Transcript
Speaker: a Hello Pandalorians and welcome to the best of Season 6.
Speaker: In this episode, join us for part two of our five -year anniversary special, where my partner, Miss Tsunami, and I discuss our travels in China. This time we talk about the latter half of our trip in Beijing and Chongqing. But, as always, did the trip live up to the hype? Without any further ado, let's find out. Welcome back to part two of our episode of Chatsunami in China. This time in our journey, we explored the beauty of Beijing and climbed Chongqing. If you want to hear more about the first part of our adventure, please check out our website chatsunami .com, as well as all good podcast apps. Without any further ado, let's dive in.
Speaker: o What a lovely day. Hmm? Yo Martin! I am so hyped to get started on this episode. Can you believe it's the 5 year anniversary already? hey what are you that What do you mean? I'm right here where you said. if you know if You can't leave where I said to meet because I'm where I said we'd meet. Chinatown, Glasgow.
Speaker: That's right. China! That's what we agreed on! You weren't paying attention to the meetings were you? I, uh... I'm gonna have to call you back.
Speaker: I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about taking my first domestic Chinese flight in Hangzhou, but after a rather precarious taxi trip that really woke me up, We soon found ourselves in Hangzhou International air Airport, sitting across from a group of influencers also waiting to board. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to slip them my Chatsunami business card, but that's another story. Once again, we found ourselves in a flight, this time flying on Heiran Airlines which not only gave us breakfast, but the staff were also dressed very thematically, with the air hostesses in intricate Cheongsams. Seriously, look it up if you're curious. But after a few hours trying not to drift off, we eventually found ourselves at last in the capital of China. Beijing. From the Great Wall to even more great sights, this was by far one of the most memorable parts of the holiday. Take it away, past me!
Speaker: Let's talk about Beijing, which is honestly a city that I genuinely didn't expect. See, before I go into my thoughts about it, because I know I was saying this to you before we started recording. What did you think about Beijing? I mean, I've been to Beijing before, but that possibly happened 10, 12 years ago. I didn't remember it a lot, to be honest. And it's all blur memories about this city. I kind of knew to the place. So to be honest, I didn't feel much about this place when I arrived. It's just... another place i mean Where we were staying, and obviously I'm not going to point out where exactly we were staying, but we stayed in more of the old town, which you were saying, of course, the government has decided to preserve. It's kind of the equivalent to British closes, isn't it? Rather than preserving it, I think possibly it's too expensive to change it. So they have to keep it. But it is a very old part of Beijing. So I would say the building complex is the equivalence of the clothes in Scotland. It's a very traditional type of building complex. People used to stay and they are still staying. So I think it's maybe good for you to see because you couldn't just see all the glamorous parts of a city. You have to see a very normal part. how normal people stay in such a huge city. It's a capital, I mean. But yeah, when you think of capital cities, and this is something I said to you at the time, that I was really surprised when when we got off the metro and immediately you're hit with the older buildings. As you said, the older kind of close buildings. And where we stayed, again, the hotel initially when we went in, we were a bit unsure. I think that's probably because we were riding off the high of getting upgrades. in Shanghai and then we went to this hotel which had the shower in the same room although it was partitioned of course but for legal reasons it did have a curtain that you could pull down and everything for privacy but initially we walked in and we were like oh this is definitely different than what we're used to but it's a city that definitely for me anyway I definitely warmed to it yeah it definitely grew on you more and more and it's also grown on me more and more because even with the staff at that hotel they were absolutely lovely they couldn't have been more friendly to us especially the couple of days when we were walking constantly and you could ask for a bucket to soak your feet and everything and oh it did help oh absolutely 100 % because as soon as we found the hotel we dumped our bags and we were right out we visited the llama temple which was fantastic and at the location i have to mention that it's a location location location oh yeah it It's wonderful. So we were close to a lot of attractions. We were close to a metro station in Beijing. That's a very important thing because we found we were relying on it so much. We basically used it to everywhere. We even found a metro that is very similar to the Glasgow metro. Yeah, it's a loop. Yeah, it's just a big loop. I was like, oh my God, I feel like I'm home again. I know, but it's just so convenient. Yeah. So back to the Lama. temple it was my first time being there to see whole temple and i just felt all very impressive how about you yeah no it was definitely impressive and it felt as if it was a mix of so people who were just going there like myself of course just to see the temple just to see the historical and religious significance of it and the devout people who were going there to pray and everything because they gave away free incense sticks which You definitely knew there were incense sticks there because there was a massive cloud of smoke going through the temple and everything, people praying and whatnot. So, I mean, it was fascinating to see. you And it was also cool to see the monks on their phones on weekdays. chat talking to one another it was it was absolutely fantastic to see but along from that you've got some very famous streets that loads of people were taking their picture against red walls which I was a bit confused because we were walking down the street and there was this young woman there with I don't know if it was a friend or photographer she had someone holding up you know one of those tin foil kind of disc things for the right lighting and that's what I was asking you I was like what the heck is that about and you We're saying that the red walls in Beijing are very famous to get your picture taken against. Rather than saying it's famous, I would say it's just very unique. You possibly wouldn't find a second place for that type of thing. Like just the green roof tiles and really red walls. It looks great on your photos. So I suppose that's why it's so popular. So many young people just taking their photos there. And much like Shanghai. Beijing had a lot of people dressed up in the traditional clothes they were getting their photos taken as well both at maybe not the Lama Temple I don't think I saw many there but beside it we visited the Confucius Imperial College which again you go in it's got a very similar colour scheme you know and buildings that when you went in again it was one of the more historical sites because you see a lot of the temples inside and And especially there was a lot of stone tablets there that had all the old writings carved into them. And it was so impressive seeing it up close. And there were hundreds ah of them, weren't there? I mean, and that would be the perfect places to do your photos wearing the ancient clothes. I mean, you feel like you're a fly back to those old times and you're just one of them, if you know what I mean, in old times. Yeah, like you're stepping into history. Exactly. and if we go back again I possibly would hire a costume for you and me maybe we can you can try the emperor costume or something like that I think I'm going to get photographed for all the wrong reasons people
Speaker: Yes. That would be fun to see. i mean oh I mean, that is true, but I'm just thinking of local man from west of Scotland.
Speaker: and caught dressing as emperor in China i can't see how that would go wrong but yeah we ended up seeing that And afterwards, we kind of had a bit of a wander, to be honest. We saw a lot more of the old part. We got to try my new favourite food, which was a kind of meat bun. Honestly, if you see this meat bun in Beijing, get it, eat it. Obviously, if you're a vegetarian or vegan, ignore this advice. But if not, it is one of the most delicious things you will have in your life. It is amazing. I don't know what the official term is. The food is amazing there, which we'll get on to. But yeah, after that, we walked around. We saw the drum tower. we walked by there there was a london bakery there at one point which i thought was quite funny but still it looked really good but we then ended up going through the touristy bit chiang hai park
Speaker: wasn't so It has another name, possibly you would be more familiar with. It's also called Shi Cha Hai. And I suppose because it's so easy to find. So there are a lot of, you know, the tourist groups. They meet over there or they end up there. And it's just that we were passing a lot of groups over there. Yeah, there was a lot of tourists, buses, as you said. It's a beautiful area lit up at night, I have to say. But very busy, definitely. that when we were coming back it was very busy there but of course we walked through there and eventually we came across a place called Jing Shan Park which was a place that has a bittersweet memory for me because on the one hand beautiful park it's very cheap to get into it's only a couple of yuan you go in and it's gorgeous because it is it's just a massive park you could spend the day just wandering about and everything you can go up these stairs and you can see a whole
Speaker: view of of the Forbidden City, and the rest of the city is gorgeous. Unfortunately for me, as we were walking up that ramp, I decided to fall uphill, to which many people who I told about this asked me, Satsu, how did you fall uphill? To that I say, I'm sorry, I don't know, but yeah, I fell, I got back up again in the words of Robbie Williams, and we ended up going uphill and seeing the Forbidden City in the kind of mist, because when we got there it was quite misty. wasn't it unfortunately yeah we didn't get much luck on that day as you said you fail i mean briefly you nearly fail and we just didn't get the best view of the forbidden city on that day but the smoggy weather did give the forbidden city a little mystery look but yeah fortunately we got to go back to that particular park later on and it was a lot nicer weather there so we got some fantastic shots of the Forbidden City but then that night of course we went through that tourist area again where not only was it mobbed with tourists but it was also mobbed with people singing but then of course we ended up going for some very nice hot pot and had a nice slice of bagua which of course translates to gossip where a couple of patrons weren't very happy so they were kind of having a time with the owner so yeah we got dinner and a show that night didn't we yeah absolutely but we didn't get the end of the whole story so we didn't know how it ended shame on that no it wasn't great
