zhujiajiao

大家好！today, we made an excursion outside of shanghai to visit a small canal town called zhujiajiao. there are heaps of these "water towns" around shanghai because this is the yangtze delta... where the yangtze river empties into the china sea. suzhou is the biggest and most famous water town, but we opted to visit a smaller one for simplicity's sake. zhujiajiao features the same canals, ming/qing dynasty architecture and unaltered alleyways.

we began our day at 7 am in the tonghe lobby. from there, we took a bus and two different subway lines all the way down to southern shanghai (about 1.5 hour trip). thanks to lonely planet, we knew that the buses to zhujiajiao and other destinations left from the shanghai sightseeing bus center in south shanghai. here we are at the station... the ride is only an hour outside the city.

choosing pictures from zhujiajiao is gonna be tough! they are all gorgeous. highlights were a buddhist procession at the city clocktower, an amazing watercolor exhibition, our little gondola tour, and exploring the huge gardens of a ming official. i might add that this group survived some INCREDIBLE heat and humidity today.

finally, i am so happy to have a picture with my fabulous roomie, sue! our guardian angel today. she came with us on this excursion, and i honestly do not know if we would have made it to zhujiajiao without her :) she got 11 kids on the same bus, finagled a boat tour, and ordered a reasonably priced lunch with no sweat. basically my hero.

we happily all made it back to the bus at the appointed time and promptly passed out for the ride home. now i must run because some friends in the international dorm are going out for their last night in shanghai! i heart the weekend.