Day 14: Today, we headed to Zhouzhuang, a famous water town in the Jiangsu province of China, which is also often referred to as the "Venice of the East." It approximately took a two hour bus ride to get to the town, but the long trip was definitely worth it. The town itself was really beautiful, and I'd definitely recommend that you visit this town. The ancient buildings were well-preserved, and the whole town was connected through canals, so there was definitely a lot to see. Luckily, we had an awesome tour guide, and I learned a lot about the culture, history, and landmarks of Zhouzhuang. We had the chance to see and walk across the Twin Bridges (AKA shuāng qiáo / 双桥), where one was the round-arched Shide Bridge and the other was the square-arched Yongan Bridge. Like our tour guide mentioned, the two bridges really looked like an old-style Chinese key. Unfortunately, I realized after coming back that I had only taken pictures of the Shide Bridge, but here are some of the other pictures I took of Zhouzhuang!
We also visited two ancient houses in Zhouzhuang, the Shen House (AKA Shén tīng / 沈厅) and the Zhang House (AKA Zhāng tīng / 张厅). When visiting the Shen House, we learned about its owner Shen Wansan, the famous millionaire. Both residential structures had many different rooms (like the men's gathering room, women's gathering room, and the study room for the children) filled with elegant furniture on display. My favorite part of visiting the different houses was definitely the amazing stone flooring designs. For example, with the huge circular patterned stone floor, it was created to symbolize long life, so we all made sure step into the pattern before leaving. Funny, right?
Before eating dinner, we went to ride the gondola-like boats through Zhouzhuang. It was 120 Yuan for the 30 minute ride (which is about 20 US Dollars), and I felt it was totally worth it. Initially, it was scary getting onto the boat, but once safely seated, it was so much fun as I got to see Zhouzhuang from a whole new standpoint.
After eating dinner and trying Zhouzhuang's famous Wansan Hock, which was named after Shen Wansan the millionaire, we headed to view the show offered by the town. It was called the "Four Seasons of Zhouzhuang," and we saw performances reenacting Zhouzhuang's culture in terms of the seasons through themes like "Winter Snow," "Autumn Harvest," "Summer Lotus," and "Spring Rain." I can't even describe and I don't feel that even the pictures can show how amazing the show was. Having the actors drag one of our classmates up to the stage to play a role (and eventually act out a marriage) definitely added to the fun!
We spent a whole day traveling back and forth between Zhouzhuang and our host university and exploring Zhouzhuang. I definitely felt exhausted after the trip, but I had so much fun and learned so much that being tired didn't matter at all!
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