Theresa, our friend Lynn Harris from Montreal (our first official stay-over visitor) and yours truly with the able guidance of our new driver Henry, hit the road this past Sunday and travelled to Zhou Zhuang - one of China's famous "water villages", about an hour and a half from Shanghai.
Its simple, well-preserved architecture dates back more than 900 years with the majority of homes built in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Now though now in certain parts of the town, the whole place could resemble one large junkaria.
The locals lead an exciting lifestyle living on the waterways and carrying out their everyday activities from playing cards to washing clothes to shopping for their favorite food which just happens to be the upper portion of a pig's foot stewed in brown goopy sauce over a slow burning fire until it is tender and the meat falls off the bone. As you can she from the picture above you just want to grab one out of the store front window, shoo off the flies and enjoy.
Suffice to say we took a pass and did not partake in this local delicacy though Theresa and Lynn did enjoy a cuppa white tea in quite a fashionable tea-house/hotel with probably the fanciest washrooms in the entire village and where we stumbled upon one of the most unique art/sculptures we have ever seen. After a feeble attempt to bargain - bargaining here as anywhere I guess only works if you are prepared to walk away and in this case we really wanted the sculptures so we bought them. To see them, you'll just have to come visit us or if you are a Facebook friend, you can see them in my Zhou Zhuang photo album.
We headed back to Shanghai in the afternoon with empty grumbling stomachs and our treasures of the day.
I know it's disappointing but there will be no more posts for three weeks as we head back to Toronto for all kinds of wonderful family functions.
