Suzhou- The Suzhou Museum

      Going to Suzhou was the first trip as a couple for me and Hui. I have heard in the past that traveling can either make or break your relationship, and I have to say, Hui and I travel immensely well together. Thought our trips are always a huge adventure with ups and downs and an interesting twist here or there, we always make them an adventure. Having so few opportunities to travel because of the few breaks we get, these days if there is a three or four day weekend, you can bet Hui and I will not be in Hangzhou or Haining. We really love traveling together!
      I can't remember exactly which holiday it was when we went to Suzhou (maybe qingming festival, the date on the pictures are close to that time), but it was quite busy, and that might have been my first exposure to the Chinese phenomenon known as 'people mountain people sea', aka 人山人海. It basically has the meaning of sooooooooooooooooooooooo many people! It was really rainy and a tiny bit cold, and we got pretty wet, but it was still a great adventure. I was always calling it that, and Hui would say "c'mon, it's just travel, not an adventure," but by the end he agreed with me.
      Going to Suzhou was my first time to ride a bullet train. It was really nice, similar to the service you would get when you ride an airplane, but you don't have to buckle up. The thing I remember the most is that every single seat had a picture of David Beckham on it twice. I decided that the Chinese must really love him.

 

      Our Suzhou adventure began the next morning when we traveled to the Suzhou Museum. One of our experience at the Suzhou Museum reminded me of the power of money in China. It was a free museum, but the line to get inside looked miles long. We met a man on the street nearby who we paid I think about 30 kuai and a man took us through the exit, and we entered without waiting in line. The first area we went to didn't look much like a museum, but more like a historical landmark. It included many rooms of historical artifacts and documents from the Taiping Kingdom. I haven't studied much about the taipings yet, but I know the taiping rebellion happened around the end of the dynastic period. (By the way, sorry if you don't like so many pictures, but I decided to show my pictures to people on a nice blog instead of putting bulk pictures in facebook albums where nobody will ever see them.)

Because my family really loves to visit museums and historical sites, I always try to take a picture whenever I see something in English, so that they can understand and learn about the kind of things I am seeing when I visit a new place.

One of the famous cultural things in Suzhou is kunqu opera. There were many different old costumes and a whole stage, which was mentioned to be one of the most well preserved kunqu opera stages.

      After walking around for a while, we finally found our way into the main part of the museum. I was quite impressed by the architecture of the place. Its appearance was modern and distinct, but uniquely Chinese.

Hui wanted to point out in this particular picture that I am the one with the unbrella, meaning that he sacrificed being warm and dry to take this picture. He is such a great guy!

 



 Inside we saw many different interesting Chinese artifacts. They had the usual objects, like congs, jade bis, and bronze dings, but they also had some things that I never had a chance to see in America.

This particular object I photographed, because I have seen it used before in the Chinese drama, 甄嬛传. It was often sitting on the lap of the empress, and I remember that it had some sort of health benefit, but I have since forgotten exactly what that health benefit was.