It’s time now to conclude the whole stories of my packaged travel to Shanghai and other 4 cities in South Yangtze region of China. We spent 8 days in the tour to cover many tourist attractions in Shanghai, Hangzhou, SuZhou, Nanjing, Wuxi and also the water village, Wuzhen. For the first 4 days, we explored the financial capital of China, Shanghai, and also the 2 cities of heaven on the earth which were Hangzhou and Suzhou. I’ve posted a half way summary for these first 4 days of tour earlier. Click this link below if you haven’t got a clue where we are coming from:

South Yangtze China Packaged Travel Halfway Update – Where Have I Been On The First 4 Days?

On the fifth day, we traveled to another significant city in South Yangtze region of China, Nanjing and followed by Wuxi, before traveling back to Shanghai. Here are the stories for the final 4 days of travel in China:

1. In Nanjing, we visited the SongMeiLing villa;
2. Later in the evening, we came to Nanjing Bridge and visited the crystal inner art gallery;
3. At night, we went shopping at the largest pedestrian precinct in Nanjing, the FuZhiMiao;
4. On the next morning, we explored the Nanjing Wall at QinHuai Scenic Area;
5. Being the biggest hoax of our tour, we bought a jade pendent from a jade factory;
6. After having lunch in Nanjing, we progressed to another scenic city of Wuxi;
7. On our way there, I realised we would not have such fun if we didn’t pack these 5 items into our luggage before traveling to China;
8. In Wuxi, the first attraction to visit would definitely the Lingshan giant buddha;
9. I recorded a video also on the scene of “Buddha being bathed by nine dragons”;
10. That’s nothing much on Wuxi nightlife where we only went to a shopping mall;
11. Early in the next morning, we took a fresh air at Lihu Lake scenic area;
12. What else could we do in Wuxi? Check out the film shooting base of “Three Kingdom City”;
13. What could we drink in Wuxi? I had a Taihu Lake Water beer!
14. Taihu Lake is also famous for its freshwater cultured pearls;
15. Enough looking at pearls ladies? Let’s move to go back to Shanghai!
16. We were close. We shopped and drank for the last evening at Nanjing Street, the biggest shopping street in China!
17. Still exploring Shanghai on the final day? Yes. We dropped by the TongRenTang chinese pharmaceutical centre before taking the Shanghai Meglev Train to the airport.

Long stories isn’t it? Sorry if it took you so long to follow me on my travel experience in China last last Autumn. However, you may find it interesting and informative to guide you through the packaged tour or at least you would have a preliminary idea on what you should expect from this type of all-inclusive packaged tour to South Yangtze China.

Good news for me! I’ve finally concluded my weblog on China tour, for this round. Next. So I could concentrate my next travel stories on Phuket… – Travel Feeder, your ultimate photo travel blog

Just like what people love to do nowadays, ‘crossover’ is what I’m going to do here. While starting my travelogue of my travel to Phuket, I’m also finalising here my previous travel experience to China… After visiting the Three Kingdom City of Wuxi in the 7th morning of my packaged tour to South Yangtze China, we continued our schedule to visit another factory in Wuxi before our lunch (Good or bad lunch would depend on our spending in the factory ). This time round was a pearl factory in Wuxi. Frankly, I haven’t heard of any famous piece of gem that came from Wuxi…

(Above display shows “The legend of Pearl”). One of the most coveted gems or ornament for ladies, pearls are round shaped gems of various sizes without blemish and with high sheen or luster. They are normally made into a necklace with string of pearls or pearls in combination with other gemstones like rubies or diamonds. Pearls are categorised into 2 types by its origin, natural and cultured pearl. Pearls are an organic gem produced by mollusks, oyster, mussels, conch and abalone. They are normally in whitish colour with some tint of pink, cream or silver except fresh water cultured pearl which would have more colour choices.

Natural pearls are created in mollusks. They create pearls to protect themselves from sand, parasites and other minute foreign objects. These natural pearls are mostly found in the Persian Gulf and are referred to as oriental pearls. Natural salt-water pearls are among the most coveted in the world but have virtually ceased to exist due to pollution and lack of natural supply. On the other hand, cultured pearl growing began with a patented process invented by Kokichi Mikimoto, the founder of Mikimoto and Company, one of the world’s finest pearl growers and sellers. A bead is surgically planted in Akoya oysters to create the irritant that causes oysters to create a pearl. The oysters are then put back in the sea enclosed in baskets. They stay in the baskets from one to three years to produce sizable pearls with sufficient sheen.

Cultured pearls cultivated in Taihu Lake of Wuxi are of freshwater type produced by mollusks. They can be grown in a variety of colors including pink, orange, mauve and golden colors and are usually smaller in size. Their shapes vary from round, baroque, button shaped, drop shapes and irregular shapes.

As usual, when we arrived at the pearl factory in Wuxi, we were brought to a counter where the manager showed us how pearls are getting out from an oyster in seconds. The below photos showed the sequence…

Opening up an oyster with ordinary knife…

… scoop out plenty of pearls from only one oyster…

… then start scooping in money, left with a dying oyster.

