Tunxi Ancient Street
Arrived here late afternoon from Shanghai. Due to a stuff up of our flights by our less than observant travel agent we missed the last cable car up to the Mt. Huang so we will have to spend the night here in Tunxi. After checking in and a quick rest we wandered down to ancient street.
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This tea house is about 800 years old. The girl is performing a traditional Chinese tea ceremony and later instructed us on the proper tea drinking etiquette. I really enjoyed drinking one so much so I bought some.
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We then tried out Chrysanthemum tea. It was lovely, sweet and mellow. I really enjoyed it.
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This was lovely too and the most expensive tea we tried that night. Excellent green tea indeed.
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Hmm, looks like some sort of bicycle convertible. How cute is it?
Wonder if it would catch on back in Australia.
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I found this bicycle parked all on it’s lonesome in a back lane off ancient street.
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Drying clothes the traditional way.
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Fan Artist/Calligrapher/Painter.
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Seal stone Carver at work. He is actually carving this one for me. You can see what it looks like at the top right hand corner of this photo.
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A very friendly local.
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Random tourist trying to decide which fan to buy or get both. This goes on for an eternity. Okay, I am exaggerating.
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Fast food Chinese style. The food was actually very tasty and ridiculously cheap.
History
This street with centuries-old history dates back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Emperor Huizong (1082-1135) moved his seat of government to Lin'an (now Hangzhou), when many architects and workmen were conscripted to construct the new capital. After returning to their hometown, they imitated the structural style to build architecture along the street, so Tunxi Ancient Street was formed.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), a merchant in Anhui invested money to build 47 stores so as to attract businessmen, which contributed to the communication of the street with outside world.
Gradually it developed into the distribution center for materials in and out of Anhui in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
The street is paved with maroon flagstones with a total length of 1,273 meters (about 1,392 yards), of which 895meters (about 979 yards) is the pedestrian commercial street.
Shops standing on both sides are generally of two or three floors, which feature the local Anhui style of stone base, brick construction and tile roof. The layout of these buildings commonly takes on the appearance of shops in front while houses and workshops are to the rear. Once a professor from America was amazed by the street and he said he had found an Oriental Ancient Rome. Nowadays the street is also used as a natural studio for films and TV series.
Tunxi, Anhui, China
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