Episode 5: Trip to Wuzhen

A while back, we woke up an an ungodly hour and got onto a bus so that Zoe could take us to the historic water city of Wuzhen. We all imagined a picturesque little town resembling the city of Venice, with people dressed in traditional Chinese clothing guiding us around the wonderful city. When we got there however, we realized that we were mistaken. While Wuzhen is an admittedly beautiful city, the one thing keeping it from being picturesque are the crowds. I'm not sure exactly how many people were there that day, but it reminded me of Expo, which is not something pleasant on narrow roads winding through the buildings of the city.

While I would love to tell the story of Wuzhen, when it came about, why it is so famous and such, our tour guide only spoke Chinese, so we missed out on everything that she said. This wasn't actually that big of an issue, as we quickly lost the rest of our tour group in the first mob of people that we ran into. We wandered throughout the city, and found that it actually is quite an interesting place. We were able to walk through an old pawn shop, a children's school, as well as the many shops that lined the streets. Most of them were not selling the usual tourist-trap items, but were either selling something made by hand such as a wood carving or painting on a scroll, or were selling Chinese antiques, including a samurai sword that I spotted in one shop.

Another highlight of the day was the temple. Situated in the middle of the city, it was not as crowded as the outside and offered a very interesting insight into the religious side of Wuzhen and China itself. Down a narrow pathway inside the temple was an area with buildings that were completely devoid of people. In here, various artifacts were on display, including items owned by famous residents of Wuzhen as well as ancient furniture. This was my favorite part of the city by far.

So although the trip was certainly tarnished by the multitude of people that we had to battle through, it was worthwhile to get a glimpse into a simpler side of China than anything that we have yet to see in Shanghai proper. Hopefully we will get to see more of this during our trip to Beijing.