Sunday, February 11, 2007

Shanghai Holiday Day 3 ~ 1st February 2007 Afternoon


Zhu Jia Jiao Canal Town

After visiting Sheshan, we went to another canal town, known as Zhu Jiao Jiao, in the province of Shanghai. The canal town is similar to Zhou Zhuang Ancient Town in Jiangsu Province.

Zhu Jiao Jiao is one of the tourist attraction in the outskirts of Shanghai district that is not that well publicised. In a way, it can work both directions, not too many tourists overcrowding a historical heritage area while the tourists (domestic and international) revenue coming in would be beneficial to boost the town holistically and cultural and historical preservation.





While I was walking inside this canal town, I found that the houses were much "younger" than the houses in Zhou Zhuang Ancient Town. The houses were in better conditions and the canals were a lot wider. The bridges linking different banks of the canal town were a lot higher than the bridges in Zhou Zhuang. That could probably be due to the bigger rivers and tributaries flowing through the whole town.





As I mentioned earlier in my Zhou Zhuang posting, every country in the modern world needs to take steps preserving their history and heritage, irregardless how young or old their country is. Visiting Zhou Zhuang and Zhu Jia Jiao had left a deep impression on me, a rich cultural experience and exchange.

I made a quick walk around the Zhu Jia Jiao as I was packing my schedule to maximise my districts visit. Took some photographs before we moved on towards back to Songjiang, whereby the Shanghai Film Studio is located.

Shanghai Film Studio



Before I started writing on the Shanghai Film Studio, when you watched movies/dramas that portrayed Old Shanghai, have you ever wondered where it was being filmed? That's where I went, located in Songjiang District, the Shanghai Film Studio. I was keen to go there and have a feel of the filming location.

It was not just a filming arena, they also had their restricted acess, probably production and editing areas. The buildings though used for filming, was a very close replica of Old Shanghai, felt like walking down memory lane. When I was there in the afternoon, there was a filming going on, they were lots of cantonese being spoken and I reckoned they were from Hong Kong. I couldn't spot any movie stars and I couldn't really walked around more with the filming going on. Luckily before they were filming, I had quickly walked and took the photos.





This was the end of my afternoon agenda and we proceed with an afternoon tea at one of the teahouses before heading back to my accommodation for a rest and wash up before my night trip.