Speaker: and I mean, we saw them arguing outside and everything, but unfortunately, we didn't get the end of the story. But that, of course, leads us into the second day where we decided to explore the Summer Palace. We had another boat ride that day, which, again, the Summer Palace is one of those places that you could honestly just spend the whole day. No, I would say more than one day. But we always spend, really, a couple of hours there. Yeah, so I look for the tips for that palace because... I knew we couldn't cover the whole thing so I just followed the guidance online that we covered the main parts of the park and I would say it was very impressive because unfortunately again we didn't get great weather so from our photos it all looks a little bit gray on the background so I just hope if we have a chance to go back there again I would definitely spend a lot more time just to to explore more of the summer palace because i think we got about halfway around it and then we had to get the boat back and there is another side that we didn't cover last time so it was a shame but we always have to leave something for next time i suppose no i mean that is true though because there's a a lot of places that we unfortunately missed out on or rather we saw part of but we didn't see the whole thing but i mean it was still cool to see it and to tick it off before we went to the forbidden City the next day. It was kind of like part one, part two. It was our Lord of the Rings is what I'm saying. After that, we walked around the city. We ended up at a place that I think I described to you at the time as what Dundee would look like if it was a financial hub. I think it was because of the weather, there because it was tall grey buildings, it looked very grey, and it looked better when it was lit up at night, granted, but yeah, we kind of just walked around, had some dinner, and that was also the day that we found the Mall of China, which is an absolutely behemoth of a shopping centre. The reason we were there wasn't for the shopping, of course, but it was because you had said that there was a building that looked like a pair of trousers, that, of course, being the CCTV. building, Chinese television building, and it's literally called the Big Pants building. Is that right? Yes, because from distance, the shape looks like a huge pair of trousers. If you go to the top of the ball of China, you can actually get a good view of it. And yeah, it's a pair of trousers, not gonna lie. But we ended up having some nice dessert at a Macau themed restaurant, which absolutely lovely. Pictures, of course, but we had to go back and get some sleep. because we were going to the Forbidden City the next day which I have to say this was one of our busier days because we got up really early to do a guided tour and it was interesting. Well I say it's interesting but the whole tour of course was in Mandarin which I was picking up bits and pieces. I'm so sorry my darling because the English tour is too expensive. Actually, that is something I just want to point out, by the way. See these, and again, I'm not calling them out per se, but see these get your guides and things like that, booking .coms, they were extortionate for some of these tours, whereas the tours first that you were booking from your end were, I mean, in comparison, it was just definitely a lot cheaper, which absolutely shocked me because I thought, it's probably a couple of pounds, a couple of yuan more, but no, it was actually... ridiculous the difference. Going around the Forbidden City, we got to see where the Emperor lived, where his family lived, where all the eunuchs scuttled about when they wasn't happy, where the Emperor's mother lived, which turns out one of the Emperors really loved his mum. That was interesting to see. You know, you get to see all the historical artefacts. The pictures genuinely do not do it justice. This place is massive. And this is another place you could spend the whole day just wandering about until it closed. But it was quite... Quite a good time we got in because we got in maybe about half eight, I think is when our particular tour started. And then it was about two, three hours later when we finished. Because the tour are finished the inside of the Forbidden City, so you can still wander about in that place to explore more. So we did that and it's just like a huge mess. I kind of feel I can easily get lost inside, although they have different chambers. have different names on it but they just look so similar and the way the path goes to different places all look similar you know the high red walls you couldn't see i feel like the whole place is like a huge maze and you can easily get lost in it it doesn't really help when you've got all the tour groups and things that start flooding in later on because it went from relatively empty to oh my god the Forbidden City has been populated again you know the ghosts of the past but yeah it was absolutely mobbed by the time we left And it was definitely worth seeing. And I know you don't need us saying that considering it's like one of the top attractions of Beijing, but definitely you could get lost for the whole day in that city. After that, we decided to do a hop, skip and a jump to the China National Museum. Which I have to say, it was impressive, right? It was absolutely impressive to see. And you know me, I am a absolute history nerd. Loved seeing all the different exhibits. They had one for ancient China. They had some of the terracotta warriors there as well, which I thought, my God, they're everywhere.
Speaker: We saw a lot of the artefacts from ancient China, which was really, really darn cool. All the sculptures. And that was only a tiny part of the museum. You know, we spent ages down in the basement for ancient China. But when you go upstairs, there's a lot more contemporary things, such as the exhibit for China during the Second World War against Japan. That was a big exhibit. There was China's technological advancements. there was a jade exhibition, there was a Russian artist exhibit, which unfortunately we ran out of time because they were chucking people out by the time we got there. There was just so much to see. But the one thing I have to say that did feel slightly chaotic, and it was something that I genuinely didn't know was a thing in a lot of these types of museums, was a lot of people were taking pictures of the exhibits, which, you know, is all fine and good. People want to take a picture or something and say, oh, this is what we saw, we saw this, we saw that. But there was one day, actually, had to keep people behind a red line and they only let a few people cross the line and they were, correct me if I'm wrong, but they were swarming this glass case. And that's what I was asking you. I said, well, let's go on there. And it turned out it was the, was it the crown for? The Queen's crown. Yeah, the Queen's crown. Honestly, I have never seen that in a museum before. Like people actively wanting to take photos. I think it's because the crown is out there on. for a short amount of time, so you possibly won't see it there all the time. And when people have a chance to maybe take a photo of it, people will just grab the chance, to be honest. We do like to show the photos of our trips on the social media, so people want to maybe show off what they've been seeing during their trips. So this Queen's Crown, I think it's relatively rare to see. Again, I keep saying this, they're older, so... much to see in this exhibit but there was hundreds to see again you could just spend the day there as going to be the tagline for bijak absolutely all you need just a pair of comfortable shoes much yeah yeah one of the things that we got really lucky with when we came out of the museum of course during closing time was that the museum is right across from the entrance of Tiananmen Square which we tried at least seeing it lit up but around that area there is a heavy police presence and everything so you can't really get anywhere near even the entrance of it taking a picture is really difficult and whatnot but we got really lucky because when you come out of the museum, we were able to go across into the square beside it. And behind us was... People's Monument for those who sacrificed their lives during the war. A bit like a cenotaph. Then behind the monument is Mao Zedong's Memorial Hall. Right along from that, of course, we were waiting for the... Light up. Yeah, the entrance of Tiananmen Square to light up, which, again, is still quite a bit of distance. but there was quite a few people gathering, of course, waiting for it. And before they turn it on, they have to lower the flags. There's six mini flags above the entrance, but there's one big flag, which I didn't realise this, you can actually pay to be in the square. In the morning? Yeah, but it's like five or six in the morning. It depends on the sunrise time. Yeah, I admire the dedication. But of course, we caught the tail end of that, where they were taking it down and everything, and the soldiers were marching. away. And yeah, it was quite cool to see it light up and everything over there. And once it was over, we basically followed the crowd home, didn't we? And we went through another famous street that was lit up. It's called Nanluoguxiang. You possibly would hear about it if you are in their area. It's just basically a busy, full of small shops and restaurants, street food, street popular with young people and all the tourists from everywhere. And you wouldn't possibly miss it. And it was a fun fact the first time that I learned that the Yunnan province is famous for its potatoes. Yes, that's true. That's true. It's an area suitable for growing potatoes. And I think people's diets are heavily based on potatoes. Which I was really surprised at. So if you're having Chinese food and anyone criticises you for having chips, you just tell them that you've listened to the chats. podcast and the yuan province actually likes potatoes so
Speaker: We would try that. They have different ways to cook potatoes. If you're a huge potato fan, you would love that. Oh, absolutely. And they were are nice though. They are. But that, of course, set us up very nicely for the next day. And really our final day, because our proper final day was us preparing to go to Chongqing. But of course, we went back to that park to see the Forbidden City. That was all we did before we left. Yeah. because we went there and then we went to a park called Beihai which was the park with the famous white tower yeah that was really it before we had our last meat bun and we cried as we waved the very confused shop owner away and yeah then we went to Chongqing but before that our last proper, proper day was us tackling quite possibly one of the most famous sights. Although, and again, I don't think many of you probably have heard of the Great Wall of China, you know, quite a hidden gem as it were. Now, jokes aside, yeah, the last day we ended up going to the Great Wall by metro, which was very interesting. I have to correct you there. We took a metro over to the train station. We took train over there. Ah, okay, okay, yeah. See, to be fair, the train was... fine because when you book the train you have to book a seat don't you i mean you can technically stand but yeah you usually have to book a seat and everything so that bit was fine but the actual metro trip was so so busy everyone was crammed in they were clearly going to see the great wall of china because let's face it if you're going that far out unless you live in that area chances are you are going to be seeing the wall and we went to the north side of the wall i have never seen a metro or train stations so busy in my life because it was so busy that they actually had to put up a barrier to let so many people through to the escalator then they let so many people through again and it was just a sea of people which was really weird because when we got the actual wall it was relatively okay you know it was quite I mean it's a long wall and well true yeah people can space out by as you say
Speaker: And one thing I was really surprised at, and I don't know if this applies to the south side of the wall, but for the north, there's a kind of mini street. You can get coffee. You can get, weirdly enough, KFC and Subway, which really threw me off. You can get a miniature Chinese flag if you're feeling particularly patriotic that day. You can get all these small knickknacks and refreshments. You can go to the loon, whatever. That was really surprising because I don't know what I expected when I went to the Great Wall. I don't know if I was expecting it to be you know in the middle of nowhere there was just maybe one toilet there and it's like okay now you have to climb the wall I didn't expect this area to be so built up at the bottom but I mean it's a very developed commercialised attraction attraction Well, that is true. I mean, yeah, there's hundreds of eating places and things. And yeah, by the time we actually got there, it was a breathtaking experience that I got to share with you. And what was even cooler, which is something that I didn't mention, was we did all of this on Halloween. and So how many people can say on Halloween, other than the people there, of course, but how many people can say, oh, what did you do for Halloween? Oh, I went up the Great Wall of China. What about you? And they'd be like, wait, what? But yeah, it was really cool to spend it. with you. It wasn't overly cold but it also wasn't overly warm. It was just perfect because you had that breeze coming in. And finally the smoggy weather disappeared. So everything just perfect. It was a very clear day. ah The one thing I have to say was very strange about the wall and I'm not knocking the previous architects of the Great Wall was that half of it had stairs but then the other half of it it was like a slope which some areas were all right they were very manageable but other sections i nearly fell down at one point and we were grabbing one another being like okay maybe let's not explore this part of the wall because i mean we did really well we got to the highest point of the wall at least of that section again there were bits that were busier than others but i'm just glad that we walked it and we didn't do