Entering the World Largest City: Chongqing, China

bizarre. She's vibrating this thing into my ear now. What the hell? As I take you on a journey through the world's biggest city. Welcome to Chongqing. I have three goals while visiting Chongqing. The first is to meet as many locals as I can and see if anyone speaks English. I don't speak English. The second is to find the city's number one most famous hot pot restaurant, a dish that originates in this city. And third is to see if I can do this entire adventure for $250 or less. Because despite being the world's largest city, I've heard that Chongqing is

really affordable and it's also really confusing to navigate. When they say that Chongqing is a 5D city, this is what they mean. Right now I'm walking in a beautiful main square. It's a historic place, beautiful temples, but you actually realize you're on the 22nd floor of a building. The craziest thing is we were walking on ground level from my hotel the whole way to get here and it just felt like everything was flat. We didn't even realize that we were this high. I've been to almost every big city in Asia, but I've never felt something like this where

you're just standing in a main square and you realize that you're on the 22nd floor of a building. It's totally mind-blowing. Like I don't understand how the architects were able to build a city like this. The only comparison would be Hong Kong, which is kind of similar with the hills and stuff, but nothing like Chongqing. You know, traveling in Chongqing more than anywhere else on the Asian continent really gives me some culture shock. Totally lost in translation. Not a single sign is translated in English. It is all completely in Chinese. The reason

that all these people are gathering here on this sidewalk is because the metro comes straight out of the building. It's funny how there's like few touristy things to do in the city and wherever they are, there's like mobs of people, Chinese tourists. After watching the metro go through the side of this building, I just have to ride it for myself. It goes without saying, Chongqing's metro is on a whole nother level, literally. On the train we go. They're bringing the shop on the train. We're making a lot of friends here, but they're quite shy. Where are

you going right now? But it's too hot for hot pot. We need a cold pot. What do you like about Chongqing? It's really nice and the food is wonderful, you know. It's my first time here. The city is crazy. You have to walk a lot every day, right? And it's confusing because like we're down, up. What do you think about America? Me. What did you say? Shooting every day. Yeah, many shootings. Many shootings. Bye bye. It's no surprise that gun violence is the first thing these locals think of when they think about America. Even though it's incredibly safe here,

I still want a guide to explore the hidden corners of the city. That's why I'm about to meet up with my local friend, Joy, who's taking me to the Chongqing Zoo, famous for being one of the best zoos in the world and home to 22 resident panda bears. Hello, I will show you the pandas. There's a fat panda over there. This is the first time in my life I've seen a panda with my own eyes. Why is it yellow? I guess because they have a long time haven't had a shower. I wasn't expecting to see pandas when I'm here. This is so cool. It's like a bucket list for

China. You know, check, see the pandas. Great Wall of China, pandas. You know, everybody thinks that Chengdu is a city of pandas. Nobody realizes that there's more pandas in Chongqing than Chengdu. It's crazy how in the middle of the panda park, there's like these high rise apartments. All the panda things. Panda, panda, panda, panda. All right, Joy. Joy's a driver in this crazy city. Driving through Chongqing is crazy. You just see so many buildings. Do you think all these buildings are full? In this area, yeah, it's full. Because this is an old area.

It seems like every five minutes you're crossing another bridge in this city. So, so, so cool. This building in front of us looks like the Marina Bay Sands. And as Joy just told me, it was made by Singaporeans. Joy, where are we now? Now we are at the gate for the Chiqikou old town. In the past, it's an old village. But now it's very prosperous for the nice food and the retails. It feels very different here than the other parts of the city. Like from my hotel view, all I see is like tall skyscrapers. It feels like Hong Kong. But here, it's quite

traditional and nice. And once again, I'm the only Westerner here. Literally the only one. I haven't seen a single other one today. So in China, people like the TikTok, right? The village, they especially put different decorations to attract the ladies come here to put the videos, put on the TikTok, so they can also earn money. That's why this one strategy is attracting people here. Trying some street food called Mahua. Oh, it's like a graham cracker. So you grew up here, right? Yeah. So how has the city changed in the last 10, 20 years? I would say

first, when you say the city, there are much more buildings built up. And in the past, it's quite like an empty old city. But now, when we do the city, we re-planned this. We attracted a lot of retailers. That's a good thing. Like the food and the drinks. I've actually noticed like a lot of shops, like Sam's Club and Tim Hortons. A lot of like international chains that are here now. Even though part of it is newly built, they still have like really cool things here and nice little areas to go to, good street food. It's cool to have this side of the city

