Start in: Shanghai
End in: Shanghai
Special Experience: Acrobatic Show in Shanghai, sunrise at Mt. Huangshan, water town tour at Zhouzhuang, pick tea in Hangzhou
East China Water Town and Garden Tour with Mt. Huangshan
Day-by-Day Itinerary
Day 1 Arrive Shanghai
Accommodations: Holiday Inn Shanghai -Downtown 
Transfer via: International Flight on your own arrangement
Upon your arrival at Shanghai, China's most cosmopolitan city, our local guide will meet you and escort you to your hotel. The rest of the day is free at your own leisure.
Accommodations: Holiday Inn Shanghai -Downtown
Meals: B,L,D
Sightseeing: Shanghai Museum,The Bund ,Nanjing Road,Yu Garden,Yuyuan Market
Gala Event: Acrobatic Show
Today, your full-day excursion of incredible Shanghai will include: Shanghai Museum, the Bund and the Nanjing Road, Yu Garden and Yuyuan Market. Enjoy a wonderful Portman Acrobatic Show at the Shanghai Centre Theatre tonight.
- Shanghai Museum: often ranked as China's best museum, it is the biggest museum in China with a fine collection of over 120,000 pieces of Chinese artifacts.
- The Bund : where the great trading houses and banks had their headquarters in the 1920s and the 1930s. The Bund is about about a mile long, it is the city's fulcrum.
- Nanjing Road: known as "China's No.1 Shopping Street" with a huge selection of merchandise on sale.
- Yu Garden: located in the Old Town of Shanghai and laid out in 1559 AD by a powerful Ming official, Yu Garden recreates a beautiful landscape of pagodas, pavilions, rockeries, fountains, ancient trees and precious flowers.
- Yuyuan Market: outside the Yu Garden, a bustling market with different snacks and trinkets.
- Acrobatic Show: Chinese Acrobatics is one of the oldest performing arts with its history tracing back to Neolithic times, during its development in the history, it has been absorbing plentiful merits from the opera, dance and Chinese Kungfu, and formed its own artistic features. In Portman Acrobatic Show, in a very typical Shanghainese setting and atmosphere, you will enjoy many breathtaking and stunning programs such as Calvaria Skills, Silk Suspending, Hoop Diving and so on performed by very skillful performers, you will truly have an unforgettable experience of your life.
Accommodations: Huangshan International Hotel
Meals: B,L
Transfer via: China domestic flight on our arrangement
Free in the day until our local guide escorts you to the airport for your flight to your next destination-Huangshan. Upon your arrival at city of Huangshan (Tunxi), our local guide will meet you and escort you to your hotel. The rest of the day is free at your own leisure.
Accommodations: Beihai Hotel
Meals: B,L
Sightseeing: Mt. Huangshan
After breakfast, drive 80 kilometers (1.5 hour-drive) to Huangshan Scenic Area and take cable car at Yungu Station to the top of the mountain. After check-in and lunch, you will view Brush Pen Peak, tour Lion Peak and Xihai Grand Canyon, enjoy the sunset glow at the Cloud Dispelling Pavilion, etc. Stay overnight at the summit.
- Mt. Huangshan: located in the southern Anhui Province, extending about 40km from north to south and 30km from east to west, the Huangshan Scenic Area is comprised of numerous peaks of various heights and grotesque rocks of different formation, and is well known for its extraordinary aesthetic mountainous features. Here we can find all of the beauties of nature, with its charm lying especially in its oddly-shaped pines, fantastic rocks, sea of clouds and hot springs--the four supreme sights on the mountain. The picturesque Mt.Huangshan has been a famed destination for scholars, poets and the occasional hermits in Chinese history, and has long been effusively described as "awesome," "a wonderland" and "Heaven on Earth."
Accommodations: Huangshan International Hotel
Meals: B,L
Sightseeing: Tunxi Ancient Street,Ink Stone Factory
Try to get up early in the morning to catch the magical sunrise, after breakfast, tour the Begin-to-Believe Peak to see the grotesque pinetrees. After all the exercise, take the cable car down to the foot of the Mt. Huangshan and drive back to the city of Huangshan to visit Tunxi Ancient Street and Ink Stone Factory.
