Song Dynasty Town

During my Hangzhou trip, my Chinese co-worker wanted to check out the Song Dynasty town. I was tired but thought it would be nice to see some historical stuff. It turns out that it was actually a re-creation and was sort of like a mini-Disneyland.

In true Chinese fashion, they had some Chinese pop music absolutely blasting in the main area. There were tour groups everywhere being led around with bull horns and flags. Sabrina took the opportunity to pray to a couple of Buddhas and get her palm read by a monk. I took the opportunity to shoot a bow and arrow. As I was shooting, the helper lady entered the range to grab some arrows. She must have thought I was a good enough shot not to hit her or else maybe she thought the rusty semi-sharp tip of the arrow would not hurt her.

They had a big lake with all kinds of rope swings and balance beams in the middle. There were about 100 people all standing around and every once in a while someone would take to the rope swing and fail to make it across. It was really cold and dark out to be swimming around fully clothed in a Chinese Disneyland.

We watched a ridiculous water show that showed a movie using a huge spray of water for a screen. The sound system was super loud and kept crackling and shutting off. The movie involved an old guy, a warrior and two ladies that kept asking the warrior to watch them take a bath. After a while the old guy and one of the ladies had a kung fu fight and then the warrior turned into a frog.

We squeezed our way into a crowd to watch a kind of funny play that involved an old fashioned wedding. At the end, they threw candy to the crowd which caused a frenzy that was borderline panic mode.

Overall, the Song Dynasty town was really fun but the visual, audio and mental stimuli makes for an exhausting historical excursion.