the cable car but it's another option to get onto the great wall if you are not so confident to start from the very bottom to the highest point. I mean, it's very convenient to for different groups of people. Some may have mobility issues and they also want to get onto the great wall. The cable car definitely is a very good option for them to do so. I would definitely suggest you to choose a dry day at least. I know the weather is unpredictable. It can change and at any time. But I just feel it may be not so safe to climb the Great Wall on a very rainy day because although they have stairs, but the stairs, to be honest, they are not even. And some are tall, some are really low. So you really have to mind your steps. And the slopes, they are manageable. But because it was on a dry day, I do not know what's going to happen if it's a really wet day. even in the ice and snow if you're doing this in the winter, why? Why would you do it? because even I was trying to keep my foot in. Like at the beginning, it was so absolutely fine. And what's really cool is that when you're coming back down the wall, you don't have to come back the way you came. You have the option to go down. It's like a path that they've built beside the wall. So you can go down this set of stairs and you can walk down this very serene, very quiet path down, which is absolutely fantastic. You don't have to worry. But my God, some of the slopes on the wall itself, it was like, okay, give me a balance. And what was quite interesting as well was, although it does warn you, be careful because there's not as many toilets on the wall and everything, is that there's a burger place in the middle of the wall. Well, I say burger place, it's like burger and ice cream. You know, it's like an eating place beside or nearby where the cable carpet is. I mean, such a great place to do business. You know, I feel kind of, again, not sorry for them because they must be making a hell of a lot of money, but the people, who well then again they must get the cable car up but that's what I was saying to you when I saw all of the not police officers but the security and everything standing there and other people because I was walking thinking oh there's so many security people and I thought well obviously not because it must take them ages to walk up the wall and then two seconds later I saw one and I was like honestly his legs must burst be built like terracotta warriors because my god walking up that every day they must be used to it. And it... Once you get used to it, I suppose it may take them half an hour yeah from bottom to the highest point. It was honestly one of the most memorable, if not the memorable part of the holiday, wasn't it? Just seeing the Great Wall. And the thing is, I don't know if you feel about this with your experience growing up, but here, especially in the yeah UK, we're told in school that the Great Wall is one of these wonders of the world and everything. We see it in textbooks, we see it in cartoons. and films and things it's this very mystical place although obviously it's quite touristy but you see it very much built up and legend and everything things so to actually see it was just really cool to be honest do you feel the same way yeah absolutely i'm just wondering did it live up to your expectation i think it was definitely different but in a good way this isn't a different where you know we were trying some foods and things and you say is that good and i go yeah it's different but this was really again it wasn't what i expected initially but i don't mean that in a bad way it was at least very easy to walk up for the most part it was so scenic you saw the hills rolling for miles and everything it was so picturesque the wall just kept going on for miles the catchphrase of this section you could spend the day there but you genuinely could if you wanted to just take it easy slow down walk at your own pace and everything it was absolutely majestic. So I would say, yeah, absolutely. And I think that really summarises my thoughts about Beijing, that I wasn't really sure what to think of it. I kept saying this to you while we were there. I kept saying, I don't know what to think about Beijing. I don't know whether to think it is just like any other city, because it's not like any other city. It is completely different compared to the other cities. But at the same time, it it was just absolutely steeped in this history. I mean, you had the museum, as we say. We had the Forbidden City tour. We had the Summer Palace that we explored. There was Junchan Park, which of course has its own history as well. Of course, we went to Tiantan Park. which had the, is it right in saying like a temple place? It's the places that the emperors and his families pray and worship the gods, their ancestors. So yeah, it's a really important place for the royal family, I believe. I hadn't heard of this until you'd brought it up and I think you were looking for places and we decided to go. But I think we got very lucky because it's a tower that, as you said, I mean, everybody was there. waiting for it but at night time they put on the floodlights to illuminate the tower but we got very lucky didn't we because you were telling me that that night was the last night that they were going to light it up for a while the place is lit up every friday and saturday night there was a rumor saying that in november they are not going to let public go inside closely to see the building i'm not sure if it's true or not so the building is still gonna let up every friday and saturday night but people just couldn't get closer to see it that's it so we got incredibly lucky to stay there until sunset we got to watch the sunset together it was all very romantic wasn't it that's really nice and seeing people just taking photos and i'm glad that we made all the memories with those people we we wouldn't see them again. Yeah. But it was very good atmosphere and just ah waiting for that moment, the lights up, that was great. And of course, we couldn't leave Beijing without a very important foodie memory. We decided that we weren't going to leave without trying Peking duck, of course. Initially, we found this franchise restaurant, I think you told me, and I don't know what it was about it. I think maybe because of the... tourists that were coming in and you started reading the reviews I started reading reviews and it just was kind of lacklustre it wasn't saying that the food in there was terrible but it definitely wasn't anything to write home about other than to say yeah it's not that great so the restaurant has a long history and it is a well known to people not from Beijing or locals from Beijing it is famous but unfortunately Unfortunately, the branch we chose on that day doesn't have good reputation, if you know what I mean. So the restaurant is a good restaurant, so just that that branch happens to be not so good one. It was your first experience of picking duck. So I want you to have a nice memory about it. So I think that's why we decided maybe we give it a miss on that branch and we try another. the restaurant for some nice experience i suppose so that ended up leading us back towards a hotel wasn't it it was quite nice in a way because although we didn't go to that place and we're worried that the other place was going to close we decided that we were going to walk back to our hotel and well i think technically we got the metro but then you know we walked back and everything and we found this place that we had walked by a couple of times i think but because there is a I think it's like a big duck outside, wasn't it? Like you could sit beside. Yeah, there's a bench outside and they put a stuffed toy duck out there and they were jokingly saying this duck has name and this duck happened to be the manager of that restaurant. yeah so So it's been punished because the duck didn't do his or her job properly. So that's why he was putting or she was putting outside to be a mascot so that's just a little bit funny story it was weird because again as i said this was halloween this is probably one of the i mean i mean in the best way possible but it's one of the weirdest halloweens i think i've ever experienced where we walked the ball we walked around beijing and then we ended up in this restaurant we're about to have peking duck when we got inside because it was halloween they decided that they were playing harry potter or at least part of the harry potter soundtrack but it was the same song you know the do do do do do do do but it was like constantly on repeat so as soon as i ended they just played it again and they played it again and this went on for a good two three hours i think before okay maybe not three hours but a good two hours before they changed it to something else and we had some different dishes and they said that if we wanted the duck it would have to be 45 minutes or so to which we said yeah That's absolutely fine. But then, unfortunately, one of the ducks decided that it didn't want to be part of dinner. And by the duck, I mean it was already cooked and everything, but the meat fell through into the fire. Yeah, so we had to wait for another duck to be available, which was absolutely fine. But once it came out, and I want to preface this as quite possibly one of the strangest things of trip, and again, in all the quirky ways, but when it came out, I had seen another couple get something. similar and they had a briefcase on their table and it looked like a kind of Louis Vuitton briefcase and I genuinely thought initially oh wow there must be business people but then they left and they left their briefcase behind so I was like that's really weird I wonder why they left their briefcase and then two seconds later when we were getting our duck the waitress came over and put a briefcase on her table and then started opening it and I thought okay what's this all about and then she opened it and we're inside and shout out to Anne Drew, my fellow friend and co -host, who pointed out that it and looked like a funeral for this duck because she opened it up and there was this painting inside of the briefcase with these plastic flowers around the case. And, you know, it was just this plate with half of the duck in there. Don't get me wrong, the duck was absolutely delicious, wasn't it? Mm, it's nice. It was nice. So good. It was so tasty. But what were your thoughts on the presentation? I didn't see that before because different... restaurants have different presentations for their Peking duck but I have to say this one was blowing my mind as I say that I've never seen that presentation before and I think it's quite unique. Unique's one word for it. I know, I know. Honestly when the briefcase came out to borrow your words there blew my mind. I was like yeah this is not something I expected and that's what I was saying to you that it was one hell of a way to actually spend Halloween in Beijing especially because the fact we're in Beijing to begin with on Halloween that was incredible but the fact we went to the Great Wall we managed to see the tower light up in Tiantan and then of course we rounded it all off with Peking Duck in a briefcase I don't think there's many people who could say that they had that exact same experience that day but honestly to summarise the trip though in Beijing I would definitely say that it was amazing seeing and how historical it was to get to see the history, to get to see the culture and everything. What about yourself though? What are your final thoughts on this part of the trip? There's so much to see. There's so much to do. Every day was so different. And unlike other cities, you may find a little bit boring at the end of the trip. But I feel I will never feel bored about Beijing because you always can. find somewhere to go find something to see if like yourself if you are a big history fan you would absolutely love the city I just hope we can go back at some point in the future and explore more about this gorgeous city no I totally agree with that Beijing is definitely the city that leaves you wanting to see more of it as we said you know we didn't get into Tiananmen Square which is probably a place we'll try to visit next time we've got the rest of the summer palace to see we've got the other side of the wall to walk i suppose the easier parts i've been told i doubt that but we'll see but yeah there's honestly so much to see it's steeped in history it's got some Great, great food. I know we've been going on about buns, but the duck as well. All of the treats, honestly, just go see it for yourself. It's fantastic. But of course, unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to Beijing on that rather sunny morning on the 1st of November. Hopped on a flight from Air China and we ended up in Chongqing, which is the next part of our adventure.
