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| Wuzhen's East Side |
The day before we
left on our program’s weekend trip, after going to the visa bureau, I had some
extra time before my haircut (ah! someone new taking care of my poof!), so I
walked around the fake market and bought some 60元 Converse
(~$10). I then wandered into a small tea shop and the owner offered me a cup of
tea, which is pretty typical in those little tea stalls. I had no place to be
so I sat down and chatted with him (his English name is Denny) and we ended up
talking for almost an hour, entirely in Chinese. It was a really nice relaxing
experience, great Chinese practice, and I drank some delicious tea. I arrived
at my hair appointment really early and although I was concerned with finding a
salon that spoke English, I ended up primarily using Chinese anyway.
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| Wuzhen 乌镇 (we climbed that pagoda!) |
Saturday morning we
took a bus for 2.5 hours to Wuzhen, one of China’s most popular water towns. We
spent that day and night in the west side scenic area. This area consists of
alleyways and walking streets (no cars or motorbikes), bridges, and obviously
rivers. It is very small, about 3 km long, and most of the stalls were on the
main streets on each side of the river. There was a large pagoda and temple in
town, as well as a very interesting museum on footbinding, a beautiful flower
field, and an indigo dying center. Wuzhen is known for its indigo, silk, and
chrysanthemum tea (which of course I bought). As we were walking around, we
even witnessed a wedding procession float by. It is apparently tradition for
the newlyweds to ride under all the bridges in the town.
Wuzhen is big on
snacks (小吃) so while as were unable to find any
restaurants with more than two tables (which were all full), we settled on
buying various street food items for dinner. That night, we walked around to
see the town lit up, and fell asleep relatively early in our extremely
comfortable hotel beds.
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| Artsy shot of yummy snack that I had to push and shove to get |
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| Wuzhen's West Side at night |
The next morning, a
few of us woke up at 6:30 (an accomplishment on its own, on my part) to explore
the town while it was still void of hoards of tourists. It was calm and
beautiful, while also relaxing because there were no Chinese people taking
pictures of us foreigners every time we turned around.
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| Early morning Wuzhen |
After filling up at
our continental breakfast buffet (ugh so good), we left the west side and went
to the east side. The east scenic area was similar to the west side, only
smaller. We walked through an ancient bed museum and wandered around, buying
souvenirs and the like. We also took a boat ride that was really pretty and
relaxing, yet too short. Overall it was a nice weekend getaway to relax and
take some pretty pictures, without the stress of a big city and schoolwork. I
would definitely recommend it, although one or two days is the perfect amount
of time.
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