Whenever I travel I do like finding the quirks of different countries and how normal things to them appear strange to me. This morning we found an official u-turn sign in the road with accompanying traffic light (and, yes, I nearly did get run over in my pursuit of this).
Then we walked through a park where it was very clear that the grass was to be viewed, but not used. It meant that locals stood on the paths to do their daily stretches. There were lots of rules.
We started with the Shanghai History Museum. It was interesting to learn how Shanghai had developed from ancient times. The land on which the city sits has been reclaimed and, as it sits at the confluence of two rivers, has fertile soil and easy access to the South China Sea. It naturally became a trading hub.
The more modern history was a tale of foreign control (British, French, Japanese) and wrestling back authority to be self ruled. Translation of some of the commentary suggested that the messaging was Chinese-centric - but perhaps all national museums are like this? However, if you had questions, you weren't allowed to ask.
This is Stephen. He's one of the two HSBC (the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) lions made in the UK and shipped to Shanghai during Britain's occupation. His mate is called Statt. Stephen is a wonderful name for a lion.
We popped to a vegan restuarant which was a mistake. I forget that many veggie restaurants cater for non-meat eaters who miss meat. My veggie soup tasted very Unami and rather like oxo and JC didn’t like his weird plum tasting beef. The surly owner didn’t help!
Ji’an sculpture garden was a pleasant distraction. Although you most certainly were never allowed on the grass. It was either taped off or signed and patrolled - shame. Anyway, I liked the ostrich with many heads.
The sculptures were cool despite my nemisis, cows. ;-)
We ambled back east and ended up walking all the way back to the Bund. It was fun walking down one of Shanghai’s main shopping drags, but sad to see the older areas being flattened - presumably for more high rise. That is a lot of cable!
We arrived on the Bund at dusk. JC spent over two hours here taking shots. There were quite a few photographers with tripods around and occasionally they'd peer over another's shoulder to see what they had lined up. I found some rules by the river and was interested to note what was banned, including releasing terrapins.
The lights of Pudong (across the river from the Bund) switch on at 1800 and the sky turned from grey to an orange glow. They switch them off at 2200, which I decided we had to witness, so back at the hotel I dragged JC out onto the terrace at the allotted time to check. Yes, they did.
Thursday 31 October 2024
Today was our last day in China. JC was super keen to visit the Chinese bronze antiquities of the Shanghai Museum (East) so we spent most of the day here. We arrived, soaked, in pouring rain as Shanghai was on the edge of typhoon Kong-rey, sitting over Taiwan. I liked the Chinese umbrella storage system where you could lock your brolly up.
We started in the Ancient Chinese Bronze gallery. There were some beautiful objects here such as the jia (wine vessel) dated Late Shang (13th century to 11th century BCE) - over 3000 years old! And a really ancient cowrie container with eight yaks, Eastern Han (206 BCE-8 CE).
Bronze musical instruments - bronze drums and a set of bells 'bianzhong'.
We then wandered through other galleries with some highlights being a Tang dynasty warrior and camel (618-907 CE) and a wall full of porcelain bowls from the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE).
It was nice that some of the things we saw we’d actually also come across in situ. I was, however, a bit disconcerted to find that many of museum pieces had been 'reconstructed'. This bronze jia was in 13 pieces and they restored it using 3D metal printing. Hmmm, not sure I wouldn't rather just see the original with holes.
The museum was heaving with school kids. I had no idea how many were there but it looked to be a whole school-full. The noise levels of their chatter was literally deafening. My hearing aids, which try to remove background noise, couldn't cope and kept switching off which was very disconcerting. The only relief I had was to dive into an unpopular, and hence quiet, gallery and reset them.
JC did round two of the bronze antiquities but I was museum'ed out by now so I plonked myself in the coffee shop, took my hearing aids out and did a puzzle. Sometimes you just have to zone out ;-)
The weather was still very wet and windy. We went downtown on the metro, shopped, ate and generally tried to dodge the pouring rain.
Friday 01 November 2024
We left the hotel at 0500 in the typhoon rain. We were lucky that our flight wasn't delayed or cancelled. We flew into Beijing airport which was very smoggy. We ate our last decent Chinese food, although I wasn't sure which meal this was anymore as we'd been up so long. Beijing airport has a policy that all prices are the same inside as on the high-street. I think it's the first airport I've been to which mandates this - sadly I don't think it will catch on.
We were curious that the airport wasn't full, or had many international flights. It turned out that we were in the newer of the two international airports here - this one, Beijing Daxing (PKX), opened in 2019. As well as being refreshingly empty, it also had a beautiful Chinese garden you could wander around.
It was a peaceful spot to re-charge before the long haul flight back to LHR. The flight was fine, my back behaved - probably because I was so chilled after three weeks on holiday - and we landed into grey, soggy London with a bucket full of happy Chinese memories.
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