After that, it’s our free time to shop around and sales persons approched us from all angles! Strings of pearls were laid and displayed in front of us. As usual again, like the rest of the other factories visit which I considered them as travel hoaxes, we had to wait for others if we were not interested in pearls… I mean interested in buying pearls! The tour guide would tell you this: “Take your time, our VIP, your lunch later would be at the grand restaurant.. upstair only!” No where to run!

All kinds of pearl ornamentations are displayed on the counters to attract you. They will tell you how good quality are their pearls but never told you they are cultivated fresh water pearls which are normally cheaper…

Other than jewelries made from pearls, they sell cosmetics produced with pearl powder as well. We bought some pearl powders as Chinese medication believe that it could heal fever or at least reduce heat of children. My wife and sister bought some pearl day and night facial cream as well! In order to have a better lunch, my niece bought a pendent! Haha…

I’m no expert in pearls. I can’t even differentiate whether they are considered as high or low quality or value. So I posted some photos here for you ladies to judge whether Wuxi Taihu Lake Pearls are what you think good or bad pieces of feminine beloved ornamental gems….

UPDATED: Click HERE to view the original High Resolution file of the above photos via Flickr.

Satisfied, ladies?

This was our last destination in Wuxi. We left Wuxi after our lunch (Thanks, our fellow tour members. Because you spent enough money on pearls, we had a good lunch there!) and travelled back to our first city of our packaged tour, Shanghai. If you love this story, subscribe to my RSS feeds for more free updated stories of my trip to China. – Travel Feeder.

All photos above were captured with Panasonic Lumix FZ28

In China, there are countless breweries and too many different brands of beers selling in the market. On our vacation travel to China, beers are served as beverage in all and every meal we had in the restaurant. To my surprise, beers provided for each meal are all different makes! We had like 13 lunches and dinners in our China trip and we were served with 13 different brands of beers. Ha! We had the option to either drink beer or mineral water as their local beers are as cheap as their water! Haha!

For me, there isn’t any problem to try all these different beers for each meal. I think it was some kind of drinking experience to be able to taste some of the local beers in 5 different cities in China! In fact, on top of that, I spotted 3 more different beers in HangZhou when my wife and I went out for our dumpling supper at one of the local shop. There were 3 brands of local beer selling at RMB3, RMB5 and RMB8 for one Big bottle! To be safe (viewing at the price), we tried the 5 bucks option which was actually not too bad!

The above local beer was served in our lunch at Wuxi, China. From the label it read as HuaLun Brand iced beer brewed with Taihu Lake water nearby! Only found in Wuxi! We also tried beers made with Xihu Lake water during our stay in Hangzhou as well! TsingTao Beer is considered as upper-class international brewery in China and we also managed to tried their iced beer in Shanghai (which I can’t find any here…). – Travel Feeder.

The above photo was captured with Panasonic Lumix FZ28

Another great sunny day with blue sky and bright sun in WuXi, China, on our 7th day in China South Yangtze region. We left our first destination of Wuxi Lihu Scenic area in the morning and headed straight to another scenic park. This is the difference between Self-travelling and packaged travelling. We tend to wake up later if we were travelling by ourselves. Off course it would be more relaxed that we could take our own sweet time but less tourists spots could be covered as well. Being a pro’s and con’s issue, it would depend on ourselves whether we want to see more tourists attractions or to experience more in-depth local cultures. For this case, as part of a all-inclusive-packaged travel to China, we were required to wake up as early as 6:30am in order to be able to cover as much destination as possible within a short period. While self-travelers are still sleeping in their hostel, we have visited the scenic Lihu Lake. While self-travelers are having their breakfast in one of the local stalls, we have reached our second destination of the day in WuXi…. (Don’t be confused. I’m still an enthusiat of self-travelling because I preferred to experience more on the local lifestyle instead of rushing for travelers spots )

Our second stop of the day in WuXi was this one: Three Kingdom City, an used-to-be television series shooting base for CCTV broadcast of China. The famous drama, “The Romance Of Three Kingdom” was filmed here. Now, it has become a renowned tourists attraction in WuXi. Touching a bit on the Chinese history, the story of Three Kingdom is all about the battlefield between the three main countries in China history, the Wei, Shu and Wu kingdoms. Off course, there were also other smaller kingdoms involved like the Qi, Chu, Yen, Cheng, Han, and Chow Kingdoms.

In front of the Three Kingdom City, I mean the filming base, there is a giant concrete statue of a Qi Ling (麒麟）, a symbol of power in Chinese beliefs.

Though it was just a filming base, the structures are all actually built-for-life . The design of the buildings were also strictly following the contemporary ancient Chinese architectures. This is the main entrance of the city. You can see the robustness of the structure as well as the uniqueness of the ancient chinese design.

Further approaching the entrance while our tour guides paying for our entrance fees of RMB55 per pax, we could see 2 armed wardens, one standing at each side, in warrior costumes. There is an umbrella shading for him also! Not bad err….