Speaker: Once we finished our holiday in Beijing on that final sunny day, we prepared to fly over to the highly anticipated Chongqing. While I feared that this experience and peeked back in the other places we had visited, I was really more hopeful about this one. After all, this was the illustrious Cyberpunk city that many on social media had been praising. But did it live up to the hype? Well... Let's find out.
Speaker: As I was saying there, our last trip took us to the wonderfully unique, let's just say, city of Chongqing, which, yeah, it was an experience, wasn't it? Yes, I've been seeing a lot of advertisement kind of videos about this city. It all looks gorgeous. And and I believe the spicy food, that I'm a huge fan of spicy food. So that's always the place I want to go to try their spicy hot pot. Which we did, of course. Which we did. But I thought I'm pretty good at handling spicy food. I really think it's really, really spicy over there. So they have you different levels. or definitions of spicy. I mean, this is literally the city that has a giant hot spicy pepper statue in the middle of it. yeah They do not hide their pride for their spicy food, their food in general, their hot pots and such. I completely agree with you there, just touching on something you mentioned there, that there are a lot of people online who seem to be absolutely praising Chongqing out the back side. because they're saying, oh my god, it's the Night City. It's the Cyberpunk City. It's so cool. And don't get me wrong, it is cool on the first day and we will get into why, you know, we think that. But unfortunately, our first impression of Chongqing wasn't a great one, to be honest. I mean, it was cool when we got in. We wanted to try and see the famous drone show. And unfortunately, because of the flights and everything and the timing, we missed it. I was really annoyed about that. More about myself, because I tried to figure out what is the best flight, what is the best time we can fly over from Beijing to Chongqing. But it turned out ah the flight we took it might be the best one we can choose for that day. I thought we possibly could make it, but unfortunately, we just missed it. Yeah, and we went with Air China. And Air China wasn't too bad, I have to say. It was very good. you know a very good airline but there was one guy and I keep bringing him up whenever we talk about going to Chongqing he was sitting right across from where I was and he was one of these people you've probably met a million of them wherever you're staying dear listener where he was on the phone really loud and he was saying how according to your translation of course he was going to meet the governor of Chongqing or something oh big figures yeah he had his laptop out he wouldn't put his stuff away even when The air hostess asked him to. He was treating them like... waitresses. He was a really horrid person, but it was so funny because as soon as the plane landed, and you know what to do when a plane lands. You wait for the seatbelt sign to go off, you unbuckle yourself and then, you know, in an orderly fashion you get your hurt bags and everything and you go to the front of the plane. This guy I think was embodying Sonic the Hedgehog. He literally, as soon as that plane hit the tarmac, he grabbed his bag, didn't he? And he did the 100 metre sprint to the front of the plane and i was like who is this guy i know it's all very confusing i mean this guy and he acted like he has the most important job in the world he has to tackle with but i mean really it was kind of a bizarre introduction but you thought you know what it's just the plane you can't decide who you're flying with considering we flew with an influence as well when we went to beijha initially the makeup artist of course, before anybody asked. No, I didn't ask him for a chat tsunami collaboration. I don't think he would have came on. But I did find his social media. You did, actually. You were really good at that. It was actually scary how fast you found him. You were just like, here you go. I was like, oh my God. Yeah, I basically they just ah searched for a makeup artist with a tattoo all over.
Speaker: Here we go. Miss Tsunami's the head of research at Chat Tsunami, by the way. It's the quickest way, trust me. No, so we landed in Chongqing. We got our bags. We wanted to try and make it for the drone show. And we got one of the taxi services from the airport. Now, for anyone going to Chongqing, do not get this. Do not use that service because I think that service charged me double the price. And the thing is, I can understand if it's a service from the airport to the city. You know, usually... they're overpriced. But what I didn't like in particular was the attitude of the driver. Now you might be thinking, oh, how bad was he? And it was fairly, you know, all right, yeah. Yeah, he was very pleasant to talk to at the beginning. At the very beginning, yes. Then I just tried to make the conversation flow. I asked all the questions about Chongqing. I asked if we can make it to the drone show. And he told us, yes, of course. you can make it because according to him the drone show usually starts at 9 p .m so i remember we were taking the taxi around maybe just 20 past 8 so we thought oh enough time to make it yeah we had plenty of time as he was driving yes so the driver offered to take us to the place which seems to be the best place to see the drone show i thought oh how lovely the guy is when we were approaching the place we actually saw a lot of people walking. Walking away, yeah. Walking away, exactly. Then I asked him what's going on here, why people walked away. He said, oh, maybe they just tried to find the best spot to watch the show. And he urgently asked us to get off the car. Yeah, so we jumped out the car, even though technically I don't think we were supposed to. But we jumped out the car, we got our bags, we thanked him. I thought, what a lovely person from Chongqing, you know. What an ambassador to this lovely cyberpunk city. What a fantastic guy. And then we went out and we realised that the drone show had ended probably just... Five minutes ago. Yeah, five minutes ago just as we arrived. So not only had we got an overpriced taxi, but the guy had blatantly lied to us. And I didn't let him know. Chats and I'm exclusive. I tried to be polite, so I double checked the price I should pay him. So I asked, oh... how much I should pay you but actually I knew the price he actually added more to the price I've been told that's the thing that really annoyed me and not so much missing the drone show because at the same time Chongqing is filled with many many lights you do not need a drone show to see the city lit up and everything and it would have been cool to see but at the end of the day if you miss it you miss it it's something to come back to and see another time but that's what really irritated me and I was really annoyed when we were walking to the hotel because we're walking down the riverside looking at all these lovely things and you know initially we thought okay maybe give him the benefit of the doubt maybe he didn't know and then you're like well he's a taxi driver in Chongqing surely he would know that so not only did he lie to our faces but as you said he charged you extra I just didn't like that attitude I thought that was really underhanded and sneaky again it was like a really poor introduction to Chongqing because we'd Got there when everything was kind of winding down, all the lights were off. There were still people partying and whatnot, but it just wasn't a great first impression. And then, of course, we had to get a taxi to our hotel. Before we went there, I checked all the social media about the Zhongshou and people mentioned that it will be extremely difficult to take a taxi back because... Everyone wants one. Everyone wants one. So because I have the Chinese version Uber's app... So I tried to have an Uber or taxi to take us over to the hotel, which wasn't far for driving, but I just couldn't find anyone. Yeah, there was even one point you flagged down a taxi, didn't you? And then you just drove away. But the guy said, no, I don't want to go there.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. Immediately, unlike Beijing, unlike Shanghai, unlike Hangzhou and Shaoxing, where the people could not have been friendlier, could not have been nicer. I wouldn't say they were all very open. They were still quite reserved. But if you needed help, they were always there to help you. Chongqing, initially, it just seemed like they did their own thing. And you're like, oh, okay. On that night, we'd been really tired after the travelling. I feel like our... Our limit had been reached. Yeah. like our limit had been reached to be honest but eventually we got a uber taxi yeah so it took us over but when we arrive in hotel it's about 11 o 'clock at night 11 and the hotel oh god This was definitely the one that took me most by surprise, even more than Beijing, because as we were saying before, Beijing's hotel was in a very old part of town and everything. You had to go down all these narrow streets and things and closes. Initially, I thought, oh, I don't know about this hotel. And then eventually when we stayed there, as we said in the last part, the staff were lovely, the hotel was clean, it was safe, but for charging. So we passed by, I think it was... up the hill from J Fung Bay. For your information, J Fung Bay is a really, really famous tourist attraction. Yeah, it's like the famous street where all the eating places are, where all the shops are, where the Liberation Square is, or Liberation Monument. I've almost taken a picture of it. So we passed by all these hotels. There was a Hilton, there was a Hyatt, there was a Westin nearby. And we got out. And you said, or the person said, it's here and it was like an office block we walked through and we're like where's the hotel and you were saying no it's definitely here and we're going into this building that had like a convenience store and a reception turns out at the top floor of this building there is another tourist attraction yeah so it's an eye of a city i couldn't remember the proper name it's an attraction so you can go up and just see the whole city see the whole city that's it we were kind of confused how could it be and Their lift, I have to say, it was extremely confusing. It was shocking. We were both exhausted. We were really annoyed at the taxi driver, as we said. We had been walking about maybe an hour through Chongqing trying to get a taxi and carry in our luggage, even though they were small cases, but that's not the point. We were just really tired. It's one of these buildings that's so tall, it's like you have to get one elevator to the 47th floor and then you have to get out of that and get another. a lift up to the 64th floor which was our hotel yeah and at that point i don't know if i said to you at the time i was in the lift and there was a guy staring at me and usually i look away or meet their gaze briefly i just glared at this guy i was like i do not have time for you going oh look a westerner i'm like this is not the time this is not the place i am tired i am ticked off go away I just glared at him through the mirror because it was sneaky as if, oh, I'm going to sneak a peek at him through the mirror. I'm like, don't you dare. You put your eyes back in there. So we got to the hotel, which I have to say the hotel itself was at the very least very clean. The room was actually all right. It looked like something out of the 1960s or 70s in terms of decor, I would say. But it was actually a really nice hotel room. Uh -huh.
Speaker: You don't sound convinced there. No, what I will say is the view for it was incredible. I give you that. and The view was good. The view was absolutely stunning. If you're looking for the view, this is a hotel for it. Bear that in mind that we were at 64th floor. Yeah. What I found quite funny was they had a bath right beside the window where you can look out at Chongqing and everything. I hope no one was doing that during the day because that would be weird. You're in the office across the road and you'll... look up and there's someone washing themselves i don't think it from outside you can see probably not to be fair but i didn't take a bath but i did the cyberpunk thing where i sat in the window very you know wistfully looking out at the holding up a cup of coffee i did actually And at that point, because we were so run down, that I caught a cold while we were there, so I was nursing a Lemsip as well. Like, oh yeah, I am so hardcore.
