Qingming crowds have bought up all the seats from here to anywhere, but I did manage to get a ticket on an express train back to Shanghai leaving tomorrow morning. Regardless, I hit a wall today. I hatched a last minute plan to check out the 1,600 year old big stone buddha in Xinchang 新昌, but I hit some bad luck and the timing didn’t work out. Dejected, I wandered, serendipitously meandering past a small Buddhist temple and into another old area of town criss-crossed with canals. The area has plenty of old stone bridges, each with four to five hundreds of years of history (most famous, 八字桥, is in this area). The dwellings are all done in traditional style with whitewashed walls and black tiled roofs and even if they are not all authentically ancient, the old people washing vegetables in the canal certainly are.

My prediction: given a few more decades of steady growth and intelligent city planning, Shaoxing will be widely known as the Venice of China. It’s a fantastic little city. The people are healthy and trendy. There are lots of pretty girls with all the 温柔-osity of Hangzhou 美女’s. There’s an obvious ecological consciousness. The traffic isn’t too bad. Cabs start at RMB6.5. Plenty of places of truly unique cultural significance. Excellent hiking. Good air. A Watsons. A 味千拉面. A Carrefour. And a Starbucks, with wireless, in which I am currently sitting. The only defect is the language barrier. Lots of people here simply do not speak 国语 which makes it hard to put together the back story.

My first night wandering Shaoxing I immediately fell in love with the place. It’s a real gem. Most Shanghailanders never seem to get past Hangzhou. Their loss is my gain.