Zhouzhuang, China.....ancient fishing village

                                   

Thursday, Valentine’s Day, we awoke early…again and by 7:00am we were out the door heading to Zhouzhuang, a 90 minute bus ride out of Shanghai.

Larry had read about the old canal town surrounded by Nanhu Lake, Baixian Lake and Dianshan Lake….comparable to our US Great Lakes. 

                                                           A painting of Zhouzhuang Canals
This ancient town has a history of more than 900 years with many houses built during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Our trip was confirmed when Larry had a wild idea to email Kathy and Kristy to ask them to google the information we needed to get to Zhouzhuang. 

Google is not allowed in China. Kathy responded immediately giving us maps and specific directions of where to go to catch the local bus to this ancient city. There’s more than one way to “skin a cat”.

So we took the metro to the Shanghai Indoor Stadium and then found the busy bus station across the street. The bus only left at 9:30am and returned at 4:15pm each day. We had about an hour to spare, so we found some breakfast before boarding the bus. 

After enjoying the hour and a half bus ride through the city and into the countryside, we were ushered onto a golf cart that took us to the lakeside...

                               for a water taxi ride to the ancient city of Zhouzhuang. 

                                 The wooden boat was painstakenly carved and......warm inside. Wooho

!

 It was a cold, damp day….drizzly at times and you could see your breath. Larry and I had layered up with water repellent jackets, hats and gloves knowing we were going to be out in the cold most of the day. 

Our water taxi puttered from Baixian Lake to Nanhu Wharf giving us ample opportunity to “visit” with several  Chinese tourists riding along with us. These boys enjoyed practicing their good manners and English with Larry.

We were told of the area’s infamous fishermen who tamed birds that would dive into the lake to bring back a fine catch.  

We spotted the  ancient traditional fishing boats that used these birds to catch fish. Because of the many boats it looks like they are still fishing the old traditional way.

The cage at the back of the boat is where the bird is kept until ready to fish.

This was depicted through the lifelike fisherman actually on a boat on the lake.

We followed a walkway through the Garden of Fugui with gorgeous leafy vegetables growing....as pretty as any flower garden I have ever seen.

Larry and I hiked over the water on a wooden walkway to see some giant, manmade metal Lilly Pads. 

We also spotted the bulbs of the real Lilly Pads floating in the water and could only imagine how gorgeous this must be when the real ones were blooming in the spring.

                                                  

There were so many wonderful sights to take in while walking through this ancient watertown.

                                                                 A floating houseboat

                                                           So many bridges, each with unique characteristics!

We experienced our first squat toilet.... Surprisingly there have been many western toilets. Back in 2001 when we had our first visit to China, we never had a western toilet unless we were in a hotel. 

Even without the sun, the refection of this gorgeous setting was spectacular!

Goldfish spotted in the canal

We enjoyed the day walking over gorgeous bridges and taking in some very, very old oriental architecture.

                                           We visited the Quanfu Buddhist Temple as well as

                                                                the Chengxu Taoist Temple.

The walkways were painstakingly designed....very  beautiful to my artistic eye.

                                                        The architecture was fascinating!

         

We look cold, but we were so thankful for having a drier afternoon...no rain....hallaluja!

Larry took me on a romantic (remember it is Valentine's Day) sculling boat ride on a water taxi down and around several canals.

We observed many shops that shared their trades with the  local tourists…

Critters woven with reed,

wool spinning into thread, 

weaving fabric, 

                                                                      ornamental fan making,
embroidery, fine tailoring, wine making, weed weaving, wood carving, jewelry, horn/antler sculpting….

                                     Numerous stone bridges crossed the Venice like canals

                 Most surprisingly, the locals asked to have pictures with me...I think because of my light                                                 colored hair....I really got some stares today!

We crossed over the last most picturesque bridge when leaving to return to the bus….Quan’gong Bridge….

              Passing through the New Memorial Archway that led us out of the city of Kunshan.

                      Larry and I had a lengthy walk back to the bus but it was full of amazing sites.

We met the bus at 4:10 and traveled back to Shanghai experiencing some of the heavy commuter traffic.  We had a lovely dinner before returning back to our Airbnb. What a day! It certainly will be a Valentine’s Day’ that I’ll remember for a long, long time.