Speaker: but The view was absolutely incredible. And what was quite cool as well, this is a minor thing because we didn't use it as much except for night time, but they had a projector in the room. So they don't have normal TV. It's just a projector. And of course, the projector was connected to the internet. So you can choose all the films, TV series on the platform. So it was a new experience. So that was cool. But what were, other than the one I'm thinking of in my head, but what was the issues you... had with the hotel. So you mentioned the hotel is super clean.
Speaker: I'm not sure about that. Remember, first night or two, I think it was okay. No one disturbed us in the morning. But after we came back, after a long day being out there, it's all tidied up. So I'm happy with that. But one morning, I just found a fake eyelash sticking to the wall. And you know me, my eyelashes are natural. So it couldn't have been me. So just for your information, I don't do any makeup at all. I lost it. It was sad. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it was definitely neither of us. And you went to the reception, didn't you? Yeah, so I went to talk to the girls at the reception. They just said to me, oh, sorry about that. It may be just the cleaner accidentally. Not saying the cleaners put the eyelash there, but it may be the eyelash stick to their clothes. Then they touch the wall, then the eyelash just stick to the wall. And the girl told me they will ask the cleaner to clean this up. To be honest, I was... expect more about their attitude. They just say, okay, we'll clean that. That's it. You can go. It was kind of like a there and done situation, wasn't it? I mean, this kind of thing happens. It does happen. It's just the attitude of a lot of people. I just want their attitude to say, oh, I'm really sorry about that. Blah, blah, blah. But they even didn't say that. They just said, oh, that just happens. We'll clean it. On our last day when we were leaving, there was a guy who came out shirtless. Shouting. to the receptionist say waitress where is my top so basically this is true by the way
Speaker: It's just the mental image of we're going home last image you think of of Chongqing. It's this guy with his shirt off going, I need my clothes. Yeah, so the story I thought it might be the guy used their dry cleaning service. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He just shouted loud saying, where is my top? And I find that it's very weird to call people waitress. Oh yeah, 100%. In a hotel. Like for anybody. Yeah, well, yeah, that too. But just to treat staff like that, they seem baffling. And it wasn't even, you know, I didn't look at them long enough, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same guy from the plane. Yes. You know what? I won't choose that hotel again. Although it has a lovely le view. The score on the booking .com. It was so high. Right, what I'll say is for this particular hotel, it was rated really good. Everybody was praising it online with the reviews. And it was actually... really cheap for well again not really cheap but it was compared to some of the hotels that we'd stayed in it was really well priced and i thought there must be a catch here surely there must be i know but you know what next time i possibly would to choose a just a normal hotel bigger brand yeah absolutely you know at least we had champagne
Speaker: That one was paradise. Yeah, that was the best hotel. by far 100 % but as we said the view was genuinely lovely but it was 64 floors up so obviously it had to be in some regard once we had a sleep and we shook off that very poor start to the trip in Chongqing we decided to have and I put this in my notes we had a lazy day which it is not a lazy day at all because we kept saying that to each other didn't we that oh we're gonna have a lazy day and I think we only had a lazy day at the very end of this trip because well we're just exhausted We really were. I mean, between Shanghai, between Hangzhou and Chongqing, between Beijing, Beijing especially, Chongqing had just wiped us out. Yeah, can you imagine 30 ,000 steps every single day? Yeah, it was absolutely strenuous, let's just say. But we decided to go to Jifengmei, which was, as we were saying, is the tourist area, has a lot of food, has a liberation monument and everything. It's definitely, you go there and it does feel very cyberpunk -y because you've got got the neon lights going that never stop. Same with the tooting in the street. By the way, fun fact, Miss Tsunami fell asleep one of the nights and I did the sitting with the window and I was taking notes and everything and I was looking out wistfully to the city. The tooting outside didn't stop until two in the morning and even then there was the odd brr brr. And I think I said this in our Shanghai part of the episodes that people say, oh, the city that never sleeps. Shanghai's the city that always beeps. I apologize. to Shanghai because it has nothing on Chongqing when it comes to people constantly beeping their horns. And that is a thing in these types of roads and big cities. But even for that, that was just ridiculous. You could hear it. I do think Chongqing was much more busier, much, much, much busier than Shanghai. You know, Chongqing is a city built on a mountain. Yeah. So the streets or the roads are relatively narrow and they have so many cars. Because they have enough. I laughed when you told me that they have a thing called the Chongqing Ferrari. And I thought, oh, I wonder what that is. It turns out it's just a yellow taxi, which seems very similar to the ones in New York or something. Because you said that when we were walking up, there's a street that's modelled after Manhattan. Tiny section. When you looked at it, you went, yeah. I can see that, I suppose. It was quite funny, but of course, that first day we walked down, we had some lovely Chongqing noodles from this place. The person was hand -making them, of course, and it was absolutely delicious that. But funny enough, we came out and you had said that there was this particular speciality from that region that it was double deep -fried pork or something. Pork, yeah. Now, if you can hear the accent, of course, we're both in Scotland and we love a bit of deep -fried food. I'm getting a frowny face. say i love a bit of deep fried i love to i love it too it's not deep fried in mars bar though i can't even remember what town it was if it was stonehaven but we've actually been to the town in scotland that invented quote unquote the deep fried mars bar i'm gonna say that there's gonna be a scottish pandalorian who reaches out and goes no no no they didn't make it we made it so we're like okay we're curious and we're waiting for ages for them to do it but we're standing behind this guy and we thought okay he'll get his order then we'll do it. And I thought, okay, they've got to cook it. Let's not rush these things, especially when it comes to meat. But then you said, let's go. And I was like, why? We're next in the queue. And you said, oh, because the guys bought up all the pork. And I was like, you're joking. And yeah, they were just boxing up. They literally made a massive batch of this stuff. And immediately as soon as they bought it all, everybody just cleared out. So again, the report card wasn't looking good for judging. I was like, okay, this is ridiculous. But we had to walk around. It was lovely. and then we walked up the... Well, what? Chongqing's famous for because as you said it's a city built in the mountains you can be on the first floor at one point but it turned out it's other people's 22nd floor exactly so we went up I think it was Shanchen the footpath so we climbed up this tourist hill and again as you said very narrow staircases very narrow streets you're walking up it did feel like a slice of old China and I think that kind of grounded me and brought me back to liking Chongqing a little bit more because before as I said you're blinded with the neon lights. Everyone's like, oh my God, it's Cyberpunk City. They're like, I know, I've been to the bunch, for God's sake. But I was like, okay, a bit annoyed. And then we got to this bit. And honestly, I was like seeing slices of history because, yeah, there were derelict buildings that I'm assuming they're either going to tear down or reform or whatever. But there was also old residences and stuff like that. And that, to me, was a lot more interesting. It's the same with Beijing, where initially I was like, oh, I don't know, because it seems very... antiquated in comparison to what I expected, but then I grew to appreciate that, appreciate them preserving the history. And it was the same with Chongqing because we walked up these stairs and we even found, of all things, it was a French church. This is something that is rooted in Chongqing's history, that during the Second World War, it was heavily bombed by the Japanese. So we also found a bunker that you can go into for free and learn about the history of Chongqing and how, obviously, the Japanese conveyed it, so they had to bomb it. There was a lot of shelters and bunkers. and this particular French church was a place that they took in people to look after them. And it was amazing because you walked in the church and it sounds weird to say being a Westerner myself, but you know, you didn't expect just a Western church in the middle of Chongqing, which is predominantly very traditional when you go out of the cyberpunk city centre. And you know, it was amazing to see. You're like, oh my God. And then along from that, there was an old primary school that is no longer in use, but they've just preserved it. But funny enough, we looked inside the classrooms as well. And it was really cool to see because we love history. But there's a video I took and I had to angle it very carefully because there was just people inside having their lunch. And I don't know if this was locals or... I don't know. I think maybe there was staff working there. Yeah, they were just having noodles in the classroom. I thought, you know what, fair enough. But we went in, we had a look. And then we went upstairs and you had to pay five yuan to get up. And it was like a library that you could... just sit in for the whole day you could have a cup of tea they did have some things for sale but some of the stuff you looked at even beijing and shanghai would have blushed at the prices and gone how much i know lovely stuff though but it's just that the price is just too much yeah but we had a seat there for a while because it is lovely and then of course we found the star of the show which was just this cat just lying on a chair and we were right across from it and it just stretched you went so it must be used to people coming in and just relaxing yes i think so And they are not home -cut. They are just street -cut. After that, we decided to try the different food just while we're walking down because Chongqing was going to be our foodie part of the trip. I mean, we had the Peking duck. We had all this stuff from Shanghai. Your favourite bao bun from Shanghai? I don't know. The meat bun was a contender from Beijing. Honestly, I still think about that. But they're different. Oh, no, they are different. Oh, they're both. It's like apples and oranges. They're both delicious. I'm glad you used that, for example. Oh.
Speaker: It's like meat buns and bao buns.
Speaker: Both amazing. We even had this kind of chorizo sausage thing. Oh, so it was so good, wasn't it? It was really good. It was just the right amount of spice. Oh, so good. Honestly, the food here, what I will say is a positive. The food was absolutely amazing. But, of course, we walked down further and we got to the, I think it was like the traditional townscape unit. You know, it was like the de more traditional buildings. Yes. It was really weird to see because people compare it. This obviously isn't the part that both of us are thinking. about but it's like the spirited away part of the city or one of the parts.
