Among the big cities in China, Shanghai maintains the look of a Western metropolis. It is fascinating and sophisticated. The city started out in the 4th century as a fishing village and became a town till the middle of the 13th century. After the Opium War, Shanghai was gradually opened as a 'treaty port' in the mid year of the 19th century when it had been opened to the foreign trade and led to its partition into British, French and later Japanese concessions. From that time on, foreigners began to flood into this paradise for adventurers. Covering out their own sphere of influence, England, France, the US and Japan settled here by seizing their respective concessions which was known as the territory of each country. It was considered as the colonial period with number of the featured buildings and architectures of cosmopolitan by those owners of the concessions which made Shanghai as a fascinating mixture of East and West.

Xitang, once called Xietang or Pingcuan, is a typical water town in the south China. The town is located in the joint part of Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province and Shanghai. It is 90 kilometers away from Shanghai. We'll drive along G320 Highway or Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo Highway to Jiashan then to Xitang, which will take about 2 hours.

Xitang lies in the Hangzhou-Jiaxing-Huzhou Plain with flat terrain and crossed rivers. In Tang and Song Dynasties, it was a village and in Yuan Dynasty it was given the name of Xietang and became a town in Ming Dynasty. There is 250,000 square meters of well-preserved Ming and Qing Dynasties complex which is seldom in China speaking of the scale and integrity. The street and the houses were built at the side of the rivers. There are 27 old bridges, 122 small lanes and 1000-meter-long corridor in one square kilometer old town area. Ceiling corridors are the most special scene in xitang construction. These corridors were originally built to make convenience for the residents trading on boats by the side of the rivers. Each shop has a ceiling over the stone-slate road in front of its own house, and the ceilings connect with one another to form corridors. The longest ceiling stretches 1,300 meters, like a silk belt winding along the river. Now the town has been in the preliminary name list of World Culture Heritage.

According to the expert from IAU, the globally best observing point will be at Anji in Zhejiang Province. You'll be there via Hangzhou for tomorrow's observation.

The bullet train from Shanghai to Hangzhou won't take long, and you'll be transferred to Hangzhou within two hours. Anji is a small county located in the northwest of Zhejiang Province. It is known as the home to bamboo and the place holding the headstream of Huangpu River, the mother river of Shanghai.

The accommodation is subject to the room availability.