Monday, August 25, 2014

Wuzhen, Day 2 - Part 1 (Wuzhen Water Village)

Day 2 started off with our trip to Wuzhen, a historic scenic town in northern Zhejiang Province, approximately 130km southwest from Shanghai which is famous for its water village...Travel time is around 2 hours by bus.
we departed from the city at around 9am, passing by the streets and watching the morning rush of the Shanghainese working folks. While most of the working class drove, many do walks, take subways and even cycle to work.
the highways connecting from Shanghai to Wuzhen and it's neighbouring town are very well constructed. I guess China has been putting lotsa effort in boosting up their image. Huge toilet building being built at the rest area, police booth set up along the highways and clear signboards everywhere.
We reached there about 11, it was sunny but cold. Wuzhen Water Village is a popular tourist spot...visitor need to purchase ticket at the entrance booth, but ours have been paid ;-)
the scenic view as what u normally seen in some Chinese movies
despite the crowds...this place looks absolutely perfect for dating photo shooting
crowds everywhere, but there are also some secluded corners...u can easily got lost in this village
we took the sampan cruise along the river...some 15 minutes ride to the other side of the village.
plenty of houses have been converted into home-stay, while there are some original tenants who are still staying in those houses. I wonder how would they survive the nuisance of visitors passing by every day, peeking in and snapping photos, is like no privacy living in there.
Here are some local specialties in this famous town...seriously I dunno what are the other 2 bowls...
local cakes...
bought some of it, but dun enjoy them much...is all flour with flavouring and coloring, nothing special.
some houses are in dilapidated state, but surprisingly it has occupants!
below is one of the pictures taken from the bridge...
went into one of the exhibits hall and saw some wood carvings of the ancient scholars
and here's one olden days fire rescue station
all-in-all walking around the village is pretty boring if u dislike olden-days architecture...our visit is mostly to see the architecture and scenery, but with the crowds, one can hardly enjoy the scene..
Anyhow, our group were given freedom to linger around to do our shopping...We disperse our way and meet up at the village restaurant for lunch in an hour later...

6 comments:

RealGunners said...

I can imagine my favorite Wu Xia scenes happening here. Yang Guo and Xiao Long Nu those :D

mun said...

Yes I agree with you that it can be pretty boring for those who are not interested in olden style architexture. I have been to Tong Li another waterways village tourist spot. Quite similar to your photos here.

Reanaclaire said...

Yes, I like coming by here too last time.. reminded me of those ancient time fighting series.. If not mistaken, Suchow is also something like this... the bridge is the famous landmark...

Nux V said...

RealGunners: haha, those kinda sword fighting scenes? seldom watch, too classic for me..haha

Mun: Tong Li? nearby Shanghai? Btw, to kill boredom, there are still some stalls around in this water village, at least can shop for souvenirs;-)

Reanaclaire: yea, probably Suzhou is similar too. I din go to Suzhou, but I guess most water village are about the same.

mun said...

Tong Li is a town on the outskirt of Suzhou. We took a bus from Shanghai there for a day trip visit. It was either zhoujiazhuang or tongli and we were recommended to go tong li because they say less tourists go to tong li.

Small Kucing said...

The wood carvings looks lovely. so nice that it still existed till today

St Michael, Barbados

During the weekdays, the driver would picked us (me & colleague) from the apartment at 8am daily. Sometimes he would use different route...