 9.5hours in Hong Kong for transit.

Here is the maps of where YowCH visited this year, click on it for larger image:

Flying alone and on business, YowCH had very little baggage, all hand-carried, including some gifts for the Chine office colleagues.

Here’s the stopover at Hong Kong airport.

Day 1, Thursday 28 Jan:
Arrival in Chongqing, the air was about 5°C, which is warmer than the freezing temperature just 2 days ago (coldest in Chongqing in 25 years!).

TYLin arranged for Jinke hotel for the first night.

YowCH’s host, Ms Wan Jing then brought him to lunch at local food, at his insistence, rather than fancy food. Lunch was soya bean curd floated on water.

Then a short visit TYLin office, which is mostly empty due to the year-end.

Another engineer, Wan Qiang, then brought YowCH to tourist places. YowCH visited the 3 Gorges Museum 4 years ago, but only for 1 hour, so he had another go at it, this time about 2.5 hours.




After the museum, they visited Hong Ya Dong, a tourist shopping area in the city, and had Starbucks coffee. YowCH also bought some Zhang Fei beef jerky and Mala Soup to bring back home.

For dinner, YowCH met his ex-colleague, Xu Cheng and hat hot-pot with white-liquor at Yi An Hotel near Jinke hotel.

After dinner, YowCH returned to room to do some work and chatted with the family.

Day 2, Friday 29 Jan:
Breakfast at Jinke, then a short walk about the hotel area.


Then Xu Cheng picked YowCH and went over to Westin Hotel in the city centre.

The lobby is at level 51 and the rooms at levels 31-49, YowCH stayed in level 38.

Xu Cheng brought YowCH and the Malaysian guests (Mdm Chin, Lee KA and Ken Lim) to San San hot-pot near Westin.

Then we returned to the hotel and prepared for the dinner event, which started at 3:00pm with speeches, awards and performances. The theme is Classical Chinese, but most people were just dressed in Western suit. YowCH was escorted by Wan Jing.

Here’s the entrance and YowCH with the Malaysian guests.


Speeches by Ren Guolei and Yang Jin:

YowCH’s CNY greeting to the TYLin China office:

Performances:

Food:

The group photo:

After dinner, YowCH returned to room, chatted with family, then went out walking about Jie Fang Bei (Liberation Square). Here’s a view of the streets from the room at level 38 (night and day).

The Liberation Monument (Jie Fang Bei):

click on the photo below for a larger, all-round view of Jie Fang Bei:

A selfie.


The hotel has a heated swimming pool, sauna and steam room, but YowCH was too tired from the flights and events.

As usual, plenty of work before sleeping.

Day 3, Saturday 30 Jan:
Breakfast in hotel with Malaysian team, then picked up at 10:00 by Yu Jiao and Tang Xiao for a tour of Ciqikou.


Street food (didn’t try any):


Here we learn about drinking tea and watch the mask-changer show.

After Ciqikou, we met Yang Jin, Ren Guolei and Zhang Yu for lunch at Shou Zuo (The One) near TYLin office. Very classy stuff for lunch while we discussed office matters.

At 2:30, YowCH was driven to the airport. He bought two 500mL liquors, Lu Zhou Lao Jiao and Shui Jing Fang. which were not properly sealed by the Chinese duty-free shop. Hence, YowCH had to exit Transit area at Hong Kong, buy a bag and re-packed to check in the liquors.


With more than 5 hours, YowCH had a nice supper of century-egg porridge and lo mai kai at Hong Kong airport.

With no delays in the flight, YowCH reached home on Sunday at 7:00am.

This nicely packed fine-wool scarf is a gift to overseas visitors from TYLin China office.

Thank God that the ice-spell was over when YowCH arrived, and the trip was comfortable. Also thank God for meeting up with old friends and making new ones.

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