Speaker: It's just that the traditional look. Yeah, it's the traditional buildings between all the high -rises and things like that. It was really odd, but it was still cool. But that's, of course, where the bunker is. We didn't really spend much time there, but, you know, we had a look and it was quite cool. And that was the same day that we actually had to get an elevator from the bridge, which was always a lot of red at night, all the way down to a place called Hoogwam Guildhall, where we saw, and I think this is something you found, because we were trying to look for them. the place but it's where they have a courtyard and things that you can look around but they also put on performances as well you buy a ticket and you can go in then you can have tea and snacks and watch the show yeah so that was actually one of the highlights for me for Chongqing because he had the face changing which I don't know how the hell they do it honestly it's so damn impressive because the guy actually came out and just started doing it right beside you you're like how did the hell are you doing that you had that singing as well. You had the musicians, you had the more traditional performance where it was the people stomping and pulling the rope. That was quite cool. Again, it was quite interesting to see that side all yeah so it may just the equivalentvals of. of, you know, the fishman singing or something like that? Yeah, like a walking song, yeah. Like a walking song, yeah. And they also had the really impressive tea pouring, which I thought was so funny because one of them came out to pour tea and I have to say the water was lukewarm, but I'm glad it was lukewarm because I can't imagine flinging a teapot like that that was boiling water. But it was actually really impressive. It was almost like a mini watering can almost because it had the long... Yes, it's a long snoot. Can you call that? Yeah, long snoot. Let's go with that. We're just thinking of our producer at home. Yeah, the long spout that poured the tea and, you know, they flip it around. That was really cool. It's extremely long and thin. Yeah. So it took precision to aim it. But the one that I have to admit was the funniest by far. This is where I think Miss Tsunami is going to roll her eyes at me here. So these two guys dressed in the traditional suits and like fedora hat and these two women in cheap house. It honestly looked like the beginning of a Bond introduction where it was like the women in the background they were dressed very elegantly and they were dancing and the other two were dressed with sunglasses on and everything and they were singing and there was add there was explosions and fire. and everything behind them and the peppers going. And I was like, I wonder do what they're singing about. You know, this must be quite a deep cultural pop song or something. And what was it about? It's a song about hot pot. Yeah, it was a song about hot pot. It's like me coming out in glasses dressed as James Bond singing about fish and chips or haggis. For me, I feel really awkward to see that. But for you, you maybe don't understand what they are saying. So you think it may be okay. Yeah, I thought it was all right, but I could see you cringing. you were just like no it is very cringing but it was still funny though and it's memorable at least you know okay okay so you're happy the one time I'm being positive here and you're like no no no no no don't you dare bring that to this I definitely would recommend you to try if you are there oh yeah no absolutely it is actually really impressive and again you get well I say free you still have to pay for it but you still get the tea and everything it's all included in the Yeah, that's what I'm saying, though. It's like you have to obviously pay for the experience, but you get the tea with it and the snack and you have to buy extras if you want. But it was still cool. Yeah, I did like that. I did think that was really impressive. So after that, I'm actually reading my notes about what happened next and I forgot about this. I can't believe this was the same day. So after that, we decided to walk around and try and find hot pot, to which we were accosted by a stranger who came up and decided to berate you for your choice in hot pot. pot.
Speaker: So the story was we walked into ah you know the bubble tea shop first. So I saw, oh, those people must be from local. So I decided to ask them about my dinner choices. So yeah I asked them, what restaurant do you recommend recommend for hot pot? So the young gentleman told me, oh, there is a restaurant he likes and he would recommend to us. So, OK, I put that restaurant address on my map and we were just looking. for the restaurant then all the gentlemen popped up from our back and just tried to talk to us say oh what you are looking for i said i'm looking for this restaurant and he said i'm not sure if i would recommend you to that that restaurant is popular because of all the advertisements but actually to the local they are not that good then he started to tell me how good the other restaurant is
Speaker: I wasn't sure about his recommendation first. Then another guy popped around to say, yeah, that one is good. That one is it really good. The thing that you're underselling in this story is it wasn't like we were in the bubble shop, someone recommended it and then another person came behind us and said, no, no, that's not the case. We were coming back from this touristy square and there was several people dressed up as Sun Wukong, the gold military man, the kind of typical tourist things, which I will get. onto later but we're walking away from that and this guy popped out of nowhere because you were looking at it on your phone and he just looked at your phone and was like oh where are you going and then that is how we got into the conversation he's like no no no try this place try this and i have to say i was half expecting him to walk in while we're having dinner in that place that he was like a part owner or something of course that's when we tried chong chong hot pot well i say we tried it i tried the less spicy version you tried the more spicy version more spicy version is Actually, I only ordered for mild spicy. Was that mild? Yes. Oh my God. There's a reason why they pride themselves on their spicy food, isn't it? So they have different tolerances. Tolerance, absolutely. Absolutely, no wonder. That's ridiculous. Because I tried a wee bit and I was like, yeah, no, this is going to burn a hole through me. This is not the best. Well, it's tasty enough, but I thought, no, way too spicy. But yeah, what were your thoughts on it though? Was it something that lived up to your expectations or were you just like... I mean, the flavour was absolutely wonderful, but I feel like I... can have the similar flavored or similar quality hot pot everywhere else. So I don't think it's really special for me. That's my only thought about it. I really enjoyed it, but I just think it's not as special that as I thought it would have be. Then after that, we decided to walk off the hot pot and we went to a particular viewing platform in one of the tourist streets. like Again, I think it was Xia Haoli Street, where it's like you walk up. Up the stairs, there's all these things plastered on the walls. It's like, I'm in Chongqing and things. Which, other than the fact it's advertised as the cyberpunk city, this is the other big thing that people seem to love about Chongqing. That there's big signs everywhere saying, I'm in Chongqing. Just in case you forget, when you're halfway up a mountain and then you go... oh yeah if I'm not in Beijing or Shanghai anymore. They really emphasise that for the tourists, don't they? Because there's a lot of spots. I think they're trying to, again, I'm not saying it's like Shanghai because it's completely different, but I think they're trying to do that similar thing of saying, here's our landmarks, here's the particular things, put that on Instagram or Red Note or whatever to advertise this city. For sure. They're trying to lean into that. It definitely felt like that. On the one hand, it was lovely. There was a lot. of lovely places but on the other hand it felt very, to borrow a phrase from you at the time, it felt very commercialised didn't it? Which is a shame because as I said there's a lot of great historical areas and obviously you can pick and choose what you go to see in Chongqing. I'm not doing a blanket statement saying oh it's the worst city ever because it's not but it did feel as if they were leaning into the tourist aspect. If I see one more TikTok or one more video describing this as the cyberpunk city I will scream because the amount of videos I got while over there I was flicking through my social media and it's like oh my god it's the Cyberpunk series and it was the same accent every single video and I was like I get it they like their lights they love their lights they love their beeping you can't get a wink of sleep I get it it just felt very you know repetitive you know that way because you can spot it a mile off when countries and particular cities are advertising for a particular place and they always have the same buzzwords and you think oh that might be cool or that might be cool but this one seemed very overt and there was people almost everywhere just trying to sell you something and don't get me wrong you get that in the big cities in China like Beijing and like Shanghai but I didn't feel it was as much as in Chongqing yeah because don't get me wrong it's quite as you said it's narrow streets for a huge population so granted it's going to be a lot busier and especially with the tourists but it was just really I don't know it just it felt very different didn't it you mentioned in Shanghai and Beijing, people try to sell you things, but it's more like they try to sell you for their photographing service. Yeah, because with Beijing and Shanghai, there are on a lot of scenic spots and there's a lot of spots that you would want to be on social media, like the Bund, the Pearl Tower in Shanghai, or the Red Brick Stone on the Forbidden City in Beijing. So you can see why people would want to be photographed there and everything. And Chongqing did have a couple of them. but it was like everything, wasn't it? Yeah, but I was going to say in Chongqing, people try to sell you one -day trips. Uh -huh, yeah. It feels everywhere. People try to sell you these one -day trips or another three -day cruise trips. I feel a wee bit overwhelming, to be honest. It did, because it was like every couple of steps. It wasn't even like, you know where in Shanghai they were contained to those areas in Beijing for obvious reasons, but for Chongqing, it was like every time. we went to another place there were just hundreds of them and even when we went to the Spirited Away village place it was lit up at night and that was impressive but even when we went there there was just hundreds of people offering services and things so that got a little bit annoying I will say and I know that might not be fair because it is a tourist place they're obviously targeting tourists from China and abroad to say oh get your photo get this it's typical of a normal city like that but yeah it just it got very annoying very fast when you had to go from these other cities. And even in Hangzhou and Shaoxing, I know they're smaller in comparison, but even when people offered you stuff, you kind of put up your hand and said, no, thank you. Whereas these people were very persistent. You're like, bugger off, go away. Just to say, I'm Chinese, right? And I'm... You're what, sorry? I'm Chinese. Oh my God! I'm Chinese and it was my first time to visit Chongqing. Even from my own perspective, I think Chongqing, maybe not my... place to go because personally I do not like my photos to be taken by million times I'm not a poser for photos and I do not like to share my personal life on social media either so I do not think that's my place to go but I do enjoy the food but if you you like your photos to be taken you like to share your traveling photos on your social media I would recommend you to go this place because you can absolutely take hundreds thousands photos and it would be lovely to show to your family friends or your followers online it's definitely good oh absolutely yeah because you can honestly make a social media channel just around tro check because it is so scenic it's got as we said and that hurts me inside to say it it's got this cyberpunk aesthetic and everything which the light pollution you know i'm not gonna criticize them if they want to run up their electricity bill but that's the first thing you said After you saw all the lights. Very Scottish. say Very Scottish. Saying, my God, the electricity bill must be insane here. But it reminds me of, and I can't believe we keep bringing Glasgow into this, but in the planetarium, in the science centre, you can go and see the night sky and everything, or a simulated night sky. And they talk about how all the cities here have light pollution, so you can't see the night sky as clearly. You have to go to a more rural area to see all the stars. Naturally, obviously, when it's not a cloudy day, but they show you a before and after of, oh, this is it with light pollution. This is it without light pollution. There was honestly a halo of light above Chongqing. That's how bright it was. And obviously they turned it off at about half nine, ten -ish, I would say. And I was like, this is crazy. Again, it's cool to see and you take the pictures. It's different. It's different. It's very interesting. And then as soon as that first, second day wears off, if you're like, yeah, I've kind of had enough of this. particular disthe The other thing, and this leads us on to day two, of course, was Chongqing, other than loving a good light and loving a good hot pot and a pepper, they love their shopping centres, don't they? Holy heck, how many shopping centres does a city need to have? Because the amount of shopping centres we were in, and again, it wasn't even just the shop, it was just to kind of see them. And that might sound weird coming from here, being like, well, a shopping centre's a shopping centre, what can you see from it? It will blow your mind.