- Tunxi Ancient Street: a well preserved bustling center of trade since the Southern Song Dynasty. It is paved with slabs of stone and is one mile long with old shops lining both sides of the street. These old shops are in perfect order and an unmistakable Huizhou architectural style.
- Ink Stone Factory: ink stone is the important part of "Four Treasures of the Study" in China. Because of its solid texture, the ink stone can be handed down from one generation to another. The Ink Stone Factory in Huangshan is one of the most famous ink stone factories in China, where you can see the whole working process.
Accommodations: Wanghu Hotel
Meals: B,L
Sightseeing: Hongcun,Xidi
Transfer via: Soft-seat bus on our arrangement
The tour today will bring you to Yixian County, 54km away from the city of Huangshan (about 1-hour drive), where you will visit two ancient villages--Hongcun and Xidi. After the tour, get back to the city of Huangshan and be escorted to the station for your bus to Hangzhou. Upon your arrival at Hangzhou, our local guide will meet you and escort you to your hotel. The rest of the day is free at your own leisure.
- Hongcun: a model of the ancient villages in China with the features of beautiful lake, first class old dwellings, peaceful streets and lanes, and the perfect natural background, where the movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was partly shot. Hongcun was first built during the Southern Song Dynasty, about 900 years ago, by the Wang Clan. The layout of the village resembles the outline of an ox, hence it is popularly called as "Ox-shapedVillage". The early ox-shaped village came into being in the Ming Dynasty when Wang Siqi, their 76th generation ancestor, hired a famous fengshui expert He Keda as their advisor. His advice resulted in the construction of ponds and water channels flowing through nearly every household within the village so as to keep the "internal Yang (masculine) water" and assure for "eternal prosperity extending to all later generations". Due to the scientific construction, the buildings in the Hongcun are in great harmony with nature, showing the traditional Chinese philosophy that Nature and Man are one.
- Xidi: with a history of over 1000 years, Xidi is 700 meters from east to west, 300 meters south to north, 300 old dwellings in the village left from Ming and Qing Dynasties form the shape of a boat. Embraced in the mountains, abundant in resources and autarkic inhabitants who are accustomed to a life of leisure, all these make Xidi famed as "the reclusive utopian land".
Narrow passage between houses, Hongcun
Well preserved houses of Qing Dynasty in Xidi village
Accommodations: Wanghu Hotel
Meals: B,L
Sightseeing: West Lake,Lingyin Temple,Feilai Peak (Peak Flying From Afar),Dragon Well Tea Plantation,Six Harmonies Pagoda
The city tour in this beautiful city will include: West Lake by boat, Lingyin Temple and Feilai Peak, Dragon Well Tea Plantation and Six Harmonies Pagoda.
- West Lake: There are 36 West Lakes throughout China, but the one in Hangzhou is the inspiration for them all. The name of the West Lake originated during the Tang Dynasty from its lying to the west of Qiantang County. Another saying is that the lake is also named after Xi Shi, a famous ancient beauty, because of the apt comparison made between the two by the famed poet Su Dongpo (1037-1101AD). Originally a lagoon, the lake was dredged in the 8th century and later diked. The entire lake is ringed on three sides by mountains and one side by the city proper. With the green hills, willow trees, elegant bridges and clean spring water around, the view of the West Lake is simply enchanting.
- Lingyin Temple: a celebrated Chan (Zen) Buddhist temple founded in 326AD, despite being destroyed and rebuilt 16 times, it remains one of Hangzhou's main attractions. The current structure dates from the late Qing dynasty. Its highlights are the Great Hall with its 65 foot camphor-wood statue of the Buddha and the FeilaiPeak opposite the temple.
- Feilai Peak (Peak Flying From Afar): opposite the Lingyin Temple, 209 meters (about 700 feet) high,it is a hill covered with inscriptions and reliefs carved into the rock dating from the 10th to 14th centuries.
- Dragon Well Tea Plantation: Dragon Well Green Tea is one of the most famous brands in China. In this Tea Plantation you can pick the tea leaves, taste a nice cup of tea and learn the history and processing procedure of tea.
- Six Harmonies Pagoda: first built in 970 AD in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) to calm down the tide of the Qiantang River, it is a pavilion-style tower made of brick and wood with a height of 59.89 meters. The name "six harmonies" comes from the six Buddhist ordinances, meaning "harmonies of the heaven, earth, east, west, south and north".
