rants: Wuzhen/Hangzhou (Jacco Tours)

Today we got up bright and early and drove straight from Suzhou to Wuzhen where we hung around for a bit. The first thing we did was visit an old classical Watertown where the houses were built on the water (although we were told the houses have obviously been ungraded and now have running water, toilets and air conditioning). We were given a tour of the area by boat before taking a look at the Bed museum and cultural museum within the town. The bed museum was actually very interesting - some of the beds were built for the emperor to hold up to six people (I'm assuming six women....) in it! Then we went to lunch before driving to Hangzhou where we took another cruise on the famous Westlake as our tour guide told us the legends associated with the lake (all of them animal+love+tragedy related). Afterwards we went to a green tea plantation which was very interesting. The representative from the plantation told us she majored in Tea in university, but I'm convinced she must have majored in marketing - she had a killer sales pitch! Admittedly green tea has amazing health benefits and our tour group didn't leave empty handed! Finally we went to dinner followed by a visit to an area called the Su causeway where we watched an amazing show depicting legends from the area. The Su causeway was set up a bit like a theme park, and the show was fantastic - a hundred times better than the kung fu show with brilliant costumes, set, music etc. The set was beyond words - it opened up in the front and moved parts of the audience back and forth. At one point a waterfall was depicted by flooding the stage with real water, and as a Canadian I have to admit the fake snow looked pretty good! The one thing which surprised me was the lack of applause. After the show ended the crowd got up and left without clapping or cheering which was super odd as I'm 100% sure the performers would have gotten a standing ovation and an encore in Toronto!