Shanghai | Zhujiajiao Water Town

The plan laid out was for us to visit the ancient town – Zhujiajiao Water Town.

Flashback for a bit, I remembered going to an ancient town more than a decade ago in Shanghai but for the life of me, I can’t remember where. So, if any of you can identify the town by just looking at this old photos, then please tell me is it the same town I visited recently. All I can remember was that to get here took us more than an hour. Yeah Lily! Very informative (eyes rolling).

Kak Elvy; a Shanghai expert (gitewww) took us here by cab. Apparently it is fairly easy to take cab from her home to here. Zhujiajiao Water Town is fairly big, with twist and turn here and there but it was raining when we were there hence we weren’t able t0 venture much. But kira ok lah jugak, I puas hati.

I was made to understand that there are approximately 10 water towns around Shanghai (interesting kan) where the nearest is 30mins from The Bund and the furthest is 2hours or so.

Photo credit : Chinahighlights 

Zhujiajiao Water Town #TravelTips

• Allocate half a day if you plan to visit this place
• Located an hour from The Bund, an achievable feat if you are doing a short trip here

• Lotsa walking, wear good walking shoes or sneakers
• Must ride the boat to maximize the old Shanghai feel, lagi best kalau pakai cheongsam and suruh boater tuh nyanyi
• Plenty of Instagrammable spots - canals, bridges, and ancient buildings and etc

• Great place to get local knick knacks or souvenirs
• Don’t remember seeing halal shop within the water town, but there is one just outside. Sedap giler pulak tuh.
• There’s a Starbucks located by the river. Leh acah-acah cool minum kopi tepi sungai (wink)

Background

With its 1,700 years of history, coined as “The Venice of Shanghai” Zhujiajiao Water Town features romantic waterways, curved ancient bridges (36 stone bridges to be precise), cobbled stone old streets and old buildings dating back as far as the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing dynasties (1644-1911). It felt mystical to be here, as if transported back in time.

We didn’t take the boat ride as my friends are not interested, and as for me, I tried in my previous trip, so I figure I’ll pass this time around. Tak nak waste money. Having said that, I highly recommend if you are ever coming here.

We had ‘picnic’ here too, well kinda…. Hahhahhahah…. A few locals were doing the same, kira we all need blend well lah kan. We brought nasi himpit with dendeng daging manis (the dendeng I am used to is the Minang style which is rather spicy). We managed to find a gazebo by the river (later was joined by another friendly local family), got ourselves comfortable and ‘dine’ away while people and boat surfing. I enjoyed it, people surfing is always fun especially if you understood everything they said not knowing that you speak their lingo. Hhahahhaa…. Dengar orang membawang best gak kan kan kan.

Later on we lepaked at the Starbucks by the river. Ambek feel. Ahaks.

Will share some of my Shanghai Disneyland experience. Depa berak rata-rata tak? Jeng jeng jeng…

Tibet No Permit

OK, I guess everyone abit bored with me bragging about my next trip to you know where, hence this entry is going to be a standalone entry about a trip a friend of mine took. Which I KNOW I wouldn't be able to do in next 5-10 years or EVER. Sigh.... hence I will share some of his pics that I have been ogling with 'hatred' hemmm.....

Our dear friend Mr. Pei Leh took a 3 weeks holiday to visit land of Dalai Lama, unfortunately he and his group was rejected an entry point ie border... kinda pity him. Apparently it's not that easy to get a permit despite that they approved his first level request.

Anyway, he managed to take some nice shots in China (bordering province) of which he was very proud of (using my camera, ofcos I claimed that my camera did 80% of the job), and I also insisted that he's was a fluke shot. Hahahhaha.... hurt his ego abit I suppose. Ops!

Having said that, the pics was superbly beautiful, so hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Empress Dowager Cixi's Summer Palace

The Summer Palace is mainly dominated by Longevity Hill (60 meters high) and the Kunming Lake. It covers an expanse of 2.9 square kilometers, three quarters of which is water. This wasn't the fact that impressed me the most, the below is impressive...

