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  Chinese museums are so awesome.
 
2009-04-05

I've often felt guilty about the fact that I haven't been to visit more museums and galleries here in Beijing. In three years of living here, I have only been to a handful, and rarely bother to take photos of them. Today, I remembered why.

A friend (Teacher Emma) came with a "hot tip" from a friend of hers that the 人民大会堂 (Rénmíndàhùitáng), or The Great Hall of the People, was a super cool and awesome museum and we should totally go check it out. So, we corralled up our friend Gabriel, and the three of us went there on a lovely Sunday afternoon.

We arrived late, at about 2.45pm, and the museum was to close at 3.30pm. The official line is that you need about one full hour to fully investigate the place, so we decided we would just rush through it and hopefully not miss too much.

Ten minutes into the visit, we were nearly done, and even with extreme efforts at slowing ourselves down and really investigating everything, we couldn't manage to stretch the visit out beyond 20 minutes.

So, afterwards, we wandered around tian'an'men square for a few minutes, and then just did the long walk home to get as much outdoors time as possible.
[Click on any photo for a larger view]
Much of the "culturally important" stuff here in Beijing all hangs around or near the Forbidden City and Tian'an'men square in front of it.
On such a nice day, everybody was out and about enjoying the weather.
Our first glimpse of the Great Hall. We screwed up and totally walked the super long way around the building trying to find the entrance.
It's weird to see a Chinese person taking a photo of something without people striking supermodel poses in front of them.
You walk through some gardens to get to the main entrance, and they're pleasant enough.
Everything is big and spacious here.
Inside, you can wait around in the little holding area for some lady to come every 20-30 minutes and give you a (stunningly long winded) guided tour, or you can jump the fence and go your own way.
It's awesome.
And Great.
Full of win!
There are various meeting rooms and gathering areas for various political and diplomatic events. Each province and city-state in China gets its own room. This is Hunan Province.
More Hunan. Sadly, you can only see about 3-4 of the provinces. An overwhelming majority of the building is off-limits to visitors.
人民大楼梯 (The Great Stairs of the People). Including "guy who stands around and tells people they can't use the stairs".
This is the ... uh .... Some province room.
The Great Hall itself!
It's great.
Bored? Practice your Mandarin for a while ....
The Great Dining Hall of the People! (人民大食堂) Probably no Frosted Flakes though .....
The Beijing Room.
You can only take so many pictures of the same room .....
When boredom sets in, you start to take photos of weird stuff ....
I think this might be the Szechuan Province room.
It is also great.
Okay, we fled, collected our bags (no purses or bags allowed inside), and went back out to wander in the sun.
Gabriel and Teacher Emma.
That's another museum over there. Haven't mustered up the energy to go yet.
Wandering around Tian'an'men, I always get a crack of the Chinese girls who are terrified of getting a tan (they worry it will make them look like farmers who work outdoors all day), so they walk around with a piece of paper over their face.
Tian'an'men is never as big as you think it is.
The Great Snack Bus of the People!
People really just come here and hang out. Domestic Chinese tourism to Beijing is huge.
Marc and Teacher Emma.
Ya boiiii! It's crappy panorama time. Here we see TianAnMen from the Chairman back to the Chairman.
Ok, I can't resist one last photo of the Chairman!
Beautiful colours in Beijing on a sunny Spring day.
This is the special Marcwan SunglassCam
Wandering through some Hutongs on the way home, Gabriel and I ran into a nice looking French restaurant. No idea if it's actually any good, but we'll have to try it out.
Mooon!
 
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