Zhujiajiao (Gesundheit! or God Bless you!)

No, I did not just sneeze. What I just said is pronounced Zhu-ja-jao, or, close to that.
It's the name of the water town we went and visited today with the Winklers and the Lawlers in an attempt to fill our now defunct Hangzhou weekend. :)
It was about a 35 minute cab ride to the west of where we live (only cost about $18!) and we were there. Now, given, we had to endure a cab ride that was filthy, had no seatbelts and he was going about 100 km/hr, but, we got there. Our guardian angels are so busy with us here! :)

Anywho, we got there around 930 or so and it was already packed! That's what we get for going to a touristy place on a holiday weekend. To be truthful, we were a bit disappointed with what we saw.
The town was basically on a river which was in the shape of a cross formation. There were restaurants and shops along the walkway and a lot, I mean A LOT, of stinky tofu. For those of you who have never smelled stinky tofu (yes, it's actually called that), there are few things in this world that smell worse. And I'm a labor and delivery nurse and a mom. And I used to work in a wound care clinic. So. Stinky. It's considered a tasty treat to the Chinese and I just can't figure out why.

Ok, I'm going off on a tangent about the stinky tofu. I'll get back on track.

So we walked through the town, over a bridge, went for a boat ride, back over the bridge, had some coffee, bought a few souveniers and went home. :) Here's some more detailed descriptions...

Ben and Coop. Cooper was absolutely amazing today!! Very little stimming or whining. He just seemed to be observing it all.

 The entrance to the "town"

Patrick and Quinten just inside the entrance

Sophie getting a good whif of the stinky tofu while observing some prawns or crawfish or something

Ben and Isaac with Ben and Cooper

Sophia and Mia- she really didn't like the stinky tofu  :)

A boat used to pick up trash from along the walkway

Aubrey (8), Sophie (almost 5) and Mia (3). Really good Shanghai buds!

A view down the walkway. It looks really empty here and I'm not sure how bc it really was SO packed there!!

The gang's all here!

One of the bridges that connects the two sides of the street.

Ben with Isaac- Isaac was very popular with the locals :)

This woman gutted a chicken right there then threw the inards into the river, rinsed the bowl out in the river, put river water back into the bowl, then placed the remaining chicken pieces into it. Ewww...... There are no words for what we saw floating in that river, either. Ugh.

A few of the shops had really pretty things- this one had wood carvings. Really intricate work but they wanted a fortune for them. Wonder how many locals actually buy them?

A view of the buildings on the other side of the river once we'd turned the corner

The local street food. Oh, I could go on forever. Well, you already know about the tofu. To the right you'll notice the container of frog parts, may have been turtle, hard to know. The wrapped meat things, I cannot even imagine There was meat on bone wrapped in leaves and twine. Supposedly another delicacy. Uck.

Those in the middle are pig's feet. Mmmm.... (gag)  :)

See, this gives a better idea for how busy it was. Good thing I have this tall blonde guy I can easily spot all the time. :)

A Winkler family photo. What it doesn't show are the 6 Chinese people behind me taking a picture of them as well. :)

A view from on top of the bridge- these are the boats we took a ride on.

Sophie was really excited to take a boat ride. :) Girls in one boat, boys in the other!

Mia, Sophia, Aubrey, Laura, and Liz on the right.

The boys' boat- ours was way more fun. :)

A local building we saw on our boat tour.

We got a ride through the part that we had walked through earlier.

Turning around mid canal...

Did I mention she liked the boat ride?? My little blonde beauty.

That's the super tall bridge we had walked over to get to the boats.

After the boat rides we fought our way back the way we came then decided to stop at a local coffee shop and get the kids some snacks. Ben and Ben decided it was a good time for a man date. :) Cheesecake and coffee, anyone?

And yes, how we spent a lot of our day- with people constantly taking our picture... Oh, they think it's so funny and that it's not weird at all. SO never want to be famous!!

We bought a nice wind chime and Sophie got a flower windsock thing. Then it was really time to get away from the stinky tofu. :)

We had to endure another harrowing taxi ride home- this time the guy had seatbelts but was going 120 km/hr down the shoulder of the highway, narrowly avoiding blown tire bits and trash. But, again, we arrived safely. Thanks again, God!

Tomorrow we're heading to the Shanghai Museum of Science and Technology downtown.
More adventures, here we come!
I'm exhausted and need a nap.  :)