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Walking across Fengsheng Bridge
Everyone with their newly bought umbrellas8am was almost too early today, so sore from working out yesterday...but that's when we all hopped on the bus for our scheduled and free field trip to Zhujiajiao, a canal town known as the Tiny "Venice of the East" and one of the four ancient towns technically in the Qingpu District of Shanghai, but really right outside (1 hour drive).
Zhujiajiao is an ancient water town well-known throughout China more than 1700 years old. With an area of 47 square kilometers, the little fan-shaped town contains the intersections of various rivers and 26 lanes (acted as a large distribution hub in ancient times) including the Caogang River. It is said that to visit Zhujiajiao without seeing the bridges means that you have not really seen Zhujiajiao! There are 36 bridges including the ancient Fangsheng Bridge and Lang Bridge. The city also hosts two temples: Town God's Temple (over 200 years old) and the Baoguo Temple, a branch of the Shanghai Jade Temple. Another famous attraction of the town is Ke Zhi Yuan or "Ma Gardens", a manorial garden named after Ma Wenqin - its former host. This is the first place we visited.
The garden was a bit
smaller than the ones we saw in Suzhou and the Yuyuan Gardens back in Old Town of Shanghai, however I enjoyed its square walking path arrangement, wider rivers, bright flowers, and large mortared rock structures. One could even be used as a playground or shady cave. There were also some random historical rooms and shops including a wax museum scene and a famous paper-cut-out shop. We got there so early only one shop was open, ha!
We walked along the Caogang River to the Fangsheng Bridge and stopped for a few pictures. The "life-like" lions (according to one of my guides) on the bridge were about 4 inches tall and not very life-like, but I guess they were somewhat impressive for the time. I tried to take a few candid pictures of the locals' daily lives, cause this would be one of the smallest towns I would visit while in China...but I think I failed, ha. After Winnie one of our graduate coordinators showed us where lunch would be, Parker, Matt, Sam, and I broke off from the group and visited the south side of town. We quickly arrived at the Qing Dynasty Post Office - first modern post
office in Shanghai! Established in ????. Next we contemplated doing a boat ride, despite the hazy river, but decided to visit Town God's Temple first. Though we saw some very cute kittens by the boat rentals!
Just about anything you can think of doing at this temple costs money - praying, kneeling, incense burning, touching anything especially the bell...probably breathing, haha. The temple contains three treasures - the bracket stage, the wood-carved beams, and a large size vertical painted scroll. After some pressuring, Ted rang the bell but soon had to hide to avoid being charged - check the video, ha. The tour guide wasn't doing such a great job, so Dr. Chen introduced me to a Taoist deity called Guanyin (Goddess of Mercy) who is well-known for being able to hear and understand anyone's prayer, no matter how small.
We saw a slightly tall building (actually the tallest we could probably access) about 4 stories at the second temple - the Baguo Temple - and used one of tickets to get into the site. It was the first time I'd seen actual monks moving about and using the temple while we visited it! So of course I
cheesily snapped a picture with one, ha. Baguo contained a simple but beautiful garden along with the statue of Sakyamuni (made of the Burmese white jade) and a one-thousand year-old gingko tree...that we didn't find. However, we did go up the building which turned out to be a bell tower, pry open the windows to get a good view and ring the bell! At lunch, everyone agreed that we had seen enough of Zhujiajiao, some bored out of their mind, and Dr. Chen suggested taking us to a Silk Factory Museum and a Tea Shop where they would show us how to taste/sample tea. Though, we ended up having to skip the Tea Shop and instead visit a Pearl Factory. But at least now I can tell the difference between real and fake pearls! Now if only I could do that with jade...
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