The central Kunming Lake covering 2.2 square kilometers was entirely man made and the excavated soil was used to build Longevity Hill..... YUP! All because the empress wants so, back in the olden days, this was feasible I guess in all country. As log as you rule the throne, your wish is the bumble servant command.
It served as a summer resort for Empress Dowager Cixi, who diverted 30 million taels of silver, said to be originally designated for the Chinese navy (Beiyang Fleet), into the reconstruction and enlargement of the Summer Palace. This is like super rich those days, same scenario as Shah Jehan of India whom wanted to use country money to build a black Taj Mahal mausoleum for himself. I blog about it here as well. I wonder how crazy will I get it I have the money and power like them.... slap my face if I do anything silly ok!

The lake was awesome (my sis favourite word these days) BUT not sure whether you guys felt the same, Beijing cky/weather are always misty, dull, foggy and grey... INSTEAD of clear blue sky. Is it me or is it the season I was in when I was there?!!??! Abit frustrating whe I was there, no many pic turns out great. Sigh...

The Long Corridor, a covered walkway along Lake Kunming at the Summer Palace, runs for almost 2400 feet to the famous marble boat. But it was sooooooo crowded when I was there, I have to take a stroll OUTSIDE the corridor, sob sob...

Here's the story of the super LOOOOOOONG corridor:

The long corridor of the Summer Palace (Yi He Yuan, 颐和园) was said to be built for facilitating Emperor Qianlong’s mother to view the snowy and raining landscape of Kunming Lake. For celebrating his mother’s 60th birthday, Emperor Qianlong mobilized massive manpower and resources to expand Kunming Lake and built Qingyi Garden as well as Da Baoen Temple on Wen Mountain. Hereafter, Wen Mountain was named Wanshou Mountain (Longevity Hill, 万寿山). Emperor’s mother often appreciated the snow view in garden. For pleasing his mother as well as for avoiding his mother suffering from raining and snowing, Emperor Qianlong built a long corridor as well on the border between Wanshou Mountain and Kunming Lake.

And all I got my mom was a fridge magnet from oversea... sigh... he set the standard so high... ahhahha.....

On order of the Empress Dowager Cixi, this marble boat/pavillion was set for restoration, a new two-story superstructure was designed which incorporated elements of European architecture. This new superstructure is made out of wood but it was painted to imitate marble. Oh! By the way, it doesn't sail....ehhehe... tooo heavy I supposed.

Oh yah, in December 1998, UNESCO included the Summer Palace on its World Heritage List. It declared the Summer Palace "a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. Another one to my LIST!

One of the alleyways with nice green pond plant.

Next entry I will write about my experience in Malaysia doing a China Chinese fire therapy on my belly, yeah! they burn my belly with fire and I have pics to prove it.

Hyperlink credits : Wikipedia, China Absolute Tours

Tiananmen Square & Temple of Heaven

Strange! Strange! Strange! I was so sure that this was the Bell Tower and accordingly to my very 'convincing gut feel' I am right. Oh! Guess what! TET!!!!! I was WRONG! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong.... took me 1/2 a day to think thru (while doing 2 rounds of laundry, refilling ALL my bottles with water, cleaning the kitchen & cat's litter, sending sis to work etc etc); it then hit me! Temple of HEAVEN! Thank 'heaven' I finally remembered! Sigh..... LILY!

Before I start with Temple of Heaven, I would like to take you into a journey of THE ever so famous TIANANMAN SQUARE. I only knew ONE story pertaining to this square, I believe it happened while I was in my school days. There was this protest that took place here, I can't even remember what was the protest all about. I guess my mind was still on New Kids On the Block instead of world news back then. Hehhehe..... Anyway, whether it's good or bad, it certainly put Tiananman into the world map and memory of every living soul.

This is basically the area coverage, yup, as you can see - SUPER HUGE! How huge? Like it's the largest city square in the world... yeah! WORLD! Apparently, it was built in 1651, and has since enlarged four times its original size. To put it in perspective, its about... hemmm...... 90 American football field. Can you imagine it now? Phew, that's scary big!

