Last week my aunt invited our family to Wuxi, saying the cherry blossoms at Yuantouzhu were about to open. It was also a good excuse to test the EV's range, so after work on Friday we drove over. On the way out I grabbed only a 50mm lens. A wide-angle would have been better; the phone had to cover the rest. We came and went in a hurry, took plenty of on-the-spot tourist photos, and ended up with only a few worth showing.
The EV
We charged to full at Taibai Service Area, and the display showed 15.8 kWh per 100 km. That works out to more than 350 km on a full charge. The official range is 510 km, so about 70 percent on the highway seems acceptable. The temperature was mild and the climate control was set to ventilation only; with cooling or heating, the range would drop further. Highway charging is genuinely expensive: peak power at 8 p.m. was 1.7 yuan per kWh.
Power response is much quicker than the old 1.6L naturally aspirated engine. The center of gravity still feels a little high, though, and above 120 km/h the grip felt less reassuring. The so-called smart driving features have not been pushed out yet; for now there is only adaptive cruise and automatic parking. An experienced driver cares more about how the car feels anyway.
Saturday: Yuantouzhu
Only a few early cherry trees were in bloom; most had not opened. Anyone visiting in the coming week would likely find them fully open. We stayed in the park for the whole day, walking along Taihu. It happened to be my second read of Those Things About the Ming Dynasty. I remembered that Zhu Yuanzhang and Chen Youliang had fought here, and that the Ming dynasty was founded as a result; after Chen's defeat, our ancestors were said to have moved from Jiangxi to where our family lives now. A later correction: my memory had slipped—the decisive battle for the Ming was at Poyang Lake, not Taihu.
Sunday: Huishan Ancient Town
Old towns in Jiangnan are mostly similar: shops on both sides of a river. Their fates differ, though. Huishan Ancient Town has no admission fee, and the result was a wall of people—shoulder to shoulder, step by step.
The town has many ancestral halls commemorating famous historical figures, and Taoist sites too. Oddly, the Taoist places are called 'miao'—temples.
The most famous spot is Jichang Garden. It is said that Kangxi and Qianlong had to visit whenever they toured the south. It was also destroyed in war, and what stands now is a reconstruction.
The spring tied to Erquan Yingyue is here, with the Abing Memorial Hall beside it.
