Day 4: Tongli - Shanghai (Part I)

The day started with us having very much difficulties crawling out of bed early in the morning due to the cold weather and sore feet. Mr. Chin said the total distance we walked in these 3 days was more than that of one year in Malaysia. I couldn't agree more.

Tongli 同里

We didn't know exactly the departure time of the bus so we planned to reach 上海旅游集散中心 (Shanghai Tourist Distribution Centre) about 7:30am just to be safe. That place was a 10-minutes walk from the metro station. So there we go again - asking for directions at every turning just to be sure - with our sore feet which never really recovered from the night's sleep.

We reached as planned, and the departure time to Tongli was 8:30am. But there were clearly a lot of people earlier than us because the two tickets we bought were the last ones. If we were half an hour late maybe the tickets would be sold out and we would have to go for another choice of destination instead.

There were quite a number of other one-day-trip destinations available e.g. Suzhou 苏州, Zhouzhuang 周庄 (which was also a 水乡 water town like Tongli), Wuzhen 乌镇, Wuxi 无锡 etc. We chose Tongli over Zhouzhuang because we heard that Zhouzhuang, despite being more famous, had became more commercialized as a tourist spot. Tongli one-day-trip, RMB130 per head, included transportation to Tongli and admission to a few tourist attractions namely Pearl Tower 珍珠塔, Gufeng Garden 古风园, Jiayin House 嘉荫堂, The Retreat and Reflection Garden 退思园 etc.

We slept like pigs during the two-hour bus ride. I don't usually sleep so soundly in vehicles but I was too tired I guess. We paid RMB2 for the electric car to take us to the entrance of the town, then we started by having our brunch.

银鱼炒蛋 Whitebait friend egg.

The normal Chinese cabbage 小白菜.

 

 "Unbelievable!!!"

After the satisfying and reasonably-priced meal we were all set to explore! I forgot where we went first though. =P

 

An old grandfather clock. Forgot where I took this...
 

Forgot where was this...

A narrow and steep staircase...

This was found on the floor in a garden. It was shaped like the symbol of Chinese ancient money.

退思园 The Retreat and Reflection Garden. Like Yuyuan in Shanghai, this used to be the house of a rich merchant.

退思草堂 The Thatched Hall of Retreat and Reflection.

Another boat-like room. Like I said, the Chinese liked to pretend they were on a boat trip.

The scenery of a water town.

Next stop - a rather interesting place - 中华性文化博物馆 China Sex Museum.

The admission wasn't included in the bus ticket, so we had to pay extra - RMB20 per head.

五千年来第一展 The first exhibition in 5000 years. I'm not sure the 第一 meant "the first" or "the best" though.

Hmmm...

Zoophilia

"A husband made love with his wife before battle, the child raised his fist and said, papa, you must win the battle and be back quickly." =.=|||

These looked old. Did they really have all these already in ancient China?

and many more...

A work of "Clay Sculpture Chang"  泥人张 (19th century). It seemed that this guy was quite famous.

A prostitute's bed.

This part of the body could not be locked. HAHAHA...

Jiayin Hall.

A fisherman's boat.

穿心弄 Chuanxin Lane was the very reason we came to Tongli. It is a narrow alley of 200 meters in length. On both sides of the lane there were high walls of over 8 meters high. The narrowest part of the lane is only 0.8 meters wide, which permit only one person to go through. Because there is a stone ravine under the lane, it always produce noise when people walk on it, and get the name of 音乐弄 Musical Lane (reference site: foreignercn).