Inside the “city”, visitors can wander around withing the compound to see and feel all kinds of architectures, history backdrops, drama scenes of Three Kingdoms. In order to film the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a series of buildings were needed to be built there. These include the King of Wu‘s Palace, the Ganlu Temple, the Caocao’s Army Camp on Land and Waterside, the Seven Star Altar and the Stunt Performing Court for Big Fire at Red Cliffs. If you have enough time, you could walk one round of the city. Otherwise, there are trams transporting visitors from one tourists spot to another, which could save you time by paying extra money. The choice is yours.

Visitors could experience the king’s lifestyle in this bedroom of Liu Bei, the King of Shu Kingdom where reds and yellow colours are prominent within the room. Red represents happiness while Yellow colour represents wealth and royalties in Chinese culture.

At the other side of the room, there is the throne of the King. Tourists could experience the prideness of a king by sitting there in the King’s costume and take a photo accompanied by these 2 beautiful ladies as your temporary queen consorts, with an additional charges off course…

Walking out of the residence of Liu Bei, I spotted this breathtaking garden view…

If you are a self-traveller, not being rushed by the tour guide (the norm in packaged travel ), I would strongly suggest one to save the cost of the tram and walk through the city. The surrounding landscapes are simply awesome! Every piece of wood or tree is just so beautiful!

Visitors could also buy some ancient chinese costumes and decoratives from those shops withing the compound. (Don’t worry to have missed them though, there are plenty of them around…)

The Ganlu (甘露) Temple is located south of the King of Wu’s Palace. The temple comprises the Buddhist Hall, the Drum Tower, the Brick Pagoda and the Sword Testing Stone.

The Brick Pagoda up hill…. We didn’t go up there because we were rushing to see the live battlefield performance at 10a.m….

The above is a panoramic view of the Stunt Performing Court for Big Fire at Red Cliffs (赤壁). Tourists can appreciate magnificent historical scenes of burning the Red Cliffs by CaoCao. The scene is specially designed miniature scene with all the miniature warships, soldiers and barracks, as well as the miniature fire! Through remote control and electropneumatic control, the  warfare battlefield scenes are presented to the visitors. It was how the film was shot!

Just before the live battlefield performance, we passed by another cinematic scene, the Outer Gate of the CaoCao Army camp at waterside. Visitors could ride one ofe the warship for a short tour around the waterfront lake…

… overseeing the Mustering Platform, the Outer Gate of the Army Camp, Four Watchtowers and some warships as part of the CaoCao Army Camp of Three Kingdom.

This one doesn’t look like a warship to me though…

The Four Watch Tower and the waterfront…

Looking at the platform, the gates and  the warship had made me feel like we were in the time tunnel…

At 10a.m., the live battlefield performance began (some self-travelling travelers were still sleeping…) We just managed to grab some good seats.

The live show was about the fight between horse-riding historical heroes of Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, dueling their enemy Lu Bu. Some stunning stunt performances of horse-riding are definitely worth watching.

UPDATED: Click HERE to view original High Resolution file of the above photos via Flickr.

After the show, we decided to walk out to the exit instead of taking the tram. The landscaping along our way had again caught my eyes and made my Panasonic Lumix FZ28 worked harder.

Though I’m a big fan of ancient Chinese history, I have not seen the drama of “The Romance Of Three Kingdom”. For me, Three Kingdom City is just another tourist scenic park for tourists to take beautiful scenic photos and for western visitors to appreciate the ancient Chinese architecture and culture. If I were to travel to WuXi by myself, I wouldn’t have visited this park at all. – Travel Feeder.

All photos above were captured with Panasonic Lumix FZ28

What do you see in a children playground? A tyre swing? Monkey bar? Sliding tube? Teeter Totter? Climbing ladder? Or you have never been once? I’ve seen all the above very often because every time I go to a park with my children, there are sure a dedicated compound with rubber chipping floor and children playground equipment. What about in China?

Off course you could still those western and modern types of outdoor children playground equipment like above. But there are some places in China, like the park I’ve been to in Wuxi China during my vacation travel to South Yangtze China, I saw these 2 special (to me…) designed or Chinese designed type of children outdoor playground set which I found special and interesting…

This is more like a warfare training ground where children (‘why I saw adults there also?‘) are to climb up this netting bridge to walk across to the other side. What I found interesting is the timber structure supporting the netting which are so strong and durable that I won’t be able to see any here in Malaysia.

The second one above is even more interesting. I did try myself though it is meant for children and youngsters. Timber planks are screwed and hung from top with chains that looks similar to a tyre swing, except they are designed for standing. A row of these timber swings are then arranged close to each other for people (children I mean) to swing and step over to the other, one by one, until reaching to the other end. I can tell you that it is not an easy job at all and both your hands and legs can be shaking even after the game! Again, the structures are all made of timber!

These two set are warfare games for ancient chinese children. I love to see one here if there are any. Do you love to wander around playgrounds? – Travel Feeder.

All photos above were captured with Panasonic Lumix FZ28