Old Town of WuZhen

Last weekend Micah and I went to the old town of Wu Zhen (you can google it), in the north of Zhejiang, where I live. The only bus in the morning left at 6:55 so we had to get up really early, but it was good cause by the time we changed buses once and found our way to the old town it was already afternoon. The town is something like 1300 years old and they say people have been living in that area for more than 6500 years. So we spent the whole afternoon and evening inside this old town that had all these canals running through it.
We could have taken a boat, but we decided we're not that touristy.









Inside they had all kinds of artisan workshops to show some of the old stuff from the town. A lot of things were built out of wood, and hand carved. Things like door posts, window shutters, and beds.






They also had their own brewery (do you call a liquor making place a brewery??) of local rice wine. They were using the ancient method from that town to ferment some horrible smelling bai jiu, 白酒. But of course they were really just making the wine for the tourists, it was still interesting to see the distillation and fermentation process in the big clay jars.


And what would a tourist town with canals and boats be without a Kungfu boat? Certainly these old men performing Kungfu aren't just enjoying their favorite pastime.






We rushed at the end of the day to make it to the famous 'Bridge inside a Bridge', 桥里桥. When we read about it on the tourist map it sounded a lot more interesting, saying that these two bridges which connect at one end and cross two intersecting canals can each be seen inside the closer bridge, like 2 rainbows, from both sides of the bridges. But when we got there we were a little disappointed because yes, you can see the bridges but only a little part or it. Anyways, they were pretty bridges, just like all the bridges in the old town. Oh, and I should mention that the west part of the town has been completely rebuilt about 20 years ago to look like the ancient town. So the buildings and bridges aren't even original.






We decided to stay in a hostel inside the town, which was kinda expensive, but worth it because we got to see all the canals at night and the sunset and sunrise the next day. We got up super early, hence why we saw the sunrise, to go to Shanghai.




So, in this super touristy old town the only calm time of day is before sunrise. Its so calm that you can see the fog sitting on top of the still water of the canals. No boats are moving, all the boatmen are still asleep on their boats. The streets are deserted and all the souvenir shops are boarded up from the night. The streets are clean and all the scenic spots are open. It's so nice at 6:30 you almost feel as if you really are in an ancient town.






And I hope the picture of the sunrise speaks for itself.


We missed the bus at 7:15 cause we thought it was at 7:50, so we took a bus to another city to catch the train to Shanghai. We spent the afternoon shopping for fakes, it's the thing to do in Shanghai, they have really good fake watches, jackets, bags, or anything else, but you have to know how to bargain hard because the first price they give you is at least 5x too expensive. It was kind of fun bargaining and trying to get the price it should cost, but also supper stressful.

At night we walked around the French concession and the Bund, the old colonial facade of the west side of the river.