Travel By Photo – A Night At FuZiMiao Pedestrian Precinct of Nanjing

Still remember the quiz that I’ve asked recently on a photo with some Chinese words on the arch? Well, nobody has guessed it right. 🙁 In fact it is written with ancient Chinese calligraphy which is so uncommon to our current generations that few could understand what it is. That was also why our local tour leader Xiao Zhang was so confident that no one from us could get it right and he even bet on our trip price with us!

And the answer is…. 古秦淮 or Gu Qin Huai, which also known as Fu Zi Miao (夫子庙), another famous pedestrian precinct in Nanjing. As I said before, there is always at least one pedestrain precinct in each and every city of China, an used-to-be auto road confined for only pedestrian with varieties of shopping and restaurant outlets along the walking street . We have GuanQian Street in SuZhou, Nanjing Street in Shanghai, and we were at FuZiMiao in Nanjing.

FuZiMiao shopping street is one of the local’s famous for more than 2 centuries since Ming and Qing dynasty. It is located along the side of QinHuai river of Nanjing. Because of the river, it is known as Ancient Qin Huai at times. It is also known as FuZiMiao (Conficious temple in chinese) because the temple is along the street. Now, it is also one of the travelers’ favourite spot for entertainment, shopping and dining in Nanjing and even China.

We were brought to FuZiMiao by Xiao Zhang (the local tour leader with a sour face) in the evening after our dinner at the crystal painting gallery, as part of out night excursion package. FuZiMiao is all about fantastic lighting and decoration along the QinHuai River. Measuring more then 1km in the total length, FuZiMiao shopping street has countless shops along both sides of the street with full varieties of shopping, dining, drinking outlets.

Shops in FuZiMiao are mainly targetting to low to middle class of consumers, including travellers and local teenagers. Local brandnames dominating the street…

A motion-blurred photo showing a group of local teenagers rushing off  after a whole evening shopping in FuZiMiao…

Attractive lightings are everywhere. They are also the main marketting strategy in the precinct.

One of the bigger international player on the street: MetersBonwe boutique. I bought a pair of jeans there for only RMB90.00! Not too bad for a brand with Jay Chow and Zhang Shao Han as spokesman… 🙂

At every 100m or less, there would be a pedestrian bridge crossing QinHuai River from one side to the other. It was a pleasant experience walking underneath rows of red lanterns, espeacially someone you love is accompanying you… 🙂

On the bridge, you could see the backlane of the shops and restaurants, which were attractively lit as well…

To further demonstrate the ancient Chinese culture, decorations and lighting, there are also ancient chinese drum styled dustbins been put along FuZiMiao street.

During the night, FuZiMiao is always packed with lots of local people as well as travelers. We had quite a lot of fashionables and local food products bought from there which are mostly reasonably priced. Off course, we had a good time bargaining for the best price at some of those local shops, with a price tag seemed open for bargaining! After slightly more than an hour spending at the precinct, though it was definitely not enough if we were to shop from one end of the street to the other (that’s what the characteristics of a packeged tour like), we left FuZiMiao as our last travel destination of our 5th day of China tour. – Travel Feeder.

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.