YowCH & Grace

T.Y.Lin International (China)’s headquarter is in Chongqing and this year the annual dinner was held on 17 Jan 2012 (Tuesday). Direct flight with Silkair flies everyday except Tuesday and Friday, so YowCH took Grace along for the Monday to Wednesday, and extended one day to Thursday.

Click on the maps to enlarge.
1. The areas we visited.

2. Detail of the city area.

We encountered slight drizzles, little sunlight (due to fog and haze, CQ has only 1000hours of sunlight a year!), with temperatures between 3° to 13°. In summer, the temperature can go up to 42°, a real hot-pot!

Day 1, 16 Jan 2012
We took the 7:40am flight from Changi Terminal 2 and landed at 12:15pm at Jiangbei International Terminal. Our CQ office drivers drove us to Jinke Grand Hotel and we had lunch in the hotel’s Cantonese Restaurant.

We then rushed off with the local tour guide arranged by CQ office to the Three Gorges Museum. The museum closes at 5:00pm and last entry is at 4:00pm. Due to the late lunch and the bad traffic, we arrive at 3:59pm and made it into the museum just before the guard closed the gate.

These are poor labourers pulling boats upstream.

Over the centuries, the ropes had cut deep grooves into the rocks by the riverside!

Poets of this region, including Li Bai (right most).




Opposite the museum is the People’s Assembly Hall.

The next place we visited was an old house which is preserved and being restored, and this house served as the clan association club-house.


The traditional carpentry used no steel nails, all locked by timber pegs and interlocks.







The tour guide here speaks very good English, and the painted leaves are local artform. The leaves had been boiled and only the veins remain, to be used as the canvas for painting.

We then had a local tour group dinner and returned to hotel. Then we set out to Guanyinqiao to do some shopping, taking a bus from the hotel.



However, the things in the shopping centres, especially clothes, are fantastically expensive, so we didn’t get anything. Getting back to the hotel was a terrible experience! There was no taxi queue and everyone just rushed in and fought for taxis. We walked about 1 km to the bus stop, and after a while, realised that the bus service had ended at 8:30pm. We couldn’t even ‘share’ a taxi (with other passengers). Finally, we settled for the 3-wheeler unlicensed taxi at double the normal taxi rate (paid RMB25, S$5).

Day 2, 17 Jan 2012
This is the official and business day. We woke and had breakfast with the team, meeting Dr Tang, Mr Tony P, the Malaysian team, and the Taiwan team.

After breakfast and before the meeting, we visited T.Y.Lin office (our own building!)


Then we strolled to a nearby park/botanic garden.


Most of the team met up with the Chongqing Railway Research Institute engineer, Mr Weng, who had spent 6 months in TYLin Singapore in 2008 to 2009. And we had a sumptious lunch after the meeting.

This is Jialing River (green water, the other river is Chang Jiang with murky brown water) and the Caiyuanba Bridge (TYLin design under Dr Tang).

We then returned to hotel, changed to dinner clothes and left for the annual dinner at Le Meridien. The roads were jammed and we arrived about a hour late.



YowCH represented Singapore office with “Life Story” by Dick Lee. Malaysian team presented Rasa Sayang and Taiwan did “Alisan Lady”.



This is YowCH with Dr Tang and Yang Jin (CQ president).


The door gift was very nice local cakes.

We then walked around town for a while before returning to the hotel by the chartered bus. YowCH got a long woollen jacket at reasonable price from a mid-priced boutique at Le Meridien. With the dragon year approaching, the city lights were all with dragon motives.


Another view of Caiyuanba Bridge, night lights.

Day 3, 18 Jan 2012
While the rest of the team returned to Singapore, YowCH, Grace, Ridwan and Yati went for a tour to Dazu Rock Carvings.

Here is a satelite view of the Baodingshan site.





This is a lion (China had no lions, hence they only worked from descriptions from those who had seen a real one in India or Africa).

This was not a cave, the whole piece of rock ahd been carved into a room with 12 Bodhisatvas and 3 Buddhas and 1 kneeling Bodhisatva.







Click on the photo below to see the large panorama, very detailed.

There are 5 major grottos, but only one is currently open to the public which is this Baodingshan Grotto. All are UNESCO protected historical art sites.

After touring the grottos, we had a simple lunch in a local restaurant, village style food including the waxed meat which was very soft and tasty (our two Moslem friends ate vegetarian dishes). There was also local noodles with the “mala” (numbing hot) sauce.

This is part of the system of tunnels totalling 4km which made the highway journey from CQ to Dazu grottos 2.5 hours. Before the tunnel, the drive was about 8 to 9 hours up and down the mountains! This same highway leads to Chengdu (about 5 to 6 hours drive from Chongqing).

And in Chongqing, the hillsides was well used as farming patches.

That night, we arranged for a private driver through the hotel (RMB350 for 4 hours) and the driver drove us to Jiefangbei shopping area. YowCH bought a woolen sweater and a woolen vest.

This is probably the biggest book shop in China, 7 stories and each floor the size of a small football field!



We had Pizza Hut for dinner.



Just before pick-up by the driver, we bought some cherries. We also bought gift snacks, mostly Zhangfei beef jerky.

Day 4, 19 Jan 2012
Our flight was at 12:45pm, and we needed to set off to the airport by 10:45am, so we did not go anywhere far. After breakfast, we roamed the streets near the hotel. This are is very new, it was farm lands just a short ten years ago.

Here we are, at the airport leaving Chongqing.


And this is in Changi airport, about 7.00pm. We bought a bottle of Moutai in Chongqing airport and found out later that Changi had no stock for about 6 months! Good that we had some RMB left over at the end of the trip and got the liquor in CQ.

These are all the goodies unpacked.

Experience:
1. Pay for the chartered drivers or buses. Local taxis are plenty, but there are many more local passengers, so you can’t really really flag taxis.
2. Bring extra bag to store souvenirs, but you can pay a little to the airport to box it up and tie with security straps.
3. Be prepared for long traffic jams (especially festive seasons) and long queues.
4. Local ‘mala’ food is fantastic.
5. Can’t really buy fashion clothes, very expensive.

We thank God for this trip, for:
1. Safety and good weather
2. Good time for business discussions and interaction with the TYLin CQ team
3. Meeting of old friends of YowCH (Zhang Yang and Fuyu, Weng Chengxian, and others in China)
4. Some time to tour around
5. Grace’s parents helping us look after the children.

Add Comment »