Zhouzhuang

From our Trip to China May-June 2008, I am presenting a series of Blog Posts on specific, hopefully interesting, topics.

Our second topic is Zhouzhuang, pronounced Zow-Zong. It is China's largest water town. Note that you can know click on the photos to view larger versions.


From the pass we purchased: Zhouzhuang originally built in 1086, is just like a shining pearl among Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou. It is surrounded by water and boats are needed even for short trips. All streets in the town are built along the river and bridges and streets are connected with each other. As the famous historic and cultural town of China, Zhouzhuang is on the Reserve List for the World Culture Heritage and conferred the Dubai International Best Practice to Improve Living Environment of the United Nations.


View Larger Map
Wikipedia states Zhouzhuang is 30 miles south-east of Suzhou, The above map should give you an idea where it is in relation to Shanghai.


What made this place even more interesting was that it was a town inside a town - much like Beijing's Hutongs. We were made to buy tickets and have our pictures printed on them. This was not for security purposes, but I suppose to add to the Tourist effect by giving you an extra memento of being there.


As you can see, lots of people and lots of boats. The town was very well preserved, but very crowded and filled with shops selling all kinds of trinkets.


The tour we were on took us through the restored local residents around the river. Above is a 'sitting room' where the husband and wife of the house would welcome guests and perhaps discuss business.


This was particularly interesting. It actually a large 1" thick slab of stone (marble?) While it looks like a typical old-style Chinese painting, its actually all natural colors and textures in the stone.


Here is a nice quiet, beautiful garden out back of one of the homes.


It would not have been right to visit a River Town and not get on the river. So we took a short trip around the town on one of the covered boats. Pleasant and relaxing.


Wren San, Wren Hi (People Mountain, People Sea). Essentially this means more people than the Mountain, more people than the Sea. It got quite crowded until mid-day, then people starting leaving. We think that all the tour groups descend on Zhouzhuang in the morning and then move on in the afternoon. We had to move on as well as it started raining.

Pudong

From our Trip to China May-June 2008, I will present a series of Blog Posts on specific, hopefully interesting, topics.

The first topic is Pudong, a district of Shanghai.

Here is a short video scanning up the Eastern Pearl TV Tower in Pudong



This should give you a sense of size of that tower. It is one of the tallest in the world. If you have the audio on, you can hear the America music playing in the background. We heard American music all over China - apparently it is very popular, especially the old stuff.

We went up into the tower and took some photos out the windows on the "Space Module" - the highest point you can go.


The photo shows 350 meters, or 1,148 feet! It was a bit overcast that day, so photos out the windows did not come out very good.


Here is the Jing Mao Tower (in the front) and the Shanghai World Financial Center (behind and still under construction). The Shanghai World Financial Center is currently the tallest building in the world at 492 meters or 1,614 feet. It was to be completed in April, 2008, and we were hoping on going up into it to the observation walk along its trapezoidal hole, but could not as it was still under construction.


Here is another photo of all the construction going on in Pudong and around the Eastern Pearl TV Tower.


Finally, one last photo looking down showing the Huang Pu River. This is the international shipping route for all things coming in and out of Shanghai (and much of China), and so is very busy day and night.


Once we came back down and outside, we were met by throngs of people wrapped up in Olympic Fever! (My wife Ping is in the black shirt in the middle) Thousands of people had descended on the streets around the tower as the Olympic Torch was to come down this street at any time. It was hot, tons of people, we didn't know when the torch was to arrive and we had many other sites to see that day, so we did not stick around.


A few days later we went to the river front on the Shanghai side see downtown (and Pudong) all lit up. You can see the French influence of the architecture in the buildings on the Shanghai side. Across the river is Pudong and all its modern building lit very brightly. The music in the background is from local musicians and from recordings playing from street vendors selling everything from food to pearls to jade to toys.


Our final shot is that of Pudong with the Eastern Pearl standing proud.