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Published: January 5th 2009
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Cultural feast
the sign at the cloak check area Culture, culture and more culture was the theme of the day.
We knew we were in for rain on Sunday we so decided to plan our day around the art galleries and museums in People’s Square in Puxi. And yes we woke up to fine misty rain.
Having got out of bed late, we made it into this area around 12-30pm after the usual bus and metro 6 and metro2 travel, so lunch was the first priority.
The food court under the Raffles shopping town in the People’s square areas is quite OK for a quick, hot meal, with choices of food types, and seating which is clean and tidy. Upon entry to Raffles and indeed to all indoor venues today, a door person gave us a special plastic bag to wrap our wet umbrellas up in. What a clever idea, saves the drips and water hazards.
After a quick curry and rice and an awful coffee we were off in the misty rain to the Shanghai Art Museum.
This is located behind the Shanghai Grand theatre in the imposing building that in the 1930’s, used to have something to do with the horse racing industry in
Cultural feast
One of the art works, photos are permitted in some of the places Shanghai. People’s Square itself was also used for horses and racing, now it is beautiful gardens, public buildings and theatres, all tidy and manicured.
The have tried really hard to make this building into a beautiful art gallery, and it is well worth the 20Yuan entrance fee. There are 3 floors, all Chinese art from the 1930’s, with the 3rd floor photo exhibition celebrating the 30th anniversary of the reopening of China to the world. The book shop sells some fantastic art books both in English and Chinese.
The building itself is really grand with marble staircases, huge walk around balconies inside each floor, and what was obviously a ballroom at some stage with a sprung wooden floor and an old fireplace.
There is no art from any other country or anything older than the 20th century; all art pre- 20th century is housed in the Shanghai Museum.
The Shanghai museum is on the other side of the avenue and you can access this via an underground walk way. This museum is purpose built, and has 4 floors all built around an inside square design, with 12 galleries, 3 on each floor. Escalators, marble staircases, magnificent
Cultural feast
There are few oil paintings compared to other mediums flower arrangements, little gift shops on each floor and a tea room, everything is pure elegance.
This museum focuses on China’s past history with bronzes, jade carving, coins, pottery, and sculpture all displayed with some of the earliest pieces dating from the 15th century BC. Yes that’s right, that long ago. A detailed written commentary both in Chinese and English is included about each dynasty and period, very informative.
Again there is nothing from any other country at all just like the art gallery, but I suppose China is so huge with so many different ethnic groups and languages and dynasties, how could you do justice to your own country let alone any other.
A quick walk down Fuzhou Road to find a Shanghai tourist map and then a meal from one of the many eateries completed the Puxi part of the culture. Singapore food last night, we are trying as many different food styles as we can.
But wait there is more!
A metro dash to Pudong and the Oriental Arts Centre was the last cultural event for the day. Sweden was there in the form of The Upsala Academy orchestra, which gave us
Cultural feast
This artist captured the light so well a lovely concert of mixed pieces from the Blue Danube waltz to the theme from Star Wars amongst others. Most of the orchestra were quite young, it was most enjoyable.
This is the third concert we have attended at this venue having seen all three performing spaces now. The largest theatre can accommodate any size orchestra; there are seats for a choir behind it as well as any other types of performers which could easily be able to perform on this huge stage. The middle-sized theatre space is designed for dance and the smallest space is a little intimate theatre of around 400 or so.
Ah the joys of living in a large city, a cultural banquet!
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