Our visit to Xitang a water town in China

Our visit to Xitang

Shou and his dad took Tony and I out on a two hour bus trip out of Hangzhou to an ancient town called Xitang. We had to take a boat to get to the city and it was very pretty. We had lunch there. It was hot and felt like a tourist trap. I am glad I went but there were so many people that it made it hard to feel history. The tour group took us to a temple and there was a huge Buddha there. In China the higher the threshold in a door way the more rich the family who lived there was. The ancient architecture was interesting. The buildings were two stories high or less. The “streets” were about 6 feet wide. There were many shops and restaurants catering to the tourists that crawled all over the place.

On the way back we met a 19 year old named Sonic who spoke English. Shou and him had a strong common interest in sports. Sonic wants to become a sports reporter. He was starting college this fall and studying Chinese. He lived north of Shanghai and was visiting all over China before college. We invited him to come for dinner at Shou’s house. The next day we were planning on going to Shanghai. He also was headed that way and we agreed to try to meet up.

Pictures from Xitang: