Our May 1 National Holiday Staycation in Shanghai

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Another national holiday. Really? We have been on the go a lot this year, and it's been wonderful to see and explore. This weekend, after some debate, we decided to stay in town and do day trips. It's just a 3 day weekend with Friday, May 1 being Labor Day here in China. As with all holidays, the trains are packed and often sold out and the flights are full and expensive, so we opted for a less expensive excursion.

Friday

I had been wanting to visit a water town--often called the Venice of China--since we arrived last summer. We missed the window between too hot and not hot enough and decided to try again in the spring. Spring has sprung, so off we went to Zhujiajiao. Joo-jah-jow is close to how it's pronounced. We all struggled with it and I have a bunch of video bloopers of Emily trying (and failing) to say it correctly. I'd put them on Youtube except YouTube is currently banned in China. Another topic for another day perhaps.

I tried to get train tickets to Suzhou earlier this week but the morning trains were sold out. Then I talked to a driver about driving us there, but that seemed a little over the top money wise. So in the end we rerouted to Zhujiajiao and took the bus.

I Googled my heart out and found info on a sight seeing bus. The only issue was I found one post that said this particular bus I wanted was no longer in service. This one post was on a website I use a lot but it seemed false and we gambled that it was. Sure enough, the bus was still running and I will make a point of posting a correction on that site later. Must help my fellow expats out when I can.

We arrived at the bus station after some wandering around in the general area. Nothing is simple here. The fact that there's a site seeing bus at "the Stadium" metro stop does not mean it's easy to find. The metro stops tend to have many exits and it's never explicitly stated in any books as to how to exactly find the place/restaurant/thing you are looking for. Luckily we found the bus station and queued up for tickets in one of many ticket lines. We didn't know they were for different destinations until we waited for 10-15 minutes and found out we were one line off and needed the line to our right. Back to the back of the next and correct line we went. Growl. Take 2.

A sample of the exchange (conducted in Mandarin--blah represents words I didn't understand)
"hello. we want to go to Zhujiajiao"
"blah blah blah. Zhujiajiao blah blah blah blah blah don't have blah blah ticket, four people? blah blah"
"yes please. 4 tickets to Zhujiajiao"
"don't have blah blah blah"

This went on and finally after the ticket agent motioned for the kids to be move to a line on the wall to determine if they were still short enough for a free ride, and the unfortunate confusion caused when Emily stood on her tippy toes thinking she couldn't get on the bus if she didn't meet the height regulations (we later explained the difference between the height check for a ride at the amusement park and a ride on a bus in China) we bought 4 tickets instead of 3. Growl again.

Off to find our bus with no real understanding if we had really bought tickets for particular times or if these were just open round trip tickets for today (turned out to be the latter). I asked a few people in uniform for the bus to Zhujiajiao and we were pointed outside and finally to our bus. We boarded and found four seats and very soon after, off we went. The ride was expected to take about an hour but it was a bit longer due to traffic. Our driver did a few really hard stops and we and our fellow passengers yelled and gasped each time he slammed on the brakes. Luckily nobody was hurt but I was on guard the entire trip with my arm on Emily's teeny self next to me. she was in the inside seat too which seemed safer. Oh, we were the only non-Asian people on the bus besides one other guy. Seems most of our expat peers don't do the buses. I guess because many of them have cars and drivers but the bus is a very good mode of transportation.

We got off the bus and the ancient water town was, as all such towns are, full of tourists. As we started walking into the ancient town, I got that nervous feeling that we'd be in crowds all day. There were just so many people. However, we soon came to a point, a crossroads if you will, where we could go left with the masses, or right and wander into the residential section of the town. We went right, of course. The goal for us was not to fight our way to the stands of things being sold. These are the same things we can buy in Shanghai. We were there to see something new.

We saw bridges that really did remind us of Venice. The town is built around a waterway and the bridges connect the 2 sides which are lined with houses, shops and docks for the boats. We saw boats with passengers on the river and also many boats docked by people's homes. We saw people washing clothes in the river, other people fishing in the river and many people doing their daily chores in and outside their homes. We greeted many local people as we walked down their streets and peered into their gardens and open doors. Most people waved and greeted us and we got some great shots of the real part of town. I was so glad that the kids realized this was a better way to tour the area. They know it's what Mark and I prefer, but they seemed to prefer it too and appreciate that we were not doing the typical tourist thing at this tourist destination.

We saw a chicken and several dogs and a lizard that Nathan declared was "basking". We did not touch it or poke it with a stick as he suggested to determine if it was alive. We left it to bask in the sun. The streets were pretty quiet, though we passed the occasional person or people on the streets and alleys we wandered. In one doorway we greeted a nice older woman who was with a young boy we assumed was her grandson. She said hello big sister and hello big brother to Emily and Nathan in Chinese. The boy was playing with a basket of mahjong tiles. Similar to our dominoes, these tiles make great stacking toys and there's particular click-clack noise that I'm sure he was thrilled by as he mixed the tiles with his cute little hands. I asked if we could take his picture and the grandma had him pose for us. We are constantly posing for others, so I am quite comfortable asking for the same favor from Chinese people we meet. We are fascinated by them, they are fascinated by us and I'm sure we all wonder, "what's so special about me?"

One other interesting thing we noticed were these boats made of concrete. Not sure how that even works, but they really were made out of concrete. We saw this style of boat being used for river cleanup. Emily applauded a crew of cleaners who floated by with large nets for scooping garbage out of the water. She is a fan of the earth and all things environmental these days.

We got hungry after a while, and decided we should brave our way through a lunch. We kept walking by places and debating which place to try. While standing outside one restaurant, I noticed an older man taking our picture. He saw me see him and put his camera down and smiled. I motioned that it was fine, and he took our picture. Then I said it was my turn and he came over and Mark took my picture with this guy. He was laughing so hard and his friends were all laughing and nodding with big smiles. We made his
day.

Finally a guy saw us looking dazed and confused just motioned us into his friend's place and we ate there. The restaurants are small, local spots, run by people in the town and nobody at the restaurant we went to spoke English. That's okay. We have been studying Mandarin, right? The language barrier was pretty high though. We did pointing, we asked for things we liked, got a lot of no's back and then a kind stranger came over to our table. In perfect English, he said "you guys need some help?" and he helped us order the rest of our meal. The first thing I asked was for confirmation on what we'd ordered--we had done okay up to that point. We really did have cucumbers, a green vegetable dish and bamboo shoots coming. My picks. Mark wanted the famous pork dish, sold by the piece, and also a fish. He went to the fish bucket and picked the type he wanted. Talk about fresh. Swimming one minute, laid out before us the next. Head and tail included--this doesn't shock any of us anymore. The kids didn't eat any of the fish, and it had a lot of bones, so I only had a bit, but it was good.We wanted Tsing Dao beer but all they had was Bud. Hilarious. So we had a giant, not so cold, bottle of Bud with our feast.

We decided not to do a boat ride after lunch since we were really hot, the lines were long for the boats, and we've done similar boat rides in other places. We did a bit more wandering and then headed back to the bus where we quickly boarded a full bus to Shanghai and made it home without incident.

Mission accomplished.

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Comments

[nathan slaven]

Great blog mom! I had a lot of fun in Zhu jia jiaio.

[Linda]

Great blog, Suzanne. Laughed out loud at the amusement park ride v. bus ride line. Yay for turning right. Yes on the lizard basking.