All around Shanghai

27.10.2017 - 27.10.2017
View Nanchang 2017-2018 on baixing's travel map.

I got up early to see the Bund history museum and Yuyuan Gardens. The museum had a cool design which was underground and went in a continuous circle, but it was a lot of predictable propaganda again as well.

Just after that, I went to Yuyuan Gardens as it opened. It wasn't early enough to beat the crowds though. While it was a nice example of a Ming Dynasty garden, it was way too crowded to enjoy properly. It wasn't peaceful at all. I did however, enjoy the ceramic instrumental group, which I had seen a few years ago in Jingdezhen.

I watched their robotic performance and then headed back to the Rockbund art gallery which had some coo modern art. I especially enjoyedthe scientific style exhibit about Singapore. The building housed the former Shanghai Museum in the past, so it seemed appropriate to have an exhibit with old fashioned curios like that.

There was a really nice mosaic in one of the banks depicting different trading partners of China,

so I went to see that before heading off to the "Old Town", which is gaudy and full of cheap trinkets. I saw the Temple of the Town God and the Chenxiangge Monastery. In reaity, a nunnery with an extra fee to see the golden Guanyin on the top floor.

All the rest of the museums were closing, so I went to the Power Station of Art. You guessed it, a former power station has been turned into a huge warehouse for giant art installations.

They had a specia exhibit by a famous Chinese pop artist. He got involved in "bio art" and became obsessed with genetics, drawing hybrid human dragon flies over and over again. This guy did some weird experiments combining the genes of corn, pumpkins and rice. The museum had actually put a field of rice and corn on display. It was pretty funny. He wanted to allow the plants to choose their own traits so he took out some genes and when they reproduced, they came out all wonky, with less chlorophyll and growing sideways etc.

There was also another cool exhibit about a design company that builds paper homes in places devastated by disaster. There was a paper cathedral from Christchurch, a paper school from Sichuan andother small homes from other obliterated areas.