Exploring Chongqing’s Super 80 Street: A Nostalgic CityWalk with My Parents

Some attractions are famous. Other attractions call out to you, in a quiet way…

When I first heard of Super 80 Street (超级80街) in Nanping, Chongqing, it was the latter. This neighbourhood was no behemoth attraction. No sprawling campus. No world-famous landmark. But it was something that made me want to take my parents there immediately, so they could see what I saw: a street covered in colourful graffiti, old installations, and objects that whispered a deeper story.

It felt like a living time capsule of the 80s, when China was changing fast but still held onto its own particular charm.

Rainfall had just ended over the city, and the late-autumn weather was perfect: cool with lingering moisture in the pavements and the air. It was an ideal day for a CityWalk, and so, that Saturday, we took a walk through this tiny retro neighbourhood.

I didn’t have high expectations. I simply wanted to take a slow day with my parents and enjoy a nice stroll.

But it was more than that. It was a door to their past. A warm hallway that led us directly into my parents’ youth.

Walking down Super 80 Street in Chongqing

Super 80 Street isn’t long. It’s not even really a “street” in the sense that many tourists would understand.

But the second you step inside, you will understand why I love this place so much. Super 80 Street is a nostalgia ride. Colours. Objects. Murals. Installations. Everything you see as you walk from the entrance to the exit is transporting you right back into the 1980s.

It is so obvious that you half expect a yellow Oldsmobile to drive by. Or to see the slightly awkward dance moves from one of John Travolta’s movies.

This is a street that re-creates a decade. A street filled with scenes and textures that form the background of every single story my parents have told me, from the time when they were younger and life was somehow at once harder and simpler.

In other words, this is also a street full of stories they forgot to tell.

The Best Parts of Super 80 Street in Nanping, Chongqing

So what makes this part of Nanping so special?

My parents are in their 60s, but some scenes and installations on the street would not feel out of place in a museum about the 1980s and early 1990s. Simple scenes, everyday objects, people who lived in that era suddenly find a piece of their childhood smiling up at them from the street. A friendly wave across decades.

It was exactly like that for me, watching my parents discover bits and pieces of their childhood.

The rain-washed hills of Chongqing

Rain has a way of changing Chongqing completely.

The hills are less noisy, the streets cleaner, and the whole city suddenly has a matte, wet sheen like the opening scene of a movie.

It was the case with Nanping Houbao that Saturday. The old neighbourhood looked fresh, new, as if all the grime had suddenly been washed off overnight.

My parents and I had parked in the square by the street entrance. From there, the entrance of Super 80 Street is just a short walk down a narrow pathway through narrow lanes. There were still a few late raindrops sliding down the big leaves of the trees above us.

A quiet neighbourhood that sings history

It is not a fancy or glamorous street. Nanping Houbao looks humble, unassuming, and, in some ways, ordinary.

Walking here, you would not consider this a “must-visit” destination if you were alone. But then you come to the NAPING installation at the entrance of Super 80 Street, an enormous pink neon sign that looks like a giant retro telephone display.

Suddenly, this little street comes to life. My mum stopped dead in her tracks, staring at the large telephone keypads, bright colours, and all-too-familiar 1980s style.

It was a moment when my mum was transported back in time. The kind of old home phone that was probably at every living room corner of every Chinese household of the 80s. The kind of object you thought you had lost until you see it again and suddenly realise you have not forgotten it after all.

The giant retro telephone booth

The telephone installation is as grand as a sign can be. Bright, impossible-to-ignore, so large and opulent that it immediately demands attention.

The whole thing looks like a giant public phone that could have been placed on the pavement of a local bus station or by the entrance of a market.

My mum looked at it with a pensive expression and I could imagine her thinking:

“Oh. This is something I used to do all the time. I used to call my friends from here…”

The oversized alarm clock sculpture

Further down the street, a giant green alarm clock greets you on a tiled platform. All the insides of the clock are visible, so it becomes more than just an interesting-looking old clock. It is an invitation to look deeper, to see the details, the inner workings.

My dad paused in front of it, inspecting the clock as he would have a long time ago. He came to my mum and me, and simply said:

“It was a slower time. But memories somehow were sharper.”

The giant wall mural of 80s people holding old telephones

You cannot miss it. A long mural wall painted in warm red, mustard yellow, and teal blue features people from different decades and age groups holding “big brother” phones.

It is 80s style at its best: huge colour contrasts, saturated patterns, oversized fonts, children walking along the wall and adults holding phones that must have been the height of luxury in those days.

And then my father walked past, his silhouette appearing on top of the painted character. For a split second, it looked like he was part of the art. It was the work of the universe, a spontaneous installation made by the painter and by the street.

