This time we won't be special forces, let's have a two-day family trip in Xinghua, Taizhou.

This time we're not doing special forces, let's have a two-day family trip in Xinghua, Taizhou. During the five-day May Day holiday, staying at home was really boring, so I thought about taking my parents and child for a short leisure trip nearby. However, the prices of hotels outside really scared us. After looking around, we finally decided on a two-day trip to Taizhou on April 29th, because only the hotels in Xinghua did not have a significant price increase. We actually rarely go north, and our experience in Jiangsu is limited to places like Wuxi, Nanjing, Yangzhou, Zhenjiang, Changzhou, and Changshu. Tai Zhou is really our first time, and Xinghua used to have a lot of elderly people who loved to go to the countryside for fun, but now it's not the season for rapeseed flowers, so we're a little nervous. To avoid traffic jams, we set off before 8 o'clock, but unexpectedly we were stuck in the first half of the journey, almost crawling at a speed of less than 80 km/h, and the originally 3-hour journey took us a full 5 hours. Fortunately, our only plan for today is to visit a water forest. The scenic area in Xinghua is quite far from the city, so transportation options are either to join a tour group or to drive by oneself. I thought this was a very niche attraction, after all, the top stream here is Qianduo, but there are no rapeseed flowers in this season, so going to Qianduo is not meaningful. With the holiday season, there are also many visitors to the Water Forest. This scenic area is not small, it takes about 2 hours to go around. Tickets bought at the entrance are 50 for adults, 25 for discounted tickets, and free for those over 70 years old. If you buy online, you can get a 10% discount. You can also take a boat inside for 40 per person, but it seemed boring and too sunny, so we didn't take it. The scenery in the scenic area is good, with tall trees reaching up to the sky, various flowers blooming on the ground, and a habitat for various egrets. There are many birds, and even a large area on the ground, river surface, and plant surface are covered in bird droppings. Of course, I also saw little birds falling from the trees and chicks that had already died in the river. In the evening, we went to the city to eat at Zheng's restaurant, which was just average and not too impressive. We booked a hotel without breakfast and plan to go for dim sum tomorrow morning and hopefully won't have to wait in line. Water Forest Stayed at Jinling International at night because I needed a room with a bathtub for my child and my budget was limited. Found this newly opened hotel which is a bit far from the city center, about 4-5 kilometers away, suitable for self-driving. Booked three rooms including a superior standard room, a deluxe standard room, and an executive king bed room. Except for the difference in floor and the fact that the executive king bed room has a bathtub, there is not much difference in the rooms.