The Journey of Lex & Ada: One Year Ago (III): China Trip

My first stop in China was Shanghai. Mama's friend, Zhuang, welcomed us. She took us to ZhouZhuang (周庄古镇) for a day trip the second day after we arrived.

Zhouahuang lies at the middle of Shanghai and Suzhou, is an ancient town which has a history of more than 900 years. “Small bridge, Flowing water, people” (小桥、流水、人家) is the special characteristics of Zhouzhuang.

In the Spring and Autumn Period (春秋战国时期, 770 ~ 221 B.C), Zhouzhuang was a part of the King of Wu and called Yaocheng (摇城). During Song Dynasty (1086), it was named Zhouzhuang after Zhou Digong donated more than 200 acres to the local Quanfu Temple. By the mid-Yuan Dynasty, Zhouzhuang started to become a distribution center of food, silk, ceramics, arts and crafts in the south of China owning to the effort of business man Wanshan Shen taking advantage of its superior geographical advantage. [1]

Nowadays, Zhouzhang still remains the style and pattern of its ancient village. Overseas newspapers called Zhouzhuang as "China's first water village".

On the way to Zhouzhang, we stopped at Dianshanhu (淀山湖）. We started to have a taste of the typical landscape in the south of the Yangze river.

Now we finally arrived at Zhouzhuang. However, from where we parked the car to the entrance of the town, there was still quite a distance. That was the reason we had to have a ride.