Last day in China saw us going on our very last one day tour. Yay. We were bound for 周庄 Zhouzhuang is kinda like Venice, except that it's not. Haha. So basically it's a little town surrounded by waters and is situated about an hour away from Shanghai. Since it was a one day Zhouzhuang tour, we got to sleep in a little bit and started the tour at 8 am. Phew.
First stop for the day was at some temple. Can't remember the name now and it was pretty crappy anyway so i didn't take any photos. But we did buy some street food (told you I was getting more adventurous) right outside the temple.
Mum buying baked sweet potatoes.
The ah pek weighed the potatoes using old skool scales.
I was taking photo of the stall next to the sweet potato guy and the lady seller said to me "buy some since you took some photos"... not in an obnoxious way, so I did.
Apparently a popular snack in Suzhou...
Verrrry small amount of red bean stuffing... too small if you ask me.
We boarded a boat to get to Zhouzhuang.
We also had to take a photo to put on our ticket for some reason... not that it was checked at any stage during the day.
These chu people were annoying us because they were smoking throughout the whole way at the temple. We gave them the famous Hii deadly stare. I think they knew we hated their smokey guts.
Sceneries along the way... the obligatory pagoda of course.
Love these trees especially when they are grown by waters... growing up, we used to have a few near a stream in Sibu town near our primary school and we would freak ourselves out saying that was where ghosts live. Bahahaha.
Row of townhouses... popular with people that live in Shanghai as their weekend retreats apparently.
Arrived at Zhouzhuang.
First thing I saw was fishies being dried in the sun.....
and then sold to the public.
We visited the former residence of Shen Wan San, the first millionaire of Jiangnan in the early Ming Dynasty. The whole architectural complex is of the Qing's style and occupies an area of more than 2,000 square meters (half an acre). Over 100 rooms are divided into three sections and each one is connected by arcades and aisles. The first is the water gate and the wharf, where Shen's family moored boats and washed clothes. The middle part includes the gate tower, the tearoom and the main hall. The last section is the two-storied dwelling which consists of several buildings which are quite different from the main hall, more comfortable and refined in pattern and atmosphere.
This was the living room where they would entertain guests.
These paintings were meant to look like windows... hehehe that's one way to make sure there is inside outside flow I guess.
Right above the paintings was a hole that led to the attic.
There used to be a board over the hole and the daughter of the owner would hide behind it and peek out to have a sneaky look at the guy being matchmade with her. Heheheheh.
This was the seating area in the ladies' living room. In the olden days, men and women do not mix socially so the ladies would entertain lady guests in their own quarters.
This table was funny. Check out the pretty layer of carved wood near the bottom. In the olden days, ladies of noble birth would have their feet bound. The smaller their feet were (3 inches being the best), the more attractive they were to the opposite sex. Men were sick, sick, sick. But Shen Wan San loved his daughter very much and did not want her to go through the torture of getting her feet bound, so he allowed her to skip this. Since her feet were HUGE like Ah Here's, he made this table so she could hide her feet aka shame underneath the table beneath the carved wood. Bahahah.
Idiots throwing money at his bronze statue for luck.
The most interesting part of the house was the kitchen. There were people in there making real snacks for sale!
Raw and ready to be steamed.
The color was so vibrant but it tasted very floury and chewy. Bleh.
Pretty scenery like this was a dime a dozen in Zhouzhuang.
One of the ladies in our group thought that this was appropriate footwear for a day tour... even I had more sense (and taste) than that.
Surely these would have been comfier?
Lunch was at a restaurant somewhere that the tour guide took us to. Some of the people in our tour decided that it was too expensive and left. Lunch was not part of the tour ticket, you see.
Mum's favourite and famous Zhouzhuang product - braised pig's trotters.
Heart attack on a plate but oh what a way to go.
Some kind of veges.
Obligatory fish dish
Tortoise, Andrew??
After that, we got 2 hours to wander around the place by ourselves so we went shopping around the many many many MANY souvenir and clothing shops along the narrow streets.
Last but not least, 2 obligatory stops at a silk factory and a jade factory. The stupid thing was that the people at the jade factory used the EXACT same ruse we heard at Suzhou. Mum and Dad heckled the guy A LOT. Bahah stupid sneaky people.
There was a reason why NO ONE bought anything at the silk factory. The tour guide was not happy.
One of the dudes I observed standing around while waiting for the annoying tour guide to come out of the silk factory. He did have his boxer shorts around his armpits but must have adjusted it by the time I took this pic. Sorry, ladies.
Mum and Dad worked their usual magic and talked to the randoms again. Turned out that there were a number of Foochow people from Foochow in our tour.
Surprise surprise, Dad was best buds with the annoying trio by the end of the day. Hehehh.... i steered clear.
And that was the end of our China trip. Yaaaaaaay. Home sweet home.
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