and not only big, tall skyscrapers. You know, in America, like people have the wrong impression of China. People don't realize that there's like amazing life here. Yeah, I agree. It's very diverse. The North and the South and the West China, they're so different. The dubstep has overtaken our conversation. Why is there dubstep playing? What is that? That's the sauce, the sauce base for hot pot. I can smell it from here. It's really strong. Why do people here like spicy food so much? Because in Chongqing, the weather is too humid. They need a spice to get

out of the water in the body. So why do you wanna sweat if it's humid? In Chinese way, yeah. We are working up an appetite after smelling all the spices in the Old Town. Joy tells me about a famous area in Chongqing that is known for its different street food stalls. So we are heading there to see what I can get within my budget. We're gonna take a 100 yuan, which is about 13 US dollars and see how many different foods we can try. Are you hungry? Yeah, I'm so hungry. Let's go. Let's go. So the first traditional food I will introduce to you is the pork

intestine. It's spicy with tofu, but it's so delicious. I thought we were getting intestine soup, but he actually gave us brain soup. I think if you eat this, you get smarter. Really, really spicy broth. My brain wants to tell me it's bad, but it's actually pretty good. I'll give this an 8.5 out of 10. 8. They say that Chongqing is the spice capital of China, and this is why. Look. I can taste it from here. Crazy. Whoa, she's drinking food? What is that? On the inside is actually the beverage. On the top is the chicken meat. That's genius. There's so

many options, I don't know what to get. That's a big-ass piece of bacon. It's 26 for one. Cheers. Cheers. Oh my God. 10 out of 10. 9. 9. This is really a street food heaven. So many different flavors, things you've never heard of before, textures and colors and tastes. Literally on the other side of this market is a rainbow-colored building, which if this building was in any city in Europe, it'd stand out like a sore thumb. But here in Chongqing, nobody even blinks an eye at it. So many options. Wait, durian with cheese? I think we're gonna have to try

this one. Shout out to Mie. Thank you. Whoa, it looks like lasagna, but it's durian. I can tell you're excited for this one. I think it's really good. I'm giving this 8.3 out of 10. What about you? 10. She got a full 10. Delicious. We still have a lot of money left. It's not going down much. What's next? This is like the dried tofu. This is only 13 kuai. What I love about Chongqing is that, what I love about Chongqing is that there's all these inventions. Like, you can find square pieces of tofu with all kinds of stuff inside. Spicy. Spicy. They have the

green onion, pickles, peas. Yeah, many things inside. I give this a 7.5 out of 10. What about you? Five. Onwards. We got a little bit of money left and we have room for one more dish, which is a dessert. It's sweet, cute dessert. Look at this. Sweet and cute. It's definitely Chinese. Let's get the cutest one. What about the panda? The panda, it only needed 21. When else do you get the chance to try cute panda ice cream? The hardest part about eating this is we're going to have to ruin the perfection. Got to get a little bit of the chocolate. I'm going to

go for the eyeball first. I really messed it up. After all that spicy and savory food, this is the best way to end it. All that for $13. So cheap. So cheap. One to 10. 12. Whoa. Really cool. I give it a 12 as well. Joy asked me if I'm up for something weird and this is mainland China, so how could I say no? We are on our way to a cafe that's infested with rodents. Feeding capybaras here in Chongqing. The funniest thing is this little duck follows him everywhere. These little guys are called capybaras and if this cafe isn't wild enough, there's also a

place where I can get my earwax removed. If you get squeamish, then skip ahead about 30 seconds. What's stranger than getting your earwax taken out? Watching yourself getting your earwax taken out. Oh, okay. Oh my God, dude. I can't. I'm going to puke. That is the weirdest feeling in my ear. I don't know what to think right now. It's oddly satisfying just thinking about all this gunk getting out of my ear. Oh, I'm watching it happen. She's scraping it out. She's vibrating this thing into my ear now. What the hell? Ow. Loud. Okay. Oh, Jesus Christ. Wait

till you get the vibration. As weird as it felt, my ears are clean and I can hear really well and I can just feel that they're clean. There's nothing in there. I would do it again, for sure. We'll take you to the old city center neighborhood called the Guanyin Qiao. And you will see how the local people enjoying their life in the courtyard. It's really nice. We found like a little peace and quiet square among this massive city with huge apartments right above me. I mean, literally right above us. High rises. And right below it is this calm little plaza.