Speaker: It is actually insane how they love a good aesthetic. There was one with a waterfall and things. And we were actually quite lucky because if you wanted to go into that part of the... The ground floor. Yeah, you had to pay for it. But unfortunately... We couldn't. Well, fortunately and unfortunately. We couldn't because I don't have a Chinese number. So in China, a lot of service you have to sign in with your phone number because I don't have one. and I don't want to use my family phone numbers. So we just say, just leave it. And that was good because you could see the whole thing from above and all the other floors. So honestly, even if you do have the opportunity, I mean, if you want to see it, if you want to see a plastic pumpkin face to face, sure, go on and see it. But as I said, they had the waterfall and everything. That was just bizarre. And I remember you turned around to me at one point and you said, oh, one of them has an aquarium. And I was like, okay, so what do you mean? They had cinemas in there as well. So I just kind of assumed, all right, you mean like inside you walk in and you see it? No, no, no, no, no. It was in the middle of the shopping centre. There was a full blown aquarium. You know, I'm talking sharks, stingrays, all of these fish going by. People actually swimming in it, diving. Again, it was like a James Bond intro because you had these male and female divers just going down and coming up and everything. I was like, what in the cyberpunk is going on here? It was baffling. I know, I know. you would expect the shopping center would be the last place you see any sea life. Yeah, because the first shopping centre, the one with the waterfall and the plastic pumpkins, that was the, I don't know if it was the O -Ring or Ringle shopping centre. Apparently it's quite popular. But of course, we kind of lost count about the names of these shopping centres because there's just so many. So many of them. I don't know. How could it be possible they have so many shopping centres? Because Chongqing, I assume Chongqing is not extremely big. Yeah, because you have to get the metro out to them. But I suppose. the people there must enjoy spending time over there and or spend their money over there they honestly must because these places were massive and you know you could get lost in them and i don't mean that in the beijing oh you could spend the day there i mean more like ikea when you get in and you kind of find your way out and you're like oh my god where's the eggs get me out of here oh jesus sorry i was having flashbacks to ikea the last time over there yeah so we went there we came out it was actually quite cool because we saw it was like an area it kind of took away the allure of it because it was right across from a miniso or a miso you know the miniso shop but there was a big statue where there was like oh this is where we found dinosaur bones and i was like oh that is very neat why is it across from a miniso what the hell but we went there and we went down this again food market we tried a couple of things huge shout out to you ann for the potatoes give it a minute or two extra in the oven but you're doing great
Speaker: I think they like their potato crispy crispy yeah well sorry crispy they like it a bit I would have said undercooked undercooked okay that's another way to put it again that'll be for when we go to Yuan of course Yunnan actually was recommended by a lot of my families. They asked why, why you choose Chongqing over Yunnan province? You possibly enjoy that more. But I wasn't even thinking about Yunnan province because I think it may be too much further down south. So Beijing, for your information, is up north. It may be too much traveling to go. So we choose Chongqing as the central part of China. I mean, would you like to go back? I mean, I possibly would go back to Chengdu, which is not far from Chongqing, but Chongqing, I may give it a miss for the next time. I would say so, yeah. Because, I mean, after we went to the food market and everything, we did have that really nice cruise down the Yangji River. Oh, yeah, that was... Beautiful, isn't it? That was beautiful because it kind of reminded me a bit of poetry. Seven years ago when we met, that was one of the final things you and I did when we first met. Took the cruise on the band. We took the cruise in Shanghai down the river. It was all lit up. It was very romantic. But of course, we did the same thing seven years later in the Yangji River. It was beautiful because you got to sail by the quote -unquote spirited away village. And we got to see that very famous, you know, the building you're on the first. floor and then you get the lift up to the 21st floor or 22nd floor but oh spoilers it's actually the first floor of this area you know we saw all the heavy hitters and things and yeah i mean we went to the zoo which was really cool and we'll get on to that of course soon but would i go back i mean if you're passing through and you saw the drone show going on maybe but i wouldn't spend this time we possibly spend four days there i would just cut it back to one or two days would be I would say so. Unless you're an extroverted person or you just love the area, you know. I feel as if there are certain things for you to do in Chongqing, but compared to... It's just not our thing. Yeah, it just wasn't our thing. And I do feel as if they oversell it. Because as I said, in the last day, we took it a bit more easy. We went to the zoo. We went to see the pandas, which was so funny because they're so lazy. They were just eating bamboo. They had hundreds of people photographing them. I would love to become a panda if I have the next life. Oh, no, they're just so lazy. That's so funny. We also saw the red pandas, of course, which I was extremely excited for. And after we saw the pandas and the red pandas... Oh, you guys are having a conference over there, remember? Yeah, it was. It was very productive. I think we were talking about our quarterly apple consumption. I think we had a good meeting for that. Unfortunately, Martin and Andrew couldn't make it to the meeting. or Adam either, but you know what? I think we had a very, very productive meeting somewhere. But the zoo's nice. The only downside of the zoo, and again, this is more of a foreigner and China mentality here, but the only downside of it was that when you're walking through as a foreigner, you almost feel like one of the exhibits with people staring at you. For the most part, I think people were too busy with the pandas and things, obviously, but there was a lot of people. And then all you hear in the background was like these kids going, oh look! foreigner and you're like oh great thanks a lot oh your chinese definitely improved well i mean those are the phrases you hear immediately you're like yep okay what are they saying about me but yeah it was interesting to see that because you couldn't go to cheng cheng or chengdu without seeing the pandas and we also went through that so there's another thing that really annoyed me it was something that everybody built up and they were like look out for this metro station that goes through a building and i think we went through three separate buildings because I was like, is this the famous building? Nope. Is this the famous building? Nope. Is this it? Yes. So I was like, oh, okay. And obviously you're supposed to take the picture. And everyone was like, oh my God, it's a train through a building. And I was like, okay. I know when you saw that from other people's social media, you thought, oh, how amazing is that? But when ourselves, we were just in that metro, go through the building. It's just like go through other metro station. Yeah. It's no other different feelings. You literally would not be able to tell. unless somebody pointed it out and said, oh, we're going through a building. Yeah, it's just, it is just a metro station. But above the metro station, they decided to build more residential buildings. So that's it. But from outside, it does look like you go through the whole building. It must be a pain in the backside if you're having a cup of tea in that building though. And then all of a sudden the metro comes rolling. Everything is shaking. I don't know. Yeah, after that, we definitely took it easy because I think, They were building up to a... It was like some kind of certain event. And by that point, we were really checked out. We went to the museum there, which we're doing an exhibit on. Again, calligraphy. China's favourite thing to put in a museum, calligraphy. And the official seals and stamps. But it was free for that day. So we just decided to walk in and thought, okay, fair enough. We are cultured. Oh, absolutely. We're culture vultures. But after that, we really just went down. We wandered about town. We had dinner and then we just really ordered in, watched films. And yeah, we had a very peaceful end because I think at that point, we were both feeling really run down. We had a cold and everything. It was definitely a busy part. But of course, after that, we took a plane back to Hangzhou with Sichuan Airlines. And you were very disappointed because they didn't feed us on the plane. But they gave us these biscuits. And for any Scottish Pandalori, you will be very proud of my tsunami here. And while we're eating these, biscuits and they tasted very familiar. And what was it you said in the middle of the air they tasted like? malted milk malted milk I genuinely I nearly choked on my biscuit because I was like I was like yeah you're right they taste like malted milk and then I was like when have you had malted milk in your life Like, you know, here, there and everywhere. I was like, oh my God, you have definitely become... I'm half Scottish now. You are 100%. You are half Scottish by far. I thought, I'm so proud of you. But that, of course, led to us getting ready to come back home and everything. We got all our stuff organised. And of course, yeah, we ended up getting our flight from Shanghai, where in the last day, we kind of spent some time in Shanghai. We just got our last... minute gift shoppings and had our last minute noodles which seems to be it seems to be a thing that you and i do in shanghai isn't it we go out to the city we find a random noodle place because we did that of course when we first met seven years ago we had noodles as a last meal and then of course we made it to the airport and then we just flew back home to edinburgh but i have to say as a kind of summary to the journey part itself that was such a long journey wasn't it yeah because we had to take three connection flights when we came back i didn't know or i don't know why when we went to china it only had two connection flights but when we came back it just became three yeah there was over 26 hours overall it was a really really really long journey but we made it we survived yeah because the amount of times we had to go through security that was three times yeah three times that was so annoying because the first time obviously Shanghai I expected that that's absolutely fine going on the plane itself but then we got to Helsinki and there was another line and it was like Jesus we have to yeah because when we went back we didn't go through any security check in Helsinki but when we came back to Scotland unfortunately their border control rules have been changed so that I think that's why we need to go through another security check in Helsinki and then when we went from From Helsinki to... Heathrow. Heathrow. Of course Heathrow you have to go through the security check again. But the thing I don't like about the Heathrow one is again it's more relaxed I would say inside not on the outside when you're boarding the plane but