City-hopper special #1: Ningbo, Zhejiang province

With my (Em's) new job with the British Embassy taking me to all of China’s far-flung destinations, follow my city-hopper specials for what I can extract and discover from a place in a 24 hour period…

My first work trip took me to Ningbo, Zhejiang province, on the East coast of China, 215km south of Shanghai on Hangzhou Bay. It’s one of China’s major ports and industrial hubs, and is a 2.5 hour direct flight from Chongqing.

I arrived at around 4.30pm with no plans for the evening, so I made my way to Tian Yi Square which felt most like the city’s centre. It was less than a kilometer from my hotel, so I set off to walk through the 33 degree heat, sunshine and blue skies overhead – a big contrast to Chongqing’s recent chosen weather, grey cloud cover. I soon discovered walking was a no-no, so reluctantly ordered a taxi. I just wanted to be out in the sunshine!

Compared to Chongqing, Ningbo is really flat, making it one of those cities full of bicycles and mopeds, to whom the rules of the road do not apply (see: Beijing, Chengdu…). They’re your biggest risk of being involved in an accident as they wind and twist their way through traffic, and waiting to cross the roads on zebra crossings exactly as pedestrians do. It delivered quite the entertainment as I was waiting for my Didi – Chinese Uber – to arrive, watching people of all ages navigate the kaleidoscope of traffic with all manner of things in tow.

Tian Yi Square was totally gorgeous at sunset. A huge shopping mall complex peppered with water features, musical fountains, benches, steel statues of jazz musicians, an amphitheater, and a Catholic Church, believe it or not. I spent an hour or two pottering around and taking photos. I never really feel alone when there’s an enormous Apple Store, Starbucks or Pizza Hut nearby..! Once I'd made it back to my hotel I ordered some seafood and Ningbo dumplings - being local specialties, it felt like the right thing to do.

The next day, after I was finished with work, I was taken by Candy, an intern at the bank I was visiting and who had perfect English, to another of Ningbo’s famous tourist must-sees: Tian Yi Ge, the oldest library in China. Founded in 1561 by Fan Qin during the Ming dynasty, it previously contained around 100,000 books. It’s now a sight-seeing spot with beautiful gardens and lakes to explore, video explanations of book restorations, a mahjong exhibition hall and reconstructed set-ups of how the library used to look back in its heyday. It was a stunningly beautiful, blisteringly hot explore (35 degrees, but felt like 44), and just as we were coming to the end, the heavens opened and we got caught in one of the biggest rainstorms I have seen since being in China. This was the beginning of the Long Journey Home… flight delays began rolling in.

So what else to do when it’s raining and you’ve got an extra hour or so before you have to leave for the airport? Go to a coffee shop and put the world to rights. Candy took me for her favourite almond croissant and we shared that and a savoury sundried tomato and cheese scone (in China!) over a couple of coffees. With the exposed beams, the freshly baked sourdough loaves, the eggs benedict on the menu, it felt like I had stepped right out of East London.

All good things must come to an end and en route to the airport we realised the first flight delay would not be my last. News was coming in from Chongqing about a huge storm and flooding, so I settled myself into Ningbo airport for what would become a six hour delay (tip: Ningbo airport is not a good place to spend six hours). Happily, all bad things must also come to an end, and I made it home, eventually, in the small hours of the morning. Just in time to head out to a new city at 1pm the next day!

Ningbo: complete.