The green train carriages under the leaves

If there is a single picture that symbolises this walk for me, it is this one.

The green train carriage, sitting there under a row of large, multi-coloured leafy trees. It is exactly how you would imagine a long-distance train from decades ago to look. Cream and green paint job, small circular windows, metal steps. A carriage number visible on the side.

Everything about this train shouts “LOOK AT ME I AM OLD”. The tracks beneath it have not been used for years. They are purely decorative now. But they still make me think of those old journeys before high-speed rail took over China.

My dad immediately leant out of the train window, giggling like a child.

In that moment, my dad wasn’t a retiree, or a father. He was just himself.

Super 80 Street is more than just nostalgia — it is honest storytelling

In some ways, Super 80 Street recreates an entire time. A city of smaller scenes within a street of smaller scenes within a city of smaller scenes.

The street isn’t contrived. It is not trying to make everything “perfect” or flashy.

Instead, this is a street of simple scenes, loud colours, and a little nostalgia from my childhood told honestly, as it used to be.

Street corners like old shops

At one point we passed a small shop decorated with a long counter and tiny shelves on the wall. The shelves were covered in old-fashioned posters and advertisements, each with its own retro Chinese brand.

I could see my mum mentally drifting back to school days when we walked past:
“This is how we used to buy our snacks after school.”

Simple memories made colourful again by a single object, a single corner in the middle of the street.

The old loudspeakers and public notice board

In another corner of the street was a large red-brick pillar with big loudspeakers attached to it. The old loudspeakers like the ones that were used to broadcast propaganda, public messages, or even the local weather in the past.

My dad pointed at the speakers and started to tell me stories about how people used to listen to these in the evenings, to hear news updates.

Vintage Coca-Cola bottles and cartoon sculptures

The oversized Coca-Cola bottle was another playfully kitsch element on the street. The tall, gangly cartoon sculpture was another detail that added life to the street. My dad leapt to the phone with the utmost glee and took a silly picture by the retro motorcycle.

The highlight for me was realising that for a while, my parents were not just walking down the street. They were playing on it.

Enjoying the city with your parents

It has become one of my favourite things to travel with my parents. You see them in places that they have not seen in years, or ever.

The streets, the shops, the food — all of it becomes a colourful doorway to the past.

As we were walking down Super 80 Street, my parents were talking a lot. Laughing a lot.

They were more expressive than usual, but then again, it is easy to be expressive in a street that is itself an open expression of colour and joy.

My mum talked about calling her friends on old phones that you needed to insert coins to use. My dad reminisced about the movies that were shown on old-style propaganda-type public notice boards.

They even went back to those slow green trains for family trips.

Stories that would not be remembered in modern malls
Stories that would not be thought of on hyper-developed streets

But that they remembered because, in the end, so much of our past is in these objects that have been sitting there quietly all these years. We are built around these simple scenes and installations in our past.

Walking down in slow motion

Super 80 Street is not a place you walk fast. There is no paid entry, no single pathway to follow, no reason to “complete” anything or visit a must-see attraction.

You simply walk. Down one pavement and up the other. You stop when something captures your attention. You move on when you get bored. You linger when there is something that interests you.

In a lot of ways, it is the perfect way to take a citywalk in Chongqing.

Walking around this corner, I saw my parents laugh, take silly pictures, play like children, and find old pieces of their life in a part of the city they thought they had not seen in years.

Sometimes, the scenery is not the destination.

Watching your parents walk down a street full of their old memories was not the main point. But then again, sometimes the point of a trip is creating a series of moments like that. Honest. Simple. Intimate.

Getting to Super 80 Street

Address: 92 Nanping St, Sigongli, Nan An Qu, Chong Qing Shi, China, 400066 (重庆市南岸区南坪街道南坪新街92)

Final Thoughts: Take the Road Less Travelled

Super 80 Street is a hidden gem in Chongqing’s Nanping District. It was not a place I chose because of its fame. It was the kind of place that called to me one day, saying:

“Visit me with your parents. See if I can make their eyes light up.”

In many ways, Super 80 Street is one of the best neighbourhoods to visit on the southern side of Chongqing. It is small, but full of personality. Quiet, but full of emotion. Simple, but incredibly deep.

If you are traveling with parents or older relatives who have grown up in the 80s or even the 90s, then this will be a magical place for you too. It will make them reminisce, smile, recall small details of a past that suddenly comes back in colour.

And even if you are younger, the murals, the installations, and the scenic locations make this an excellent spot for a CityWalk.

For us, Super 80 Street was not just a street to walk down. It was a street to take my parents down, a street that went back in time so that they could see their past again and laugh at it.

I hope you enjoy it, too.