[2025 Kunshan Attraction] Travel Guide for Milou House (Updated Jun)

#Sign up for May Hotel Test Sleeper 2025 📍 **Address**: Beside Zhenfeng Bridge, Zhouzhuang Ancient Town (No. 111, Zhongshi Street) ⏰ **Opening hours**: 8:00-17:00 (open with the ancient town) 🎫 **Tickets**: Included in the Ancient Town Pass ✨ **Decrypt the three-story building**: 1️⃣ **Nanshe Yaji Holy Land** - Liu Yazi founded the "Mi Lou Ji" here - Reconstruction of a 1920s scholar’s ​​study 2️⃣ **Architectural secrets**: • Three-story "horse-riding building" layout • Hidden riverside beauty lounge 3️⃣ **Poetic experience**: ▸ Try on the Republic of China student uniforms and take photos on the second floor ▸ Stamp the "Mysterious Tower and Drunk Moon" commemorative stamp "When the wooden ladder creaks, it seems as if I can still hear the echo of the heated debate between Liu Yazi and Chen Qubing in those days." #Zhouzhuang Mysterious Tower #Nanshe Site #Water Village Humanities #Republic of China Style #Suzhou Secrets

#discoverchina I’ve always believed that a place speaks to you differently when you walk its streets alone. No schedule to chase, no chatter to fill the silence—just the rhythm of your footsteps and the gentle thrum of life around you. On a crisp spring morning, I found myself seeking that quiet connection, and Zhouzhuang—China’s oldest water town—answered the call. 6:00 AM – Leaving the City Behind Shanghai still slept as I slipped out of the hotel, the city’s glassy towers reflecting the earliest hints of dawn. I had arranged a car the night before, aiming to beat the weekend crowds. Zhouzhuang lies about 90 kilometers southwest—close enough for a day trip, yet far enough to feel like a different world. As the highways gave way to countryside, mist hovered low over rice fields. I sipped on warm soy milk and let the silence settle. 8:00 AM – First Glimpse of a Dream Stepping through the north gate, I was met by the hush of still water and timeworn stone bridges. Zhouzhuang is often called the Venice of the East, but I think that comparison falls short. This place breathes its own rhythm—slower, softer, more poetic. 9:00 AM – Stories in the Stone I began my wander at the Shen House, once home to a wealthy salt merchant. The wooden beams, intricate carvings, and layered courtyards held echoes of a different era. Just across the way, the Zhang House offered more quiet corners, more stories in silence. I moved slowly. I wasn’t here to tick boxes—I was here to feel. 10:30 AM – Gliding Through the Canals The gondola swayed gently as we drifted beneath stone bridges. The boatwoman hummed a Wu dialect melody, and I just sat, present. No photos. No distractions. Just water, sky, and the soft splash of the oar. 12:00 PM – A Vegetarian Pause Lunch found me at a small riverside place called Zhouzhuang Renjia, where they served lotus root stir-fried with peppers, tender tofu skin rolls, and a warm bowl of veggie noodles. The flavors were simple, clean—nothing loud, nothing trying too hard. Just good food, honest and grounding. 1:30 PM – Wandering Without a Map I let my feet guide me after lunch. Down narrow alleys, past red lanterns swaying in the breeze, over mossy bridges with no names. I paused by the Fuan Bridge, watching two elderly men play chess under a willow tree. A woman rinsed vegetables at the water’s edge nearby. Life here didn’t feel staged—it felt lived in. 3:00 PM – A Moment of Stillness I climbed the creaky stairs of the Milou Tower, where poets once gathered. The view offered tiled roofs, boats, and the lazy bends of the canal. I didn’t stay long—just enough to take a deep breath and remind myself why I came. To remember that there’s beauty in quiet things. 4:00 PM – Tea by the Water I ended my visit at a teahouse tucked beside a stone bridge. The owner, a man probably in his seventies, poured me osmanthus tea without a word. I sat at the window, the scent of flowers mingling with the dusk air, and wrote a few lines in my journal.

Zhouzhuang Mystery Building, located at No. 127 Zhongshi Street, Zhouzhuang Town, Kunshan City, by the side of Zhenfeng Bridge, originally named Deji Hotel. The owner, Li Defu, was originally from Zhenjiang. At the end of the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, he moved to Zhouzhuang with his family. Because he was good at cooking delicacies, he opened a hotel. As early as the early 1920s, the founders of Nanshe, Liu Yazi, Chen Qubing, Wang Dajue, and Fei Gongzhi, drank and sang in the Mystery Building four times, wrote poems in high spirits, sang generously, and later compiled more than a hundred poems into the 'Mystery Building Collection' which spread to the world. Therefore, the name of Zhouzhuang Mystery Building became well-known. The renovated Mystery Building still maintains its original appearance. By the water and the bridge, it is fascinating. On the side of Zhenfeng Bridge, the poetry of the Mystery Building. Boats shuttle outside the window, and the 'Mystery Building Collection' is read inside the small building. The blend of specific historical figures, cultural atmosphere and modern light and shadow, 'The small building drinks at night and passes the cup' is newly reproduced. The Mystery Building is a two-story brick-wood structure building with a hip roof, small green tile roof, and a sparrow perch eave in front. It is three rooms wide and six worlds deep, with a round shape, and all the drum stone bases are complete. The main room has long windows front and back, and the secondary room has short windows on the brick parapet wall. The main room on the second floor has a door-shaped panel wall. The interior is paved with blue bricks, and the second floor is paved with fir floor panels. The hip roof is made of smooth beams. The entire building is simple in shape, and the interior is simple and generous. The entire Mystery Building is a wooden structure, which retains the previous appearance. This waterside tavern became famous because of the literati's tea tasting and poetry. The Mystery Building is not very big, the stairs are very narrow, but climbing up the tower, looking at the layers of eaves outside the window, listening to the lingering songs, is also a different kind of experience.