Fengjing Ancient Town and Jinshan Peasant Painter's Village

This week the kids and Bill have been home, due to a Chinese national holiday. We have been trying to take advantage of the time off, and do some Shanghai sightseeing. Today we ventured out with our friends, Melanie and Jorge, and they're two children, who recently moved here from Michigan. We travelled to the Jinshan District of Shanghai. There we visited an Ancient water town (1500 years old), and a peasant painter's village.

Compared to the last water town we went to, Fengjing was much more pleasant. The sidewalks and alleys were wider, and the crowds were thinner. The weather was beautiful, sunny and 80's. Although there were vendors, there were far fewer, and no one shouted out trying to tempt us to enter their store. There was no scent of stinky tofu (One of the worst smells in Shanghai. It actually rivals for THE worst, with sewage being the other. No exaggeration.) It was a great activity for a fall day, and we spent about an hour and a half wandering around the town.

Next we went to the Jinshan Peasant Painter's village. This type of painting style is very quickly becoming popular in China, and this is the place that is known for it. The paintings are done in very bright water-based tempera paints, mixed with chalk, and painted on rice paper. They portray country life in a childish way, and often do not have spacial reality. Bill and I picked up a set of four small painting, each one representing the countryside in one of the four seasons.

It was a very peaceful place to walk, as it was very beautiful, and  there were not many people there. They had a great children's play area, and we would have loved to spend more time enjoying it, but we needed to get the kids lunch. Bill and I are thinking of going back one day, to let them play again. 

We ate lunch at a Chinese hotel that was very close to the village, and we were very happy to get a private room for the kids to play in, without bothering others. We ate a very tasty meal in the traditional Chinese "lazy susan" style setting, and then headed home. 

When we arrived home, we had received the package my mom sent from the states, chock full of  all the things we love, but can't get here. Thanks, Mom! A great end, to a great day.