China 2019 (5/10) – On To China

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We took a trip to Taiwan and China in June 2019. Like most of our trips, I began writing about it shortly after. However, I got distracted somehow and never gotten around to finish it. Over a year later, picking this project back up is providing me with a nice boost of vacation memories while home-bound under COVID.

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With the homecoming part of the trip out of the way, we proceeded to a new adventure. My family and my parents booked separate flights, so we said goodbye for a day, and met up again on the other side of Taiwan Strait.

In the past 20 years, Hong and I had spent more time in China than in Taiwan. To us, China was always a familiar but yet strange country. Most aspects of language, people, and culture were just like home, but plenty of subtle differences kept us on our toes. During this trip, I would say the main takeaway was a realization of how massive China was. Sure, the stats were clear, but actually being surrounded by all those people and witnessing the logistical differences was something else.

Our next stop was Chengdu 成都, a disproportionately famous historic city (thanks to Romance of Three Kingdoms 三國演義) with almost no historic site to be seen. For tourists from around the world, Chengdu was perhaps best known for its Panda Base. In fact, I had been telling the kids that this whole trip was about seeing pandas.

Direct flights from Taipei were available but scarce, so we ended up with a long connection in Beijing, a very large but uninteresting airport. Priority Pass lounge came to the rescue… to us and a thousand other travelers. Food option were decent but finding a place to sit down was challenging.

China has the same amount of land mass as the United States, but four times the population. With its rise of middle class and increase in mobility, the amount of people moving about is simply incomparable anywhere else.

You know those airport taxi queues? From Singapore to Dubai to Salt Lake City, you expect to get into a single file, and hop into one car at a time. When we landed in Chengdu, “merely” China’s sixth largest city, we got into a taxi queue behind at least 150 travelers. Before we had enough time to worry about the wait, we realized that 15-20 people were let through at a time, and simultaneously getting into a dozen cars across 3 lanes. As soon as the passengers were seated and the lane was clear, the taxi would take off. Outside our clueless family slowing this process down, this hop-on-and-take-off motion was flawless. In the time SFO could send 5 travelers on their way, we were headed toward our hotel behind over 100 taxis.

A few days later, we took a high-speed train to Chongqing 重慶. I had previously praised the speedy and efficient transportation system in China, but it took dragging children through these train stations to fully appreciate the incredible scale they serviced. Neither Chengdu nor Chongqing make it into China’s top five cities, but they have a combined population that exceed New York State plus the entire New England! Imagine cramming residents from seven states into just NYC and Boston. Acela Express would not be able to accommodate the demand without a major upgrade.

We landed in Chengdu a day before our 7-night Marriot travel package began, so we stayed at a Hilton near the airport. It was a business/conference hotel surrounded by office buildings, so we got a glimpse of the “real” city away from the tourist attractions.

12 hours later, we arrived at the most anticipated hotel of the trip – J.W. Marriott Chengdu. With the 7-night certificates that we opportunistically converted a bunch of points for, we could choose from any of the top Marriott hotels in this city – the old world luxury of Riz-Carlton, the St. Regis famous for having butlers, or the snazzy W… but we preferred the J.W. Marriott, because of the griffin.

The cool thing about visiting a developing country repeatedly is that you can really see it develop. Since our first trip 15 years ago, the country’s GDP per capita had grown 500%. It was visible in the increased signs of wealth, the improvements in infrastructure and public amenities, and even the betterment of hygiene and etiquette (e.g. less smoking in public). It was not where we’re used to in the West, yet, but it was catching up fast.

China 2019 index:

1. Taking Kids Home
2. Taipei
3. Framily
4. Yummy Taipei
5. On To China
6. Pandas & More
7. Chengdu
8. Chongqing
9. Food in China
10. Hanfu