it's when you come off the plane and you have to catch a bus to the other terminal and you think alright that's okay we'll just get it to the other terminal and then we'll hop off but no you're immediately once you hop off it you're hit with the oh by the way did you know that you have to get another security check? And I was like, oh god. not again so I was just absolutely shattered but you were as well of course but yeah we ended up just getting dinner and you were just at that stage though weren't you where you were just like yeah we just want to get home and of course the flight you blinked and you missed it it was barely an hour wasn't it you were up in the air and you were back down before you knew it no malted milk sadly but you did get an oat cake which was pretty good honestly you were like oh god it feels like home see as a summary to this whole trip and everything what were your favourite moments of it and how How would you rank each city that we visited? The most nice part, of course, seeing families. Of course. For me, seeing families. And to be honest, I was glad I took you and showed you around because as Chinese, I kind of took it for granted, to be honest. I didn't appreciate as much as I do now after I showed you around. It made me look at the country or look at the cities from a visitor's view. And I found, oh, there are a lot of things I didn't even notice before. So it's a new experience for me as well. Although I've been to some of those cities before, but now I feel like I have a new understanding for those cities. About how to rank those cities, I don't know. I like my own city. I like Hangzhou. I like Shanghai and Beijing. It's just I'm not so sure about Chongqing. still a nice place to explore but for me i possibly wouldn't go back but never say never i possibly still go back next year or in a few years i don't know yeah because i feel as if with chong ching it is very social media driven you know because i have to say you were really surprised when i said to you that oh i'd never heard of chong ching before and it kept popping up in social media right beside chong du which i had heard of obviously about their panda conservation and things but I had never really heard of Chongqing before and there was a lot of things even you were pointing out and I was like why is that famous why is that famous especially because unfortunately on the second last day it started spitting with rain and I was like it's fine it's no problem this isn't like Scottish weather and then two seconds later the heavens opened and it was Absolutely got drenched. And there was a sign in the middle of, just above a road, a really busy road, where everybody was out in the rain taking photos and videos of it. And literally, it's just a billboard that counts down and says, you're in Chongqing. And it's like... Yeah, a lot of things, it's actually social media famous. Yeah. It feels like an influencer's paradise. And I know I said that about Shanghai as well, because obviously you've got the bun and things, but it... feels like they're definitely trying to push that angle yet at the same time you can definitely see a lot of the old part of town seeping out you know and I'm not saying that as a criticism I'm not saying oh that's terrible you should brush it away kind of thing because I would have loved to have seen more of Chongqing's historical areas and things and it was cool to see this city that is built into the mountains and things it was really cool to see and I don't regret going there by any means but I definitely feel as if compared to the other cities it just seemed as if ironically enough much like the face changing guy it felt as if at times they were trying to put on that touristy mask and obviously cities like that have to because they need tourists to come in and give them money to invest in the city itself but it felt as if at times although they obviously didn't hide the history of it or who they were as people it did seem as if it was very oh look at the pretty lights oh look at this It was very bright and colourful. And I mean, it was very impressive. But compared to the other cities, and obviously I'm biased with Shaoxing, but I just loved how traditional at times Shaoxing felt and Hangzhou as well. Although technically we were in the touristy area and things, but I liked those areas. I did think they were very, again, scenic, but also very open and honest about what they were. And with Beijing and Shanghai, they are international cities. So obviously you're going to get this clash of traditional. culture versus modernity coming up with the buildings. And especially with Beijing, I would say of all the cities other than Shaoxing, because I always loved Shaoxing, big place in my heart here. But I feel as if Beijing is the one that surprised me the most. And it's the one that I thought, I don't know about this city. And then it really grew on me. Shanghai. Shanghai is Shanghai. Shanghai is Shanghai. It didn't really change very much from the seven years. I mean, it changed, but not drastically. You're like, oh, there's the bun, there's the tower. That's not going to change anything. time soon Hangzhou we didn't really see much of Hangzhou but from what we saw it's all similar from last time yeah exactly while I would say and this goes back to a question you asked me would I go back to Chongqing probably not if we end up there we end up there kind of thing but I wouldn't go out my way to be like oh you have to see I mean maybe for a day or two yeah go see the lights go see the cyberpunk city as it were Don't go out your way unless that's something you really want to see. But I have to just clarify here, we only speak our own experience. It doesn't represent other people's opinions. Oh, 100%. For listeners from that area, we didn't mean to offend you by any means. This is something I always say in episodes of Chat Tsunami, that everything that I say is my opinion, or in this case, it's our opinion, and any other opinions are absolutely. welcome absolutely it's just like we mentioned before the city is lovely a lot of things to see but maybe those things are not our things so if you haven't been there please do not just believe into the words we were saying you have to see by yourself maybe it would be your favourite city go into it not listening so much to our words take our words with a pinch of spicy pepper but conversely take the opinion of all these influencers saying, oh my god, this is the most amazing city ever. It's really not. I don't mean that as a criticism of Chongqing. What I mean is, don't buy into the hype. Whether it's Chongqing, whether it's Beijing, temper your expectations initially. It applies to anywhere. Yeah, exactly. Temper your expectations going in and then see for yourself. Make your own decision about the city. Because, I mean, there was a lot of clubs and pubs and things, which I thought was pretty cool, to be honest, that were underneath the... I had the bridge for the riverway and things. You had the metro as well going under the bridge. Another bridge, of course. And at night when the lights up, it was stunning. I mean, you can take it away from Chongqing that it wasn't beautiful because it was. At times it really was, but it almost felt a bit overwhelming at times. So as a summary, I'm not saying Chongqing's bad. I'm so glad that we got to see it. I'm so glad that we got to as well experience it, as I was saying before, the cultural aspects of it when we went to see the school. the church, that particular area, which I know is slightly touristy, but we got to see a slice of Chongqing's past and everything. Whereas if you stayed in Jiafengmei Street for the whole thing, I think you would get tired of it really fast. But if you are foodie, you can taste all different kinds of food. Oh yeah, 100%. This was definitely high up there for the food aspect of it. Yeah, that concludes our trip of China for the fifth anniversary. Absolutely. I just want to give a huge shout out. to you miss tsunami thank you so much for joining me in this journey and coming with me to see everything in china no i enjoyed every minute with you going through all the cities and trying all different foods taking a look of different places i loved every minute of it and i just hope we can do it in the near future hopefully next year can do it again yeah or the year after so i really appreciate you invite me over on this episode and i know i could be really nervous at some point so i wasn't that fluent as you or your guest you're invited on the show before but i tried my best and i do hope everyone who listened to this episode can really enjoy it and nice to be part of your fifth anniversary special show no honestly i can only reiterate thank you so much because honestly it was a fantastic experience again Not only doing the podcast and finally getting you on for an episode. We've been talking about it for ages. Being like, oh, do you want to come on? Yeah. Oh, you know, I had to prepare myself. I was really nervous. I don't know what to talk about. But no, you've been absolutely fantastic. And I'm not just saying that because I love you, you know. So, no, thank you so much. And thank you, Pandalorians, for listening to this episode. So here's to five more years of Chatsanami.
Speaker: You don't need me to explain how vast China is. After spending barely 17 days there, I still feel like we only scratched the surface and there was so much to see. It's something this tsunami always tells me, to leave something for the next time we travel. And you know what? I am so excited to see what new adventures we have in the future. Not only am I the luckiest podcaster to have experienced this trip, but I got to spend this milestone of the show with the woman I love. And that is something that cannot be beat. DeLoreans out there listening, thank you all so much for the years of support. What started as a silly side hustle in 2020 has continued to evolve, and if not for both your support, and of course my amazing friends, the creators that I've met, and downright brilliant people who have encouraged me on this journey, I wouldn't be here talking to you. It's because of you I do what I do, and I cannot praise you enough for it, so again, thank you so so much. But as always, if you would like to check out more of our episodes, then you can check us out on our website, chattsunami .com, as well as all good podcast apps. I also want to thank our amazing Pandalorian patrons, both past and present, for supporting us on this journey. You have been absolutely fantastic, and we could not have done the show without you. Of course, I'm referring to Robotic Battle Toaster, Sonya, Ghostie, and Cryptic1991. I also so want to give a huge shout out to our other Pandalorian patrons who have been supporting us. That is, of course, the Z1 Podcast, Danny Brown, Andrew, Middle Age broadcast ro harvey the super ghostst Podcast, Podcast, and Billy Strachan. Thank you all so, so much for the support. Honestly, it means the world. route And if you'd like to support us as well and become a Pandalorian patron, as well as fun, similar episodes like this in the future, then you can check out our Patreon page, patreon .com forward slash chat tsunami, where we have a whole host of bonus content from early access to exclusive episodes, Twitch vods, bloopers, and the like, so definitely go check that out. This episode is, of course, a proud member of the Podpack Collective. For further information, check us out on our Twitter slash X page at Podpack Collect. But as always, and after five years, Pandalorians, thank you all so, so much for listening. You honestly are fantastic. Stay safe, stay awesome.
Speaker: and most importantly, stay hydrated.
