Beijing 2024 - Dinner at Dashilan (大栅栏) Area

 

We took the metro/subway/MRT back to QianMen, and above is another beautiful art piece at the station. Since it was still early, we decided to walk back via QianMen area.

What a great decision that turned out to be. I managed to snap a nice photo of the gate with blue sky and cloud, and the people everywhere!

Here is a more zoom in photo of it.

We walked back to our hotel area and decided to just have a simple dinner at one of the restaurant opposite our hotel. I ordered this intestine bell pepper rice, and OMG, so nice! Very flavourful!.

My husband ordered the innards soup again, and the version here actually tasted more like bak kut teh, so I like this one better. It tasted 'cleaner', with less raw stuff as compared to the authentic hundred year old shop we first tried it. Maybe this one is a tourist version for people like me :P

Beijing 2024 - National Museum of China (中国国家博物馆) Exit

Around 5pm, we finally exit the museum to this view! Wow! Sun setting at the People's Hall opposite.  By the look of it, nobody seems too eager to go home yet! Everyone was just lingering around taking selfies. Knowing how hard it was to get tickets to even come to this place and get closed to it, I can understand that feeling. You wouldn't have felt the same if you were on a tour visiting this place where everything was arranged for you. We weren't in a hurry to leave either. The rule was to exit the museum by 5pm. They never mention we can't hang around outside! The guards weren't chasing people away either, so everyone just linger :)

A picture looking back at the museum. We were basically just standing at the steps of the museum looking out, looking back, looking up! 

The roof of the museum, dressed all in red for China.

Wefie with all the people behind us. Love the view. You're gonna hate me, but the backdrop reminds me of Venice! Hahahahaha.

Another wefie with the museum and it's roof deco behind us! Good job Cordy for being able to come here! If you put your mind to it, you can beat anything! Including beating the 'i am not a robot' challenge in freaking Chinese when trying to get tickets here! (of course with help from the husband, cause the first time I encounter it I panicked!).

One last photo for the road!

We weren't chase out, but eventually we started making out way home. Pass TianNanMen on our way back and took a photo. Forgot if I managed to get tickets to this place by then, but you can bet I was gonna try and try!

Gah! So much security everywhere! 

Beijing 2024 - National Museum of China (中国国家博物馆) Scuplture Exhibition Part 2

OMG, another long picture post of sculpture! I promise, this is the last one! (For this museum anyway.....) 

I think we can conclude that Godness of Mercy was a crowd pleaser, cause there were just so many pieces on her alone in different pose. This one is the hundred hand version, each holding a different thing representing different meaning. 

A different version. This will be the last one! I Promise! 

I like this one. I think I have a Facebook shared post about something similar about carving your own beauty or talent is the best thing you could do for yourself, or something cheesy like that. Again, this reminded me more of Greek Gods instead of Chinese..... I wonder why......

A beautiful piece of QiGong, the famous monk. When I was young, I used to read comics and story books about him. Probably the only Chinese books I read aside from LaoFuChi. Love the dark green skin tone they gave it, and that rib bones! Love it!

Another beautiful wise man piece. Love the elongated shape of it, kinda tells you he is very old and wise! Love the beard too! And the robe, and how thin he is!

A piece of Nezha on a dragon? Looks like Nezha to me anyway, the boy that has fireballs on his legs.

Elegant lady reading a book?  I wish she was playing Chinese Chess instead, but maybe ancient ladies don't play chess?

Two old man playing chess? This is like those classic pieces you would often find under a bonzai plant, around a pond, or practically any curated Chinese garden. Chinese playing chess is a popular activity, usually among old man, in almost any Chinatown in the world. Why don't ladies play chess? I love playing chess. Most exciting game for me :)

Love this simple piece. A fat elegant general? Feels so steady. So comforting. 

Another balance piece, lady at a lotus pond defying gravity piece. China craftman, you are amazing!

Here are more elegant ladies defying gravity, almost floating in the air. 

The final piece here, fairies dancing in a tangled circle. The sculpture blog post ends here as we come in full circle :) Thank you for doing the mad dash run with us as we try to cover everything before being chased out of the museum. by 430pm, all the museums were already starting to appear in every hall of the museum, ready to chase people out!

Beijing 2024 - National Museum of China (中国国家博物馆) Scuplture Exhibition Part 1

 

By the time we reached these few last hall, we had like maybe 1 hour to cover everything! So from here onwards, you will see a lot of photos cause we were just basically walking by real fast and taking photos of everything that caught our fancy. This was kinda sad cause the last few exhibition was really really beautiful. It was sad that I could have spend more time admiring them :( So let's start on the amazing carving on stones from CHINA! GOOOOOO! (Sorry, I'm a bit high today......)

Let's start with the ladies! So many ladies carved in stone, their beauty preserved forever here for all to see! Kinda reminds me of the muse from Greek mythology. I am sorry, but my youth are mainly filled with western culture and upbringing. I am just starting to learn more about my ancestral roots now, but can never trace my ancestral village due to bad family recording and documentation. It was as if my ancestors did not want to leave any trace of where we were from......

Let us entertain ourselves with these pretty ladies in stone instead of drowning in family past!

A guardian or guard in stone. Love that it has hint of red in the stone. A even gold? Look at what's on his head! Or is it behind him?

Buddhist art will always have a place in my heart. Love the white and slight orange robe colour. How do they do these? Is it paint? Is it different stone merged into one piece? So elegant! If only I had time to read the explanation instead of rushing through it because the museum is closing!!!!

