ZHUJIAJIAO: ANCIENT WATER TOWN

There apparently are a number of towns that sit along the river; these have been made into tourist attractions a short distance from Shanghai.   The last weekend in April Wang Shenying, her husband Zhang Weidong, and son Henry took me to Zhujiajao.  They picked me up at 9:30 AM and we drove the hour or so west to the town.

As we were entering the town, Weidon began looking for a less used way in to find a place to park, when we were stopped by an assertive motorcycle rider, wearing a shiny brown silk suit.  After a brief but loud conversation, we followed the bike rider.  I asked what was happening.  It seems he volunteered to lead us to a place where we could park.  So we ended up parking in a fairly obscure place I'm sure we would have considered to be private.   It turns out that he owns the restaurant where we later ate. And he was volunteering parking service if we would eat lunch there.   You'll see what we had for lunch a little later.  (And, yes, he was there, still wearing his shiny silk suit.)
                                       Here is a photo story of what we did in Zhujiajiao:

Here's handsome  Henry.

Here are Zhang Weidong and Wang Shenying

Here's the entrance to the Post Office.

Inside the Qing Dynasty Post office.  Here are cards from the past.

This sign announces the Qing Dynasty Post Office

We will be riding one of these before we leave.

I loved this table.   It's made for one,but image if it were made for four.   The working areas are set at different levels.  Made from a tree root, it was pretty special sitting in the shop.  About 30,000 RMB.

Weidong at lunch

Shenying and Henry at lunch. The steamed fish has not arrived yet.

Of course, this was the hit of the meal. 

Before we could gt to the gardens, we had to cross this bridge, whose name basically means fish releasing bridge, where people buy gold fish and release it into the river.   Free, they very likely become feed for the steamed fish we ate at lunch, well not the fish we ate, but those like it, who may still be swimming away..

 HERE WE ARE AT THE KEZHI GARDENS

We walked through this building to enter the garden

The rock is described as Horse's Head

The gardens were built in 1912. It took 15 years to complete. Some of the buildings, I believe, were centuries old.

This Zig-Zag Bridge was built in imitation of a more famous one.

Weidong is demonstrating how this threshing machine words

In case you haven't guessed, this is a scarecrow. 

This is the bat pavilion.

We are on one of the boats.

.  See they gentleman in the next frame doing the rowing.

Heading back to the car.  You can see how the residents live.