Ancient Water Town of Zhujiajiao

March 29, 2018

Nearly 26 miles away from Shanghai is a small city called Zhujiajiao.
(It's pronounced jew jeeah jee-ah-ow) This lovely little water town is similar to one of my favorite cities in China, Suzhou. I wrote a post about that place that can be read here if you're interested.

How did I even get here?
The vast subway system makes it quite affordable to move from one side of town to the another. So from my hotel, I took a couple lines down and got off on line 8 on the stop called Dashijie. Upon exiting and just around the corner from the little park across the street from the metro stop, there's a the bus station that takes passengers from Downtown Shanghai all the way to the ancient city of Zhujiajiao.

How much did this cost?
A one way trip to this lovely water town cost only 12 yuan which is nearly two dollars. Super cheap! The bus ride took roughly an hour and when I asked the bus driver (in my broken Chinese) when the last left the station in Zhujiajiao, he told me 9pm and arrived in Shanghai at 10pm.

It's March, of course so not only was it cold but it was windy too so make sure you are well bundled if you come early Spring.

Walking around in the main street, I saw very little that gave a single clue to its name 'ancient water town.' At first I was a bit disappointed seeing the modern and renovated buildings and structures.

But then I saw a street sign with an arrow pointing to the direction where the building were getting older and older and exotic scents filled the air like promising tendrils telling me I was heading the right way. While the main street has been upgraded and made more modern (to rake in more income, I suppose), walking inward towards the canals, I could see its history written on every roof tile, every tree, every bridge, and every stone.

This lovely ancient town of Zhujiajiao is estimated to be over 1,700 years and was know as flourishing rice market! It has around 36 bridges and it's canals are connected to Dadian Lake and Caogang River. There are over ten thousand original buildings from the Ming and Qing Dynasty! If the buildings could talk, what would they say, I wonder...

The most popular bridge is the Fengsheng Bridge which is the tallest and longest bridge in Zhejiajiao and built in 1571. Its also known as the Dragon Gate Stone Bridge due to eight large circling dragons carved on the side of the bridge a large pearl nestled in the center and 4 small stone dragons on the top of the bridge.