This morning we woke up in time to make the breakfast buffet. It had lots of watermelon which I love, so I was happy and got my fill. After breakfast, mom called although the connection was really crappy. We called her back after a bit of frustration (the hotel had to manually switch the call through when you dialed or something). After about 10 minutes of trying, we finally got through. Then I called Hiroshi to say Happy New Year and let him know I was still alive. Then, just as I had hung up the phone, it rang again and it was my sister Jen! That was a really nice surprise because I haven’t talked to her in ages, and I don’t think she has ever called me.
So, after a morning of talking to family on the phone, Jan and I met up with her co-worker Jurgen so we could go to the Hunan Provincial museum. We all hopped into a taxi and made it there uneventfully. At the ticket counter they tried to sell me another ticket. I had to get back in line and get a refund cuz the girl I got it from didn’t seem to understand “I don’t want this one” (which I did with gestures, pointing and the Chinese word for no).
The museum was well presented and had very good English explanations. It was interesting to see all of the things. This museum was mainly artifacts excavated from another tomb. The most amazing to me was the silk. The material was light and delicate and airy – simply amazing. More amazing that something that delicate had survived for so long. Some of it was like thin gauze.
There were also bamboo artifacts still in good condition after 2000 years. These were not so interesting in themselves, but in the fact that they were still whole. In addition there were instruments and cooking vessels and other every day items.
The main attraction at the museum is the corpse. The female ruler of the area was so well preserved that you could see the wrinkles in her skin. Different internal organs had been taken out and put in jars around her – that part wasn’t so interesting. The body was awesome though. Hard to believe it was 2100 years old. She had the thick knees of an elderly person, and you could even see her teeth.
After seeing the corpse we went up to the top floor to look at iron work (boring because I had seen a lot of similar things in Wuhan) and some paintings (scrolls). The paintings were beautiful. They were laid out in terms of time, so it was easy to see how Chinese painting style developed over time.
After the museum we wandered over to the park that was beside it, but made a quick stop at the post office. It took a bit of miming, but eventually I got the proper stamps that I wanted. Some of my postcards had prepaid stamps on them, so I needed less postage for those, and I also wanted some stamps for postcards I didn’t have with me, so it was a bit confusing. In the end it all worked out though and I popped my postcards in the mail.
Martyr’s park is quite large and there were lots of people about. Near the entrance there were zodiac statues made of what I thought were little vials of coloured water. Later in the evening though, they all lit up, so I guess they were really lights. We grabbed a cob of corn from a local vendor and made our way up the steps with zodiac signs towards a tower at the top of the hill.
On the other side of the hill at the bottom there was a large children’s amusement area as well. There were lots of rides and fun things for kids to do, like wall climbing and bouncing on cords. We walked around and Jurgen played a ball shooting game and won a neon green stuffed monkey. The rides themselves looked like carnie rejects, so who knows how safe they actually were.
After wandering through the park, we walked along the lake. There were some pagodas and other structures with Chinese architecture, which were really nice. There was a lot of construction down by the lake because they are building a boardwalk. That will be nice in the summer time. There were also tons of swan boats on the lake, so it looks like it would be a good place to hang out when it is warmer. Jan was envisioning day trips.
After we walked around for a couple hours we hailed a cab back to the hotel and went out for dinner to a Brazillian restaurant with Jan’s co-workers. Mmmm, meat! The food was pretty good, but you can only eat so much meat. I think I like a better balance between the meat and the vegetables. The bacon was awesome though – I haven’t had really bacon in eons, so that was a nice treat. I was dreaming of homemade BLT sandwiches!
After dinner we waddled across the road (dodging through 8 lines of swerving maniacal oncoming traffic – you remember the Atari game Frogger?) and went back to the hotel and played a couple games of Scattergories. We also lent our bathtub to Jurgen and Jan’s roommate Kim (separately) because they don’t have bathtubs in their apartments. Once everyone left, Jan and I just gabbed away some more before going to bed.
To see all my photos from this day, check out my photoblog!
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