This is a good example of showing how livable Chongqing is for the local residents. So these buildings, they're cheap apartments? Yeah, it's very cheap. Like two bedrooms, 1,700 RMB. Wow, $206 a month. A month. So incredibly cheap. In the city center. For two bedrooms. Chongqing could actually be the cheapest big city in the world. Like most livable big city. Because when you think about Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo, Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta, Manila, these buildings would be way more than that. Like for a month. So here we are in Chongqing and it's

pretty nice for people to live here. I like that. The living cost is very reasonable. Like the food, the housing, education, public transportation. It's very livable. I love that. You're gonna make me wanna move to Chongqing before I finish this video. Hello. Hello. Thank you. We have another one. Wow. Nice? Tastes like flowers in a cup. Look about this building. If you rent like the one bedroom, one living room, it's about $120 for one month. Include everything. The craziest part about the cheap brand is that we're like right in the city center. We're

not like in the outskirts. It is an older building, but who cares? In some Chongqing neighborhoods like this one, you'd never guess it's the world's most populated city. But in others, the crowds are enormous and everyone is lining up to try this bizarre McDonald's snack. We're getting a durian McFlurry at McDonald's. So you like durian? Yeah. Me too. I really like it. This ice cream with durian from Thailand, it tastes so good. Don't worry about getting fat. See, I'm still slim. I like ice cream. We're gonna try the durian ice cream here. Yeah, very

nice. We have just vanilla ice cream from McDonald's and pieces of durian on top. Only 10 RMB. Cheap. Everything is so cheap. Honestly, everybody hates on durian. It's good. It's like a custard. It's like a creamy custard. Yeah, the durian from Thailand is so good. It's a taste. Like if I have to eat it, I'll eat it. It's just not my favorite kind of thing. The streets become alive at night. Everyone comes outside. It's not so hot anymore. Eating street food. This area is called the Jiefangbei. The name is for this monument. There are so many tourists

come here because this is the city center of Chongqing. There's so many things to look at. Everywhere you look, there's something else, something else. We have a word called dawang, means watching beauty. People watching? Yeah, watching beauty. This lady is live streaming her business and she's selling things and people are buying them live. What the f***? She was dancing for the fans. This s*** is f***ing weird, man. So if someone buys her things and to put the good recommendations on the products, she was dancing for them. She dances in the middle of

the square and everybody's watching her. Attraction, get the attraction. This is the first ground from the north entrance. But look. Boom, it goes straight down 20 floors. And also, you can say across the river, so many people on the beach. That's a beach. Packed with people. It's completely full. What are they dressing like? Is that traditional Chinese? Yeah, they're dressing the traditional Chinese dressing. Why, just for fun? For fun, just for fun. Oh, they also do the same thing on Chinese TikTok. Oh, nice. The moment I tell them I'm a YouTuber, they

walk away because people in China don't have access to YouTube. The government blocks it. Yeah, maybe you should have a Chinese TikTok and do this in China. Maybe I should. Can you set it up for me? Yeah, I can do that for you. Right now, we're walking on the side of the cliff, basically, with the old ancient walls of Chongqing that are still here. And it's really cool. They built all these little cafes and trees, but it's hidden from the rest of the city. You have to be all the way on the wall to see it. Because this side of Chongqing is cultural

heritage site. That side is the modern one. I have to say, I am so amazed by this city. There's so many different levels. And if you're not paying attention, then you just don't know what's next to you. You gotta look up, you gotta look down, you gotta look everywhere. It's so, so cool. Please look about this one. This is a very, very original old courtyard. They even keep the pavement the same, like my grandparents' time. Even though it's like a new modern city, they keep the old touches, like this little corner right here. Before the fog rolls in, Joy

wants to take me to the top of a skyscraper, not only to see the views, but to walk across the most famous sky bridge on earth, which has glass floors. If you are scared of heights, then this isn't a place for you. We are standing on the 47th floor of a building and there's a glass floor below us. Don't look down. Okay, let's look down. Ready? Don't be scared, because you need to trust the technology, the modern technology about civil engineering and the architecture quality. When you look out and see this view, what do you think about? I think at first

it's very unique. When I stand here and look out at this view, I think about futuristic cities, like Chongqing is really unique. In the next 10, 20 years in China, there's going to be more cities like this that are just so futuristic. What do you enjoy about Chongqing? I enjoy the delicious food, some beautiful ladies, and our many beautiful streets, and our metal forest. How do you think Chongqing is different from the rest of the big cities in China? Chongqing, we have full of history first. Is there anything you don't like about Chongqing? The weather

