CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

At the northern edge of the old district, on Xijing Street, is  Kezhi Yuan (Kezhi Gardens) . This was our second stop on the tour of Zhujiajiao.  The name Kezhi is made up of the characters 课 (kè) which means "to learn" and 植 (zhí) which means "to plant". It consists of three parts - the main hall, the garden and an artificial hill area. The most iconic landmark of the gardens is a five story building with a pavilion on its roof - the tallest structure in old Zhujiajiao.  T he history of this garden dates back to 1912, when Ma Wenqing built it, drawing inspiration from a mixture of Chinese and European influences. The construction took 15 years and 300 000 silver taels, equivalent to 12000 kg of silver.  The wars and revolutions of the following half century brought much destruction to the garden and its buildings, and in 1956 additional old structures where torn down to make room for teaching buildings of the Zhujiajiao Middle School that had come to...

With a population of 60,000 Zhujiajiao is a water town on the outskirts of Shanghai, and was established about 1,700 years ago. Archaeological findings dating back 5,000 years have also been found. 36 stone bridges and numerous rivers line Zhujiajiao, and many ancient buildings still line the riverbanks today. The village prospered through clothing and rice businesses. Today, old historical buildings such as rice shops, banks, spice stores and even a Qing dynasty post office can still be found. Zhujiajiao has many sights of historic interest, such as Fangsheng Bridge, and Kezhi Garden and the  Chenghuangmiao /Town God Temple  and I will be doing separate blogs on some of these areas of Zhujiajiao. The most iconic of the 36 bridges in Zhujiajiao is the 70-meter long Fangsheng bridge. Resting on 5 symmetric arches, the height of the bridge peaks at 5.8 meters. It was originally built by the monk Xingchao of Cimen Temple in 1571, and then rebuilt in 1812. The ce...