Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Zhouzhuang (周庄) on a quiet morning

Visited: Feb 2nd, 2009
Pictures taken with Fujifilm S9500.
All pictures © all rights reserved.

Visited Zhouzhuang (周庄) early in a winter's morning. Zhouzhuang is one of the most famous ancient watertowns in China. With tourist flow as high as upwards of twenty thousand visitors a day, we were able to snap some wonderful pictures of the rarely seen peaceful watertown before the hordes of tourists flooded the place in the afternoon.

Even though a town belonging to Kunshan city of Jiangsu province, Zhouzhuang is actually only about 1.5 hours bus ride from Shanghai city. We boarded the bus at Shanghai Sightseeing Bus Center (chinese site here) at Shanghai Indoor Stadium at 7:30am. Tickets ran us 150 RMB each which includes a return bus ride as well as the entry fee for the Zhouzhuang area and most of the attractions within. It was a good deal considering that same tickets to Zhouzhuang area and the attractions at the door already cost 100 RMB.

We reached Zhouzhuang slightly past 9am and there was this light drizzle. We walked into the Zhouzhuang and was greeted with views not usually seen by most tourists visiting Zhouzhuang. It was cold, wet and early which made sure not many tourists were actually around. We got to see the residents at Zhouzhuang going about their morning chores and kids playing in the streets. Totally charming.

#1 - One of the first views that greeted us. We were totally charmed.


#2 - The watertown was quiet and the water was still as a mirror.

#3 - Lone boat early in the morning.


#4 - Beautiful ancient bridges abound in Zhouzhuang.


#5 - Stores began to open as we draw near noon.


#6 - Tourists began to come packed in boat-loads.


#7 - Wine jugs at an old winery in Zhouzhuang


All pictures: © All rights reserved.

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