More and more beautiful pieces! Seriously, the art here is ridiculous! I think visitors should just start their visit at the South Wing of the building instead o the North Wing.

Goddess of Mercy. If you fascinated by their wood carvings, think how hard stone carving would be!

Goddess of Mercy in a different pose.

Jade version of Goddess of Mercy. Gosh! Mind-blowing!

Of course there were simpler pieces too. Like this confused looking monk here. 

Or a random standing statue. This one reminded me a bit of the stone statue in Angkor Museum. The main thing that I like about this statue is actually the tummy. The contour of it, and the way it stand seems to make this statue look so realistic. 

Another random 'thinker' statue. If I own this status at home, I'll be constantly staring at it cause he is also staring back at me. But I like his/her expression. It's just so pleasant :) 

I have no idea what this is, but it just looked cool, so here it is :P

Beijing 2024 - National Museum of China (中国国家博物馆) Food Exhibition

 

Hall of food! Chinese's next favourite object after money! Hahahaha. You ask any Chinese, and I bet they say they love to eat! But don't ask those young Chinese ladies who are always on diet, or only eat steamed vegetables! You got to go explore and enjoy real authentic Chinese food in China, or any Chinatown, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore etc! So much good food, although most are on the more unhealthy side of it.

I don't know why another nice desk was also inside this food hall. I think to the Chinese, food is also medicine. And so the exhibition actually started off about tea! What a trap! Luckily, I love tea!

Here is a helpful information on how to make your tea. Side note as I am writing this, I'm planning to visit China's National Museum of Tea next month in Hangzhou! So looking forward to it. Wish me luck that I don't get lost in the tea plantation! Yes, the museum has a tea plantation. It's actually situated at LongJing, which I recently learnt that it's not just a tea leave, it's actually a place where the tea came from, the Dragon Well Tea Village! OMG OMG! Stay tune! (maybe blog post will come out only next year judging at the rate I blog......)

Anyway..... FOOD! One of my favourite topic. Here is a picture of all the historically famous food of China! For me personally, born in Malaysia, the Chinese food I am most exposed to are Hokkien and Cantonese food from southern China. Spending all my adult life in Singapore, I was also exposed to TeowChiew and Hakka food. That was apparently my world view of Chinese food, until! Until I visit Beijing! Mind blowing food! The trip to Beijing basically kinda destroyed all the China chinese food I ever ate in Singapore or Malaysia forever! Hahahaha. I seriously look forward to going back to China to eat again. Never would I have imagined that one day China would be the country that I would want to keep going back to. It's such a different world! And I am glad my low key bad mandarin knowledge and the way I look helps me blend in easier to get by without being harassed. 

An info drawing of the history of food in China from the Soong Dynasty.

At the end of the hall, there was a full banquet table of all the food, fake plastic replicate of course! Ticket price for the museum did not include a free meal!

Still, it's such a joy to see a table filled with food! Prosperity! Eating in China, is seriously insane! On my very first trip to China when I got married, we visited my husband's ancestral village of MeiXian in Guangzhou, and not only was the table filled with plates of food, they also stacked plates on top of the plates already on the table! And when I went for a private wedding dinner, the first course was 8 plates of appetiser! I though that I was the whole meal! Imagine my delight when the actual meal started! Mind blown! Maybe I should sign up for a food tour in China when I'm there next!

We end this post with this pretty serving dish. This type of plate always reminds me of Chinese New Year. Cause we use such plates to serve CNY snacks, sweets and nut to visiting guest during the festive season. Of course those we have at home are 50% smaller and made of cheap plastic! The one hear, for the rich or royalty! I've also seen restaurant serving the first cold dish in a Chinese banquet on such plate too. So this plate always reminds me of nice food and snacks :)

Beijing 2024 - National Museum of China (中国国家博物馆) Other Exhibitions

 

Here are some random exhibition, and sometimes just corridor displayed that caught my attention. We start with this Jade exhibition. I got to admit, I'm no fan of jade or pearl because I relate them with something I hate. (even though I did inherit a jade ring from my paternal grandma recently from my aunt....) . But the jade here, were so different from the ones I am used to. I always relate jade to green, but here, they have translucent white or pink jade which looked so delicate. 

Some of the central display. I think letting those strong light shine thru the jade was a wonderful idea to let people appreciate them more. You could really see how beautiful they are, inside and outside!

A table. Forgot what it was trying to display, but I love a nice desk. Full dark wood. And all the elegant tools and decorations around it. Makes me just want to sit down and work. I'm sitting on my own nice marble table at home now blogging this. Something about a nice big desk that really attracts me. 

Remember that wood carving of a elegant lady dancing in the post a few days earlier? I mentioned that there will be more later on? So here are some I saw that was just mind-blowing! I had to take a double look to ensure that it was really indeed carved out of wood! This log with a frog on it was one of them. I just couldn't believe that it was carved of wood! I thought at first it was leather, lol. But the display mentioned that it was wood carving. Just look at the detail of it! The fold! The details! Such a piece of art and craftmanship!

Here is another dancing lady. It look so delicate. Almost as if it would come alive anytime. I don't understand. How could it stand like that and not topple over. If I crafted that, I bet I would have broken her arms or ribbon accidentally in the process! Lol. Such dedication. I appreciate it very much. Thank you to those artisan who are nameless and made all these pieces. You amaze me and brought so much beauty and wonders into my life :)