.....times of refreshing.....

I like Wuxi ! I don't know a thing about this city till this trip and never really heard about it. Perhaps the attraction about Wuxi to me is the Li Lake or Lake Taihu, which can fills four Singapore! The lake was a haven to the pearl industry (where we were brought to a Pearl factory for 'shopping'!) and fresh water produces. Anyway, the surprising fact is the lake is not deep, and what I heard was it is around 2 m deep only.  It's not as picturesque as West Lake in Hangzhou but it's still a great place for picture taking and enjoying the scenery there.

A highway bridge crossing the Li Lake in Wuxi

We were brought to a filming location of the Three Kingdoms in Wuxi where they seems to invest a lot in building this filming location. Everything looks so ancient there and so real! I understand after the filming, they kept the place as a tourism spot.

Statues of the characters from the three kingdoms near the entrance. I can recognized Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu.

Another row of statues there , like terracotta armies to me!

It's indeed beautiful over there with these ancient decors and trees around

There was a live show where they reenacted famous battles from the Three Kingdoms and we were presented with an exciting display of horse riding skills and martial arts. This is especially when the artists 'fight' while riding their horses. They are really skillful and some of them performing stunts while riding. And, I kept cuddling myself with gloves on, in the open cold weather!! Though I love the show, I was glad when it finished too as we wanted to get some 'warm' inside some buildings...LOL

Warming up for battle

In action ...

Then, before we left the location, we were brought to Li Lake for a cruise. It was a beautiful sight at the lake with the sunset as well as nice man-made ancient harbour for the filming. Though the ships are 'fictional' and meant for filming only, it actually can move and we were given a treat to cruise around and nearby the lake.

The 'harbor' to dock battleships.

The entrance to the harbour

It's sunset at 5pm+ then... The lake seems looks like sea.

I had a great time watching sunset from the cruise , as the sun slowly descend below the mountain.

And yours truly ...  in front of one of the ancient buildings.

I had a great time shopping around Nanjing's Gongyuan Street,  after having their famous Nanjing vermicilli and duck blood-cubes soup , which is located around there. It was not too late, around 6pm+ but due to the winter season, it was all dark there. It's basically more of a window shopping there as the place was too big and we are also busy taking pictures around. However, we got something for our kids by getting them some extra clothing since we didn't really brought a lot of winter clothing. My kid was delighted when he saw a Li Ning sports shop there, and so was I, since both of us are avid badminton fans. However, to our dismayed, they don't seems to sell badminton stuffs but rather, operates like Nike or Adidas by selling clothes, shoes and other sporting fashion stuffs. We only saw one Li Ning racket and it's not cheap either , better get it in JB...Lol. Anyway, this is really a comfortable shopping haven, where the night scenery was nice, cool weather, not as crowded as Shanghai and clean with beautiful ancient-typed buildings.

A light-up dragon display on the banks of the river

One of the buildings around which contains lots of shops

Folks hanging around the bridge along the river banks. You can buy tickets at the kiosks for a cruise along the river, but we do not have the time for it.

Another view of the Gongyuan steet

One of the gates

It's so nice walking around the spacious area there and it's not really that crowded.

I was hungry and saw these freshly baked biscuits there. It looks appetizing on a cold night!

I decided to get a few pieces. It contains no fillings inside but kinda crunchy when I took a bite on it. And, it's best to eat it hot as I find it not so delicious when cold, and it gets cold very fast due to the cold weather. When the biscuits turned cold, its kinda harder.

Some decors along the road

Above and below,  views of the older shops when we walked out from Gongyuan St.

It's quite pleasant to walk around there though the traffic can be terrifying and we gotta be careful when crossing the roads. And, we were dead-tired after that and looking forward to a hot shower when back to the hotel!