The goal today was to visit the "Three Gorges Museum.", and it started with this amazing breakfast that I found in the shopping mall where my hotel was located.
These are glutinous rice balls filled with red beans or peanuts, delicious!
I read somewhere about a new viewing platform that's been constructed recently at one of the metro stops along the way to the museum, so I decided to check it out for a nice view of the city.
It took a lot of stairs, all the escalators were turned off, but it was a nice view indeed.
There are no tourists here, just some locals wandering about or doing their morning exercises.
From this viewpoint, I could see a pagoda in the distance and thought it would be fun to see what the views from there would be.
It turns out the pagoda is right above the metro station of the monorail that runs through a building. There's another station nearby that I took instead to avoid the crowds.
The pagoda is located in a park where lots of locals gather for lunch. All the eateries in the neighborhood were packed, so I opted to delay lunch for a bit and climb the pagoda first.
The views are really nice, and it was not too busy.
Content with the views, I headed down and decided to follow the road down the mountain.
This led me to a new and hip art area that I think is a converted factory. There were tons of people taking selfies of every little corner.
There was a food court, perfect for lunch! With some help from neighboring stall owners, I managed to get some delicious flat-rice noodles with vegetables.
With fresh energy, I made my way down the rest of the mountain, only to realize it was now past four o'clock.
This meant no Three Gorges Museum for me (fun fact: it would never work because it was a Monday, and the museum was closed). It did lead me past this parachute training tower.
(Chongqing was the capital of free China, during the Japanese occupation. They trained their armies here).
At the pagoda, I had seen another pagoda on the other side of the river. It was a bit remote, but it seemed like a nice theme of the day, so I headed to a nearby metro station and embarked on a long walk up another mountain. (That's the theme of Chongqing, walking up and down mountains).
I arrived at the park with the pagoda at dusk, and since it was free, I explored every floor.
Back outside, I noticed a large group of people loitering around. I had some packed sandwiches from a coffee place I stopped at on the way and decided this was a nice place to get some early dinner.
At some point, the lights were turned on, and the pagoda was lit up beautifully. I'm Glad I waited around!
After a long way back down the mountain to the nearest metro station, I remembered Chongqing is home to the deepest metro station in the world. It was only two stops away, so... why not?!
It took almost fifteen minutes to take the numerous escalators to the exit. Once at the top, the exit was in the literal middle of nowhere, next to a thoroughfare without anything around.
I didn't want to spend 15 minutes going back down again, so instead, I opted to walk for 40 minutes to another metro line.
(Don't ask me for the logic behind this; I mostly did it because taking the escalators back down and transferring to the correct line to my hotel would have taken about as long).
After about 30 minutes, I reached civilization again and found a restaurant still open at ten in the evening selling dumplings. Time for a second dinner!
After the dumplings, I took the direct metro back to the hotel for some rest.