in July and August. Sometimes it's too hot. How about the air pollution? Air pollution? I think for the recent years, it's very good now. I don't think it's good. You don't think it's good? No. It's always foggy and you can feel that there's like... Sometimes when you come to other cities, it's also like this. It's like this. As night falls, I asked Joy to take me to the most vibrant square because like most big cities in Asia, Chongqing comes alive at night. I'm hoping to meet somebody who can explain what it's really like to live here, but all I'm

saying are TikTokers and live streamers. We just arrived at night to this amazing viewpoint overlooking the city. The skyline gives serious Hong Kong vibes, but I'm going to say here's better because there's less tourists. Joy was telling me that these are all local people here that just come, hang out, have a beer and look at the beautiful view. Yeah. It's kind of sad to see every single person behind me on the beach, TikToking and looking at screens. It's like they're totally absent from the moment. They're not even looking at the view. They're just

looking at their phones and posing for TikTok. Just trying to take a minute here and appreciate this beautiful, insane view. I think it's sad because they are too focused on the internet and life. But for me, I prefer people come here to enjoy the view and the city and the culture, but they don't do that for young people. They do. They're all stuck on their phones. This Chongqing experience is not complete without trying hot pot, the communal dining experience where you cook meat, vegetables, and tofu into a simmering pot of spicy broth. They say that

hot pot originated in this city and there are literally thousands of restaurants to choose from. After a failed attempt at the world's largest hot pot restaurant with almost 6,000 seats on a mountain, we finally make it to a tunnel that has a lot more character. It used to be the war shelter in World War II. Oh. When Japan, like, they have bombs and people are killed inside. And now it's a hot pot. And now we're just eating hot pot. It's a hot pot party. This is like the world's longest restaurant of hot pot only inside of this bunker for World War II.

Like, nobody would know about this place unless you're with a local, so I'm so grateful to have Joy with me. The hot pot is so spicy that you can feel and taste the peppers in the air. It's like making me cry as I walk through. The restaurant is so long that they have robots serving the food, bringing it up and down. No joke, we've literally been walking for 10 minutes through this tunnel and there's just more people and more tables and more hot pot. It's the most absurd restaurant I've ever seen in my life. This is a beautiful table of hot pot. All the

different vegetables together. And look how spicy the peppers are in the center. That looks so spicy. It's all peppers, literally. Beautiful. So good. Okay, the plan is we're gonna buy beer and surprise all these old guys with some beer. We're gonna make some new friends right now. Yeah. Welcome to Chongqing! Yay! Yay! Hi, I'm from Fujian. You guys are f***ing hammered. Cheers! Cheers! Oh my god. You're hammered. Hi, mom. Very powerful. Thank you. Chongqing. Mom. Where are you? Oh, I got a face mask. Thank you, thank you. Chongqing. Chongqing is a very

unique place. The people's personality, people's friendly, people's open, that's the thing that's different from other cities. Chongqing people. I've never seen a plastic thing in my life. This is called Baijiu, it's really strong liquor. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Thank you. Come back. Don't go, don't go, don't go. Later, later, later. Oh my god. Oh yay! Wow! Yay! Matei just slammed it down. What do you think about America? I like U.S. dollar. He likes U.S. dollar, he likes America, but they don't like Trump. But the people are different than the

politics. Cheers. Come back, come back. This could be the best meal in the world because you have so many different meats and vegetables going into two different flavors of broth. We have the really spicy one, we have the tomato one, it's mild. It's like a dream come true, hot pot in Chongqing. This is the spicy one. That's really, really spicy. Holy hell that is spicy. Woo! My nose is running like a faucet. Welcome to Chongqing, once more. Wow! Thank you, thank you. Solid, I'm solid. Wow, we just paid the bill. It was 171 renminbis, which is $23 for all

of that, including the drinks. That's why you guys should come to Chongqing. I can't believe how incredible Chongqing has been. Ending my trip with this amazing meal really ties everything together. I came here with three goals. To meet locals, try the best hot pot, and explore the city on a budget of $250 or less. And I did all of that and more. From the young TikTokers on the multi-level streets to the quaint history of the old town, Chongqing has been full of surprises. This place wasn't even on my radar a few months ago, but I can honestly say that

it's now my favorite city in China. Thanks for watching and I'll see you guys in the next episode, where I take you deep into the Xinjiang province to spend time with the amazing Uyghurs and learn about their culture. It's gonna be one of the most special stories I've ever told on this channel, and I'll see you guys next week.