Chongqing (Day 3577 - 9/10/19)

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Stephen and Mallory went out on the deck to waste some time until breakfast is served. They need to leave their luggage outside their room before breakfast time at 7:00 AM because they are leaving the ship and flying to Xi'an afterwards. Currently, they are in the city of Chongqing which they will getting off in. They both talk about how huge the city is and how there are many buildings. Stephen says that it's humid and foggy, so it's hard to see the buildings. Mal says that there are also many bigger small cities like Austin, St. Louis, or other capitals in the U.S. Stephen says that they will have a few excursions today like going to a museum before boarding their flight to Xi'an.

They are welcomed off the boat by a band. Then, they took a bus to the heart of Chongqing. The tour guide told them that this city has a population of 30 million which is slightly more than the population of Shanghai. This city is also 8 times the size of Shanghai. Then, Stephen talks about how the idea of counties and cities are flipped in China. In the U.S., counties are bigger than cities but it's the opposite in China. The tour guide also told them that this city has a lot of nicknames like Hot Pot City because hot pot apparently originated here. The city also has 30,000 hot pot restaurants. It is also called the Bridge City due to it having a total of 13,000 bridges around the city.

They had lunch at a restaurant that didn't have an English menu, so they just pointed at pictures in the menu to order. Mark ordered a beer and they gave him a flat sake cup to drink his beer from which Stephen describes as a bowl. Currently, they are in the central area near the Liberation Monument Shangquan. They were given some free time to walk around the center area where there are a lot of stores. Then, it immediately started to rain so they went to go take cover from the rain.

After, they went to Chongqing Jiangbei Airport and got on plane for a 90 minute flight to Xi’an. They took a bus to their hotel which they will be staying at for 2 nights. Stephen says that they really liked their hotel in Shanghai, but this hotel is even better. He says that he will try to film the hotel lobby tomorrow because it's really gorgeous. Stephen talks about how their room is very spacious and fancy. Mal really likes the bed sheets. Stephen was able to connect to the wifi and it's fast enough to do Breakfast Stream. So, they will be doing one in 10 minutes. Stephen talks about throughout this tour they've had a tour guide named Joe. In other cities, Joe was still there but additional tour guides who had more expertise on those areas also joined them. They also had additional tour guides for each of their excursions. So, they will be getting an additional tour guide while in Xi'an. After staying for 2 days, they will be going to Beijing.

Then, Stephen talks about how he and Mal had put on motion sickness patches on their first day on the ship. The patches are supposed to help alleviate motion sickness and they definitely helped. The patches had some side effects like dry mouth which Stephen and Mal experienced after waking up on the 2nd day on the ship. It lasted all day, but it wasn't as bad as motion sickness. However, when Stephen woke up this morning his vision was really blurry. He put on his glasses, but everything was still blurry. Stephen thought that it was nothing at first since it sometimes happens in the morning when you just woke up. He put his contacts in and it was still blurry. After 20-30 minutes, he was only able to see far away but he eyes couldn't focus on anything within 9-10 inches of him. This made it difficult for him to use his phone and the vlog camera. Stephen wasn't able to focus on the flip screen of the vlog camera which made it difficult to use.

Mal looked it up and found out that Stephen's symptoms matched one of the side effects of the motion sickness patch. It apparently only affects a very small percentage of people and the symptoms might not appear until several days later. This is why Stephen's symptoms appeared 4 days after putting the patch on. The symptoms could last for several days or up to several weeks. Stephen says that these side effects made it no longer worth it to put this patch on. He would've rather felt a little sick and dizzy for a few days instead of being unable to see in front of him for weeks. Stephen is also experiencing dizziness as a side effect of the patch. He says that the dizziness feels like vertigo. So, even though he tried to avoid motion sickness, he got even worse symptoms. He doesn't blame Mal because she was just trying to help him with his motion sickness and she didn't know the side effects. They will have breakfast at 6:30 AM tomorrow and then they are leaving at 7:30 AM for a couple excursions that will require several miles of walking.