Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 54

The American Women's Club of Shanghai (AWCS) does lots of events for the ladies here, most of whom do not work. Most of them I skip, but I decided to take a vacation day and joined a day-trip to Wuxi. Wuxi is an old city in Jiangsu province, which is only an hour or so by train from Shanghai.

It was listed as a "cultural tour" and our first stop was the City Hall and a talk with Brian Linden. They came to China starting in the 1980's and have done alot of different work here. They opened the Linden Centre in Xizhou in 2008, and the guests stay in an elegant courtyard mansion in the midst of an ancient village that functions today as it has for centuries. It is meant to allow people to experience chinese ethnic traditions and customs.

From what Brian says, the Wuxi government is trying to transform Wuxi into a new city. In the City Hall, they have this scale model that shows all of the changes that they plan to make.

They are also expanding the Linden Centre in Wuxi, assisting the Wuxi government in restoring 2 former silk trading enclaves in the urban wetlands along Lake Tai. They will be renovating the buildings into an almost-self contained resort complex. There will be kayaking, walking tours, and bicycle trips, as well as being close to parks and a fitness center/spa.

We then went to a temple and stopped at a little workshop where we were allowed to attempt to make these little dolls (unsuccessfully!)

Being fall, they had this huge display of a huge number of different chrysanthemum's. I didn't even know they HAD this many different varieties.

There were various pavillions within the temple area, along with a few rock sculptures.

As we headed out, there was a woman playing a harp of some type