Lunch today was in a silk embroidery factory! The embroidery on show was a joy to behold! A pity I can only show one photo. For some of the stitches the silk yarn used is broken down to individual strands of silk and then used to build layer after layer to give a 3D effect. Was I tempted to buy – yes of course but then the price would have paid for another adventure so I will have to make do with some photos to remind me of this extraordinary artwork.
Refreshed after lunch our day continued with a visit to the Shanghai Museum reputed to be the best in China. The museum has a collection of over 120,000 pieces, including bronze, ceramics, calligraphy, furniture, jades, ancient coins, paintings, seals (The Chinese are big on seals andlater in my trip I had my name carved on a seal but that is for a future blog) sculptures, minority costumes, art and foreign art. The photo shows a good use ofseals – every piece of artwork in China usually consists of the main artwork, a section of poetry that inspired the work and the seal of the artist. We only had 2 hours to cover 4 floors of very well set out exhibits. The bamboo carving was exquisite and the traditional costumes of the 51 minority ethnic groups that are present in modern day China were magnificent and give you a real feel for what it musthave taken to unify this massive country. Incidentally although much has been said against Chairman Mao he is recognised today as the unifier of China – it is the Red Guards that are vilified for the worst aspects of the Cultural Revolution.
A quick wash and brush-up was followed by dinner at a local restaurant and then on to an Acrobatic performance in the huge theatre that was also apart of the hotel complex. Most of the performers were teenagers but for over and hour we were treated to a stunning performance of gymnastics and acrobatics. There was one young man – who couldn’t have been more than 12 – who performed displays of balance and contortions of his body that brought tears to your eyes!! This included standing from the full splits simply by drawing his legs together – no rolling to the side!!
We left the performance feeling even more tired than our busy day had portended to be greeted by Paul our escort with the news that there had been heavy fog on the Yangtze and the Viking Emerald had been delayed for several hours. Instead of meeting the boat at Wuhan we would have to undertake a 5-hour drive the following day from Wuhan to Sandouping about 10 kilometres below the Three Gorges Dam. Although we would be provided with a lunchbox and snacks on the aircraft we were recommend to buy some snacks for consumption along the way so the day ended in a Chinese supermarket buying sweets, chocolates and other goodies!
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