Historic in Wuxi

Whenever I'm bitten by the travel bug and feel that restless need to explore somewhere new, I sustain my fantasies by looking back at the amazing places I've already been. Over the summer, I visited China for the first time and was blown away by the depth of culture and history in that country. As a history student, I had studied both ancient and modern Chinese history by reading textbooks, attending lectures, and watching videos. When I was afforded the opportunity to visit some of the places that I had previously only read about, it could only be described as a surreal experience. While there were some moments when I didn't know which city I was in, let alone the background history of the place, I always was wide-eyed and completely fascinated by the new sights, sounds, and interesting people that populated each area. 

In this post, I finally edited some snapshots of this beautiful historic site that we visited one evening in Wuxi. After a long day of traveling on a big coach bus, we were relieved to finally stretch our legs and see somewhere new. This area, which contained beautiful temples, statues, ponds, and other quintessential Chinese artifacts, was also full of mosquitoes that were very happy to find us and our ready supply of blood. As well, it was incredibly hot during that time of the year (mid-July) and we had to constantly fan ourselves to maintain our sanity. As a result, when we had finished our tour and were given some free time, we ended up just sitting around and hoping the time would pass by sooner. Nevertheless, I forced myself to take some pictures so as to not let such an experience be forgotten. Hope you enjoy them!  

My dad looking quite pleased with himself after snapping many candid shots of his tired, sweaty, and so-not-impressed family. 

When my dear brother headed off into some creepy alley for the washroom, I feared that I would never see him again. Speaking of washrooms, this place had the worst facilities I have ever encountered. Think of one single drain running between each of the stalls; as well, the stalls had no doors and had only a small, shoulder-height wall with which to conceal oneself from the next person... Shudder, what a nightmare!  

Since we had arrived at a time of the day when there were few tourists and the park was about to close, we experienced an eerie kind of loneliness in that ancient town. Being in a place that was so empty and so old made you sure that there were a few ghosts hanging around... If any of you know the famous animated film Spirited Away, you would know what I'm talking about when I say that we felt like we were about to be kidnapped at any moment by some rambunctious spirits. Luckily, we managed to escape safely and arrive at our hotel for a good night's rest instead!