On Friday, October 17, I went on a Community Center of
Shanghai tour to Zhujiajiao with my friends Sandy Foley, Sarah Smith, Jen Manna and her son Brian.
Zhujiajiao is an ancient town located in the Qingpu District of Shanghai, although it took us nearly two hours to get there from our part of Shanghai. Our tour consisted of the 5 of us plus 2 elderly Chinese women and three Austrian tourists. The guide spoke excellent English and was very informative.
Zhujiajiao may be one of the most well-known ancient water
towns near Shanghai, with unique old bridges running across narrow
streams, small rivers shaded by willow trees and fresh local cuisine. However, Zhujiajiao is also a tourist town - most of the old buildings in the heart of town have been turned into shops, restaurants and tea houses, all selling the same things I've seen in every other water town.
We started our tour at some lovely gardens of the Zhu family which originally settled the town. We got to see a demonstration of paper cutting, which is a beautiful art form. It's amazing to me that they make elaborate paper cutting art with no pattern or guide, just by free-form cutting. The prices were very reasonable, so several of us bought some traditional art work.
The gardens were peaceful and, for a first for me in a water town garden tour, actually contained a garden - a vegetable garden and an area where they were growing rice. Not much rice, though, as the guide said it's mostly a place for parents to stop and tell their children to study hard or they will end up in the rice patties. I always love the rock formations. Our guide said that they took the limestone rocks, put them in the water for 200 years and then sculpted them into the formations we now see. I even found one that looked like an elephant to me.
After touring the garden, we went out on the main streets of the water town, walking along the edge of the canals, to see the shops and boats cruising on the water. We got to see locals selling their food, vegetables, and fish, including just-caught and cleaned fillets. I don't consider it fresh water fish, however, given how far the water is from fresh. We couldn't even see many fish swimming in the water of the canals, as it was so dirty. But, there was a lot of interest in the cleaning of the fish, anyway.
We walked through the town and made our way to a Shanghai-nese restaurant for dinner. Once again, I had checked with the tour guides ahead of time and told they couldn't guarantee any of the food would be allergen-free, so I had to bring my own lunch. Given the cost of these tours, I really wish they'd make lunch optional, so I wouldn't have to pay for food I'm not able to eat. My friends were mostly uncertain of the food as well, at least to start, but decided that much of it was pretty good. During lunch, we learned that the Austrian family we were traveling with were in Shanghai visiting family who run the Zotter Chocolate store we had just visited on our tour the previous Tuesday. I was so surprised, as they live near Graz, Austria, where Samantha had visited the Zotter Chocolate Factory last fall during her semester abroad.
After lunch, we continued our tour of the town, including the famous Fangsheng Bridge. We made our way over to Shanghai's first
post office, which is about 300 years old. Fortunately, Zhujiajiao was not as crowded on a Friday afternoon as water towns sometimes are, but it was still quite busy. The pleasant surprise was that the traffic on the way back to Pudong was not nearly as heavy as we expected.
The tour was interesting and the company was fun, although I may have seen enough water towns. While the canals and bridges are beautiful, the villages have become so tourist-oriented that they feel very similar. Our tour guide told us that many people sell or rent out their homes in the center of these towns to stores and restaurants and become so wealthy that they buy the newly constructed homes that are popping up everywhere on the outskirts of town. The only people actually living in much of the old town are the poor who live in the hovels that seem to always be falling down. It's actually a little sad and the constant calls from the shop keepers to buy their wares is more than a little tiring. But, we had a beautiful day for our tour and great company, including my friends, the Austrian tourists, and the 85-year-old Chinese woman and her friend who kept up with all the walking this tour involved. I really enjoyed it and look forward to doing some more tours in the future with my friends, although maybe not of water towns.
On Tuesday, October 14, I went on an SEA tour to
discover another side of Shanghai with my friends Jen Manna and Jenni Rosen, as well as a bus full of other Shanghai Tai-Tais.
We started out at the magnificent
Sanshan Guild Hall built by Fujian fruit merchants in the late Qing
Dynasty which has been restored to its early grandeur, including the
enormous gilded hall, theater stage and statue of sea goddess Mazu. Here, going through a museum in the former club, we learned about the regional and commercial clubs of old Shanghai. When people migrated to Shanghai from other provinces, they often joined the provincial club in Shanghai with others from their province. These social clubs also provided benefits for the unemployed and helped return the body of a deceased club member to their hometown for burial.
After we left the museum, we
headed to the north end of the Bund, walking past the first Christian Church established in Shanghai. It was a beautiful sunny day with bright blue skies, which one of the best things about fall in Shanghai. Along the way, we saw a lot of couple in wedding attire taking photos, especially around the church. Brides were wearing white dresses, red dresses, and green dresses, the traditional colors, as well as other colors. Chinese couples take their wedding pictures weeks or even months before the wedding takes place, so the couple often takes advantage of a great day, especially since air quality in Shanghai is so iffy. We had one bad day this week, but most of the time, the air has been clear, which is a nice change around here.
After walking across the Suzhou creek, we visited the former Astor House Hotel which was the first western hotel
in China. The hotel is still beautiful and many famous celebrities from around the world have stayed there, including President Ulysses S. Grant and Albert Einstein. The hotel has been renovated, but the old part of the building has been changed into a
huge compound with local Chinese living in old hotel rooms as their day
to day family home. Because of the location at the north end of the Bund, these homes are quite expensive and fairly prestigious. We even were lucky enough to have a resident show us
around.
Wandering through the old hotel, we were all struck by the traditional homes of the local Chinese, including small hotel rooms turned into apartments, as well as the kitchens that had been built in the hallways. We saw glimpses of the old grandeur of the hotel, the carved railings and ancient woodwork, but covered in hanging laundry, soaking bok choy, and the detritus of everyday, working life in Shanghai.
After leaving the Astor Hotel, we climbed back on our bus and headed out to visit the biggest, and creepiest, Slaughterhouse in 1930s,
located in the historic Hongkou District. This eerie Gotham-deco
architectural achievement in concrete, glass, and steel, was originally
intended for herding cows to their doom. We all decided that the slaughterhouse, which is now a mall filled with restaurants, cafes, boutiques, and furniture stores, would be a good place for a Halloween party and haunting house. Our guide said it had recently be used for a fashion show - for me, very similar to a haunted house. :)
We had lunch at a local Shanghai-nese restaurant and then jumped back on the bus and headed over to the former British Police Station, what used to be prison cells and
offices back in the 1920’s now shelter low-income residents living in a
Roman coliseum-looking square-shaped compound; 5 story buildings
surround a spacious courtyard in the middle which house over 250
families.
The prison was a startling experience for most of us. The idea of a family living in an apartment the size of a prison cell, and paying one million RMB (approximately $165,000) for the privilege to do so, was staggering. The courtyard of the prison, where we could see the residents working on their scooters, hanging their laundry, cooking on the outdoor kitchens, was overwhelming.
We ended the day at a redevelopment of a historical textile
factory on the banks of the Huang Pu River, filled with "outlets" such as Nike and other western retailers. We were excited to find a Austrian-transplant, the Zotter
Chocolate Factory. While the chocolate is actually made in Austria, there are tastings, a film, and lots of chocolate. It was a great day with friends and a great look at many off-the-beaten path sides of Shanghai.
The Regional office for Chris's company is in Hong Kong, so he's there often. So, since he was going to be there for the week after Golden Week here in Shanghai, I decided to join him on Thursday, October 9, and stay until he returned on Monday, October 13.
This was my third trip to Hong Kong, so I wasn't desperate to see a lot of sights, but was very excited for our weekend plans to go to Disneyland Hong Kong and to visit the Giant Buddha. I arrived on Thursday afternoon and mostly spent Thursday and Friday streaming videos with fast, unrestricted internet access and relaxing. We went to dinner at Outback Steakhouse on Friday night, which was definitely a highlight of the trip. The food was great, we even had a bloomin' onion, and it felt like we were in the U.S., at least for the length of the meal.
The real fun was saved for Saturday, when we headed out to Disneyland and got there just about the time it opened. Although it was a little weird to be at the park without the girls, we had a great time. We're Disney people - heck, we went to Walt Disney World in Florida for our honeymoon and we've been to every Disney except Tokyo, so far. We've taken the girls to WDW several times and are planning our next trip for Samantha's college graduation in May. We went to Disneyland in California for Miranda's high school graduation. We like Disney, even without the kids.
Knowing that we're going to WDW in May, we also wanted to buy Hong Kong Disneyland-specific pins to trade (read, give away) when we're in Florida next spring. Chris, in particular, really enjoys having pins from the far away parks to give away at other parks. We're going to hunt up any we have left from Disneyland Paris before we go to Florida. So, we bought quite a few new, fun pins during our day.
