Anyway, Shao Xing is a smaller city about 3hrs outside of Shanghai. We stayed in a very nice hotel and rode in rickshaws around the city. We also took a black-awning boat ride which would have been very lovely if it hadn't been pouring rain out. It's basically China's version of riding in gondolas through Venice. We sat in this little wooden boat while a man rowed for us. We rode through the waterways which was also the backyards of many local residents. I saw a woman wash her underwear in the murky water.
We also visited Lu Xun's childhood living quarters. Lu Xun was China's most famous philospher, writer, and business man. We drank Shao Xing's famous huang jiu, also known as yellow wine. It tasted sweet and tart at the same time. We got to see a Shao Xing opera, which was very interesting. Usually only women perform in the operas, but this one had male actors as well. The singing was very high-pitched and strange at times - I had no clue what they were saying. The best thing was that they performed outside in the courtyard of Shen Garden (depicted on the right).
The next day we went to Xinchang valley, a famous spot for lots of kung fu movies! We hiked through a really long tunnel through the mountain and hiked up to a secluded restaurant that hid between rolling fields of tea leaves. It was so nice to get outside of the city and see the beautiful, clean side of China. The restaurant looked like a little hut and one of the dishes consisted of snails. I didn't eat any.
After the hike we went to a factory that manufactured parts for machines that built car parts. It was also a textile factory. I was surprised at how manual the labor was - they needed a person to monitor each machine and maintain each part that was being built. It was extremely cold and empty, as they had just let go a large amount of migrant workers. The machines were very old and rusty. Upstairs was the textile part - also very manual - they would lay out each piece of cloth to do silk screening on.
After the factory we went to Xikou - we didn't do much there since the museum was closed and everyone was grumpy from the rain. I can't remember when or where but we also visited a museum where Mah jong was first created!
We finally came back to Shanghai and I had never been so exhausted from a weekend trip! I think the weather had really impacted everyone's moods and we weren't able to enjoy it as much~however I'm really happy I got to see Xinchang Valley!
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