Accommodations: Bamboo Grove Hotel
Meals: B,L
Sightseeing: Humble Administrator's Garden, Grand Canal,Pan Gate,The No.1 Silk Factory
Transfer via: Soft-seat train or bus on our arrangement
Free in the day until our local guide escorts you to the railway station for your train to Suzhou. Upon your arrival at Suzhou, our local guide will meet you and escort you to your hotel. Your tour in Suzhou today includes: the classical Humble Administrator's Garden, have a cruise on the Grand Canal and then visit the Pan Gate, and the No.1 Silk Factory. Overnight at Suzhou.
- Humble Administrator's Garden: covers 10 acres and is the largest garden in Suzhou. It was built in 1509 during the Ming Dynasty and is divided into the eastern, middle and western parts. All of this centers upon the broad expanse of a lake to form the poetic and picturesque garden landscapes and waterscapes with exquisite buildings and luxuriant vegetation.
- Grand Canal: commenced in the Sui Dynasty (605-616 AD), 1794 kilometers long from Beijing to Hangzhou, the Grand Canal has created a bountiful agricultural region and served as a major transportation artery between north and south.
- Pan Gate: the only remaining city gate dating from the 12th century. It is built over Suzhou's former moat.
- The No.1 Silk Factory: Suzhou is famous for its silk production. In the factory you can learn more about silk production and detailed steps of the silk making process, and you will have an opportunity to purchase some of the incredibly delicate works as well.
Accommodations: Holiday Inn Shanghai -Downtown
Meals: B,L
Sightseeing: Zhouzhuang,Twin Bridge,Quanfu Temple,Hall of Shen's Residence,Ancient Memorial Archway
In the morning, drive to Zhouzhuang (30km away from Suzhou), there you will pay a visit to the Ancient Memorial Archway, Quanfu Temple, the Hall of Shen's Residence and the Twin Bridge. And then back to Shanghai. The rest of the day is free at your own leisure.
- Zhouzhuang: meaning Zhou's village was named after Zhou Digong in the Song Dynasty (960-1127 AD) who donated more than 13-hectare of his land as the field for the Quanfu Temple. Famed as No.1 water village in China with a 900 year history, Zhouzhuang is an ancient town featuring great cultural traditions and unique architecture surrounded by water with many tributaries. You will visit stone bridges and old residences left from Ming and Qing Dynasties, where you can have a glimpse of particular charisma of Jiangnan(meaning south of Yangtze River).
- Twin Bridge: indicating two bridges -- the Shide Bridge and the Yong'an Bridges which were built between 1513 and 1619 AD and connect with each other. One bridge is in the direction of north-south, while the other east-west with one square and one round opening. As they look like an ancient key, the twin bridge is also known as key bridge.
- Quanfu Temple: standing on the bank of the Baixian Lake, built in 1086 AD in Song Dynasty on the land donated by Zhou Digong, it is a good combination of Buddhist culture with architectural arts.
- Hall of Shen's Residence: consisting of seven courtyards and five archways, it is the top of the residences with the unique local style of Jiangnan (meaning south of Yangtze River).
- Ancient Memorial Archway: an archway made of stone and standing upright at the junction of the old and the new town, it is the symbol of Zhouzhuang.
Moon Pond of Hongcun village
Meals: B
Transfer via: International Flight on your own arrangement
Free in the day until our local guide escorts you to the airport for your flight to your sweet home.
China domestic flights as specified in the itinerary 
Accommodations for 9 nights, including
9 nights at four star or higher hotels
18 meals, including 9 full breakfasts, 8 lunches and 1 dinners
1 gala evening events--Acrobatic Show in Shanghai 
Round-trip transfers---between airports, hotels and scenic spots in each city by private air-conditioned motor coaches with experienced drivers
A local English-speaking guide in each city
Entrance fees to scenic spots listed in the itinerary
Luggage transfers between airports and hotels
China Life Tourist Accident/Casualty insurance
Government taxes and service charges except tips for tour guides and drivers
Sinbba, thanks for your organization, we have had a wonderful experience in a country where we had never been and never expected to go, I can tell you that this will not be the last time that we will visit China and when the time comes for us to visit again you can rest assured that I will call you at Odyssey to organize another memorable tour for us
- Charles and Doris Gatt,Australia
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