Zhujiajiao, China

Shanghai truly is an amazing city with its super highways and gigantic skyscrapers--we have never seen such high buildings before and the number of them surprised us.  We had a Princess excursion set up for this city (we were a few hours late in arriving) so we quickly organized ourselves and boarded the air-conditioned bus.  The bus was a regular tour bus so I am not sure how many passengers were on this one.  We travelled approximately 1 1/2 hours from the cruise terminal which was located not in the centre of the city but was a distance away.

Where were we going?  Well, we looked over the excursions offered by the cruise line and decided that we wanted something other than cosmopolitan Shanghai, so we selected the most interesting one for us, which happened to be the water town called  Zhujiajiao, also known as one of China's Venice of the East cities.  Our tour guide Jenny insisted that this would not be crowded even though it was a Saturday, and it was the Saturday of the October Lunar Festival celebrations.  She looked at the parking lot and still thought it would not be crowded in the tiny town.

As we walked from our bus to the entrance of the town, we saw many people selling sugar cane.

Now we are in the crowded streets of the town where we mingled with other tourists.  The alleys or streets are fairly narrow but on a non-holiday, I would surmise that it would be easier to move about and even look at the actual shops.  There were many food stalls serving goodies like chicken on skewers--they smelt great!

One of the many bridges in the town:

A typical picture showing the houses, the river, a boater, and the sweeping willow trees:

We also enjoyed our short ride down the river with our Chinese gondolier:

In this photo, you can see the type of boat that we sat on.  Another of the many bridges in this town.  And yes, it was a crowded day for us, even if our guide thought it was very 'quiet'.  Can you imagine what it would be like if it was considered 'busy'?

On this day, we also visited a silk factory where it was jammed with fellow tourists.  We tried to hear over all the noise but we did not hear too much information.  These factory visits are definitely geared to release your hold on your purse or wallet!

Here you can see me having the opportunity to 'stretch' a cocoon layer to make a duvet!  So light and yet so strong...I was fortunate to be in the front row when they asked for volunteers!

And here you can see one of the salesladies selling silk comforters (on the shelves) and the price list:

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the water town and the drive to and from the ship, as it showed the super highways, the many skyscrapers, and yet, the rustic ways that can still exist in China.