Psst : I found out that Imām Reza shrine in Iran has the biggest square in the world. Read it here.

This is the view form THIS angle...

And that is the view from THAT angle.... hahahha.....

This is the Mao Zedong memorial hall of which I didn;t enter, WHY???? QUEUE super LOOOOONG.

Then we were asked to walk toward the end to catch our tour bus.... don't ask me which direction, I just follow the pipe the piper.

I saw a Muslim HALAL restaurant, YIPPEE!!! If ever visit here, I know where I can get me food.

LOVE this building but fail to know what, I suspect it's either a post office OR train station. GUYS!!! help me out... pleaseee..... what building is this?

Next STOP! Temple of Heaven on earth *smile*

Even in heaven there's big screen TV for viewers....hemmm.... modernization on heaven & earth? Hehheheheh.... By the way, this is a complex of Taoist buildings situated in the southeastern part of central Beijing.

The temple complex was constructed from 1406 to 1420 during the reign of the Yongle Emperor, the same emperor that construct the Forbidden City in Beijing. Apparently, the Temple of Heaven was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998 and was described as "a masterpiece of architecture and landscape design which simply and graphically illustrates a cosmogony of great importance for the evolution of one of the world’s great civilizations..." as the "symbolic layout and design of the Temple of Heaven had a profound influence on architecture and planning in the Far East over many centuries." Obviously this is from Wikipedia.
Bottom line, I covered another UNESCO site *smile smile*.

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests (祈年殿) is a magnificent triple-gabled circular building, 36 metres in diameter and 38 metres tall, built on three levels of marble stone base, where the Emperor prayed for good harvests.

I always thought the colour is strong and bright... blue, red, yellow/gold. What a combo.

Surrounding this temple area are parks for exercising, strolling, "DATING" or touristing. I saw a bunch of old uncles writing calligraphy with water on the floor, ballroom dancing, playing chess, chatting etc. I guess its a 'holy' community area. If I ever have another chance, I shall visit here super early in the morning and take nice community activity pictures.

PLEASE take note on the DON'TS DON'TS DON'TS. Don't tell China never tell you the DON'TS. Hahhahaha.....

Hyperlink credits : Wikipedia

The Last Emperor - Forbidden City

Some may have heard of this before, and the most popular question (aside from the size ofcoz) is how many rooms does this Forbidden City have?

9,999 ROOMS, that's what most has been told. Well I suppose the figure will varies between 9,000 to 9,999 some even say 9,999.5 (what can the .5 room be right!??!). But I guess, this is just to complement the whole mystery behind the Forbidden Palace (I mean, this what adds spice to our mundane life right?!?!?).

This is the back entrance, apparently lesser queue if we were to start from here. Oh well! Tour guide knows best.

The size? 7,800,000 sq ft.

Here is where (I believe) the scene from the "The Last Emperor" is...bet everyone heard of this movie. Sadly, I haven't watch it yet. Hahhaha....


OK! Few things I learn that nothing in my school books mentioned before.... the end-to-end distance ie from the front gate riiiiight to the end is about 2KM WALK! WHAT!!!!! This is minus all the detours you do in order to take pics, to view the rooms, the ornaments etc etc... Talk about exercising!!!! Now you know how them Chinese stays so fit and thin. Hemmmm....

Another thing that fascinates me is the Meridian Gate, why? Chinese emperors believed that they were the Sons of Heaven and therefore should live at the center of the universe. They believed the Meridian Line went through the Forbidden City, so this gate was named accordingly. Drama neh....

Oh! Let me also tell you, I was sooooo expecting to see tourist here, well.... SURPRISE SURPRISE!!!! There were plenty of tourist but they were LOCAL. HENCE, can you begin to imagine HOW HUGE this country is!?!? They can live/survive with just their own local tourist. And id you are a Caucasion, you stick out like a sore thumb, hahhahhah........

Guess who this guy is?

Hyperlink credit : Wikipedia