Chongqing

We did manage to get in a short trip to Chongqing to visit more family. I had told the girls that we would be visiting the "oven of china" but luckily while we were there, the weather was quite nice. Slightly windy and foggy. Reminded me of a warm version of San Francisco (because you know the summers in San Francisco are never warm)....beautiful city built next to two rivers, buildings built seemingly right into the hillside. Loved it. Extremely charming. This is a place that we're going to have to go back and explore at length with Jim.

Of course, this place really satisfied Norah's penchant for pirates. As many of you know, Norah loves to play pirates with her friends at school. This place was right up her alley.

Another interesting part of this trip was the train ride. Chaotic and crowded train station, but relatively clean train (will be interesting to see how it wears as time goes by). Apparently, just a few short years ago, the train trip would take a whole day. Now, it's a high speed rail and we made the trip to Chongqing in 2 hours. They are slated to upgrade the train and in a couple of years, the goal is to make the trip in just 1 hour. Amazing. But the return trip was another story. Power outage. 20 minutes away from our station. Stuck for a couple of hours until the power got restored. Major bummer. We could have walked to the station in less time.