tourism at its best!

Today Mingzhu organised a real touristy thing for all of us. Ever since we saw some billboards of those typical water towns at the sightseeing tunnel, we were talking about visiting one. So, once back home, she went to a local travel agency and arranged that we could go along with a tour group. Yes I know, the one thing we tried to avoid during our entire trip and on one of the last days we join one. How crazy can you be!

So, when our alarm clock went of early in the morning, we had a quick bite to eat and headed for our rendezvous point at the Hongkou Football Stadium. Mingzhu was going to meet us there and when we arrived, our bus was already waiting. It seemed we were the first ones to arrive, but after a while more people stepped on the bus.

The bus wasn't even half full on departure and it seemed to take hours to leave the city when all of a sudden the bus turned away from the highway and heads for, another stadium! Lots of people were waiting to get on and after waiting 15 to 20 minutes we finally left. Our tour guide on the bus was relatively young and surprisingly enough very friendly.

Once we were on the highway towards Zhouzhuang he started to tell lots of stories, so I think, because he only spoke Chinese, we couldn't understand a word of it and it was just too much for Mingzhu to translate. He kept on talking and talking and talking. There was just no stopping this kid and after more than an hour I was glad to see some civilization, we were almost there!

Our tour guide gave us all a sticker with the license plate of the bus, so that later on when we returned from our visit to the town we were able to find our bus. This necessary evil proved to be very usefull because we weren't the only ones at the parking lot. It was just one tour group after another. Oh my God, I was in hell! Now the only thing we needed was matching hats and I was ready to go to a mental institution!

We told our friendly tour guide we were not going to join him, after all, we couldn't understand a thing! Although his English was relatively good and he tried his best to speak it, he agreed with us to go on our one. After all, the rest of the group was Chinese except for a few other Russian tourists, but they had their own guide with them. He told us to be back at the bus at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Mingzhu wanted to follow the group, which was understandable and my brother went along with her.

Once inside, we said goodbye to the group and off we went to explore this amazing place. At the twin bridge there was alot going on and it looked like every tour group was at the same place. It was a real cacophony of sounds. We left the groups behind us and soon we could walk without being pushed all the time and even could enjoy the many beautiful views this town has to offer.

The entire town consists out nothing more than restaurants and of course, souvenirshops. It is just one small store after another and being the good girls like we are, we made a small contribution by buying one, two and even more nicknacks.

When we walked all the way to the temple complex of the town we noticed that there were even shops where you can buy some silk duvets and we decided to have a look, but once again the measurements weren't the same like Tania wanted so, we went on walking further down the street.

After a while we ended up at the silk shop again to have another look and eventually bought one! It wasn't the exact size Tania wanted, but once back home she could buy some new covers and enjoy her new acquisition. Problem solved!

We still had some time to pay a quick visit to the temple before we had to go back to the parking lot and the rest of the group.

Once everyone had arrived, our guide told us that we had to make a compulsory stop at a silk factory. Someone way up in the sky is definitely laughing with us. What are the odds!

No sooner said than done we arrived at the factory after just a few minutes. At the entrance there was some explanation of how everything works and how they use the silk. Afterwards we ended up at a rather large store where you can buy all kinds of products made out of silk. Needless to say that noone bought a thing and we were away faster than we came.

It was already pretty dark when we arrived at the Football Stadium. My brother and Mingzhu went to see her father because they wanted to go and eat something together. Tania and I wanted to go and find something to eat at the French Concession, but because we were a bit tired and didn't know the neigbourhood very well, we decided to stay in Hongkou and ended up at the Pizza Hut on the other side of the Football Stadium. When we had some food in our bodies, we felt a little bit better and decided to do some shopping at the evening market.

Needless to say, we bought some small things and ended up at Starbucks to check our mail while enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee. What better way to end a day!