Wuzhen "once came, never leave"

Wuzhen, 2 hours away from Shanghai in Zhejiang Province, was one of the 6th town that lies next to the grand canal, there wasn't much planning that went in this trip since we were out all out until 3,4am the night before partying with Steve Aoki. At the end though, we did manage to hit all the "important" spots after 6 hours of "run, point, pose and shoot"

Anyway, lets get down to the photo part...

A short recap on Aoki and a little question on Shanghai's night life: where did all the Chinese go all of a sudden when it comes to night time? on the small dance floor it was as if I was back in the US; not a single Asian in sight (if we don't count the crazy Asian Jesus Aoki)...

closest I can get to him without having to suffocate

cake throwing party

mhmm, good night i guess

The next day, after being greeted by the surprisingly long ticket line, stunning amount of people getting in & out of the station, bearing with the head aches, and bus ride, we all made it alive and were all ready to go.


 

the old Wuzhen gate welcoming us

ready to roll, little did we know, we have very little time left.

 



There was a ton to see in Wuzhen, and it was impossible to see everything, I dont think we would have made it even with 2 days here, but the main things on my list was:

1. Silk cloth and dye shop
2. Wuzhen distillery
3. Bridge in Bridge (橋里橋)
4. A Pagoda with view of the Grand Canal

A quick note here, the Wuzhen tourism area was actually divided into the "East and West" gates, but to shorten the entry and speed up the photo arranging process, I will be mixing them up here, ticket was 150RMB for both sites, and if you do plan to go there in the future, make sure you have at least 2 days, I would even recommend just stopping by the West gate and stay there for the whole day.

inside the town with my back to the water

happy boat ride! thank Brian for being the greatest photographer

 As we walked/ toured/boated around, we quickly realized even though we had paid to come in the tourism area, most of the houses here are still occupied by local residents, visitors can even stay in many of the houses here and have a "bed & breakfast" type of deal.

courtesy of Brian Lee

courtesy of Brian Lee

Alright, without further delays, let's focus on the attractions:

The silk shop and the dye shop were in different part of the town, a little to my disappointment was that most of the exhibits on display were actually just put on for shows (followed by souvenir stores lol), the only real part we saw was a lady unraveling the silk worm cocoons.

cocoon party, very pleasant

organizing the silk threads

old school equipment, same type of machinery still being used (prob not for mass production)

the dye pool, was just for show though :(

semi-finished cloth on display

merchandise on display, probably a few years old already...

Right next to the dye shop was the distillery, here we actually saw the workers distilling the rice based 白酒(white wine, bei jiu), there was even free sampling! a little sweet, came with a kick, but no one wanted any since we all got plenty the night before.

hygiene? no problem, it's boiled and distilled!

was not sure if these were for show or actually ready to go win urns

no Kathleen, we can't carry those

Then we have the Bridge in a Bridge, sounds like something awsome right? well that's what I thought too, but apparently it's just a fancy way to call "building a bridge after a bridge to cross the river", I would have tried to find some more explanation, but let's be frank, y'all probably don't care I couldn't find anything... I did take a nice panorama though...

fortunately, there was little people there at the time apart from the two other tourists that I was with

view was still great tho

Last spot on my list was the Pagoda, what's a pagoda you asked? well I can't really tell you other than it being quite tall and we can take nice pikchas of it and while on it....so I guess asking what a pagoda is really is similar to asking what skyscrapers are for....

the specific history with this one is it was first built in the 1300s but has been renovated many times due to weathering damage, war time damages, foundation damages...

there was a temple by the bottom

the view out, beyond the barrier is suppose to be the Grand Canal, didn't seem THAT grand, but I imagined back in the days it must have been quite a sight (also, without the smog)

Up on top, after a few fight of stairs

 So those were the high lights of the day, generally I was disappointed with the attractions, but that was made up by many of the small sights and the nice, tranquil atmosphere of being outside the busy city, there were also not many white toursits around, so whenever I was a little further away from the group I can happily observe all the people starring down the "walking attractions".

Before we end, I've got a little more pictures to share...enjoy!

 

 

 

 of course, I coulnd't leave you without the concluding group shot, here's us on "bridge in bridge" with the Pagoda

Oh, and in case you are wondering why the title of the post is at it is, here's why:

nice translation bro

 Also, got bonus material just for laughs, please forgive me being lazy and falling behind on updates:

very helpful....(asking patrons at restaurants not to bring your own drinks)