We rode the Buzz Lightyear ride several times, zapping as many aliens as possible, saw the Lion King show, and enjoyed Winnie the Pooh and It's a Small World without any kids to hide behind. Then we decided to get in line to have our picture taken with some of the characters.
In the U.S., this is very much a child-oriented process. Although there are certainly adults who pose with Mickey, Daisy or Goofy on their own, the overwhelming majority of people in line are families with young kids. Not so in Hong Kong. We saw a few kids in line, but it was overwhelmingly adults who were waiting to take pictures of, and have their pictures taken with, the many Disney characters.
We visited Disneyland Paris during the Halloween season one year and were impressed with the decoration and overall theme of the park for the season. We visited a Universal park in Spain during Halloween as well and saw lots of Halloween decorations. Even though we were in Hong Kong the second week of October, there wasn't much evidence of Halloween. We posed with the characters in an area of the park where they were wearing Halloween costumes and we saw a few decorations, but hardly any.
We didn't stay for the evening parade or light show, so that may have contained more Halloween theme, but overall, this just isn't an Asian holiday.
We did enjoy a new area of the park built since we were last there, which contained Toy Story Land and Mystic Manor. Most of the rides in Toy Story Land are targeted to young kids, but we were impressed with the cute construction of the whole land, including Tinker Toys and other Toy Story favorites. And Mystic Manor was a lot of fun - similar to the Haunted Mansion ride at WDW, but it has a better story and was something new we hadn't seen before. All in all, we had a great day, although our feet were sore and we were pretty exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel.
On Sunday, we took the subway back out to Lantau island to catch a cable car up into the mountains for an incredible view of Hong Kong, the surrounding wilderness and a visit to the world's largest seated outdoor bronze Buddha statue. Fortunately, we were told by a couple of people to purchase our tickets for the cable car ahead of time, which I had done at our hotel on Friday. The line to get on the cable car was nothing compared with the incredibly long line of people waiting to purchase tickets before getting in the line to get on the cable cars. The ride is about 25 minutes to the top of the mountain and the views are wonderful.
While Hong Kong is a huge city with high rise buildings, a beautiful harbor, and several islands, it is set in beautiful mountains and has incredible hiking trails, bird-watching, and nature views. While we were riding up the mountain the cable car, we could see people hiking up and down the trails below us. Surprisingly enough, we shared the cable car with a young couple from Chicago. Fortunately, Chris restrained himself after seeing the guy's Cubs shirt, so no punches were thrown. :)
When we got to the end of the cable car ride, we entered Ngong Ping Village. We were happy to find a cool spot to eat our Subway sandwiches and enjoy the beautiful breeze and temperature in the shade. Chris was sorely tempted to stay in his comfortable seat in the village, but he finally marshaled himself to make the climb to the Giant Buddha and the Po Lin Monastery.
The village is filled with traditional tourist shops, massage centers, and restaurants. It leads to the base of the steps to the Buddha and then on to the Monastery. Along the walk, there are statues of the signs of the Chinese zodiac as well as flags and gardens. The gateway to the Monastery is a bright what against the blue of the sky and the green of the mountains and we were lucky enough to be there on a beautiful, although slightly hazy, day, where the breeze offset the high, Hong Kong temperatures.
This was a good thing, as we had a long climb ahead of us.
The Tian Tan Buddha is 112 feet tall and we climbed the 268 steps to get to the Lotus platform upon which the Buddha sits. While I took my time getting to the top, the view was worth the work. We had a great view of the cable cars climbing over the mountains, the village, the Monastery, and the rolling hills of the countryside. Supposedly, the Buddha is able to be seen from Macao, but the day was not really clear enough for us to see very far.
After working our way back down the steps, we stopped for a water break and met an American mom sitting at the bottom with her one-week-old baby while the rest of her family climbed the stairs. Brave lady. After we caught our breath, we walked over to tour the Monastery. We've also visited monasteries and temples in Thailand, and this temple seemed to be more tourist-oriented, with fewer people there for worship. The buildings, however, were beautiful. The entire compound is not very old, with the Buddha being built in the early 1990's and the Monastery, while founded in 1906, is housed in a very new-looking building. They have created one of the most popular tourist sites in Hong Kong. We had a great trip out to Lantau island for the day and enjoyed our cable car ride back to the bottom of the mountain. We returned to our hotel, had a restful evening in and flew back to Shanghai the next morning.
