Jiangsu, part 7: Quanfu Temple

Toward the south end of Zhouzhuang, foot traffic thinned out.



This must be the working area of town, along the South Lake, where they use cormorants to fish.





At the edge of the island sits the Quanfu Temple, a big Buddhist complex.










Plenty of fish in their pond...



You're not charged an entrance fee, and they don't outright ask for donations, but we still ended up paying several yuan for visiting.

They had a room that you couldn't enter, but could approach a large, open window from the outside. Across the room were bells. Since it would be good luck to get one of the bells to ring, everyone throws coins at them.

We missed every throw. Not all of those coins were ours, thankfully. I wonder how often they clear the floor?

The shops of Zhouzhuang are ready for tourists. We bought two silk weavings, with much negotiation. Before going to the temple, we looked at one weaving I liked. The shopkeeper asked 150 yuan, then 120. While starting to walk away, I countered 40 yuan (in Mandarin). We kept walking. Before we got too far away down the alley (about 100 feet), the shopkeeper had lowered her price to 80. We didn't return, though.

After visiting the temple, we stopped at another silk shop. The asking price for the same design was 250 yuan. Chunlin told her that the other shop had dropped to 60. This shopkeeper accepted the price and a sale was made. For the other weaving, Chunlin talked the price down from 1200 yuan to 250. We had to try to leave a few times. I helped by acting like I didn't care and just wanted to leave and go eat something. Long bargaining is tiring.





We were indeed hungry at this point, so we went to a teahouse. Luckily we bought some snacks at a nearby pastry shop, because the teahouse prices were quite high. They let us eat the other food with their tea, though, so that was nice.



And then we met back up with our pedicab driver, who took us back to the bus station. Ready for another long bus ride?

There was no need to turn on the bus's air-conditioning. It was raining outside and therefore couldn't possibly be hot on the bus...

More photos on flickr, of course.