SLICING A TREAT, FOR PACKAGING.
SLICING A TREAT, FOR PACKAGING.
NOTE: This story is full of pictures, just click on the highlighted words.
LEE A. WOOD
Early Saturday morning we caught the bus downtown where we met up with Huang Jin Xian. A friend of hers had a friend who had a station wagon and he loaded us all in and took us to Qingpu which is about an hour's drive South West of Shanghai but still, politically, within Shanghai.
The ride was a little harrowing as the driver was very nervous, constantly touching the brakes, which needed repair. Every time he touched the brakes the car would pull to the left and he would quickly turn the steering wheel to compensate and then have to turn it again when he released the brakes.
He drove slow but stayed in the fast lane on the freeways instead of keeping to the right. Other drivers were continually passing us on the right and honking their horns which helped add to our drivers nervousness.
After visiting the Grand View Garden Area we Drove North through the Dianshan Lake area to Zhou Zhuang which is called the Ancient City.
Just after leaving the narrow road that ran between two lakes we entered a freeway. Here we had to stop at a toll booth
It cost Y30 to go through the toll booth. What a line up, cars, tour busses.
After passing through the toll booth we only went about a 1/2 mile and had to stop to buy tickets to get into Zhou Zhuang.
Zhou Zhuang is a collection of eight small islands connect by some 14 bridges. Some of the water ways have had their banks reinforced to form canals.
The entire area was, some 900 years ago, the home of a, now, famous writer, Shen Wan San.
Utilizing the water ways ,Wan San developed a trading system. His islands became a collection, and distribution, point for grain, handicrafts, pottery, and silk.
Sixty percent of the, approximately, one thousand buildings were constructed during the Ming or Qin Dynasty.
Though we were there during the off, tourist, season the streets, by noon, were packed. We had to move like ants on an ant hill.
Squeezing between other people and the walls of buildings built along the sides of the narrow streets and canals I wondered how often people get squeezed off the narrow bridges, into the canals.
The shops sell everything from paints, paintings, embroidery, to little bottles that have the interiors painstakingly painted, with tiny bushes.
One lady told me it takes her a week to paint the pictures inside a six inch glass ball.
At one stall Lin bought a ý pound of pearls. The vendor ground the pearls into a fine powder. The powder is then mixed with a cream and applied as a facial make-up to hide wrinkles.
Jin Xian's friend had an argument with the staff. The dishes that arrived were only half the size the waitress had said they would be.
Also, the menu said `wild duck' but the duck that arrived had fat on it so we knew it was farm raised. After lunch we toured some more of the narrow passage ways before driving back out the way we had come in.
As per usual we left most of the place unseen. It is a fairly large area and we only saw the main tourist area. There is however much more to see, such as a pagoda, and a temple.
We did however, find some narrow little doorways that led behind the buildings fronting the canals. Here we found places such as the `Chess House' and the `Taoist Temple'.
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