Nanjing Museum

Riding the bike was hard, but still felt like a relief after all of that walking. I remembered Peter had told me the Gaochun public bikes were hard to ride, but I thought he was just being an asshole after I was unable to rent one without a Chinese ID. Turns out he was telling the truth. The handlebars seemed to be barely connected to the wheel, so I would have to make a full ninety degree turn just to make the bike change direction.

I was also nowhere near where I thought it was. As I had mentioned before, there were three courtyards in the purple mountains; the ming courtyard, the sun yat courtyard, and the lulu courtyard (which I think is called something else.) I had started my day at the base of the ming courtyard, but after getting lost, ended up at the bottom of the lulu courtyard, which is about a 25 minute bikes ride away (I found out from personal experience.) On my bike ride, I found another cute little pagoda

Cute Pagoda! ROWW!

And this military training ground the Sun Yat's students used to warm up in.

You don't care, these blogs are gonna start having less pictures

Even though I was exhausted, it felt like it would be a waste to give up and go home now. I had a few hours left before the subways stopped going back, and I needed something to turn my day around. So I went back to the ming courtyard entrance and then onward, to once again look for the Nanjing Entrance. And rather then following Trip Advisor to a tee, I went towards where Trip Advisor said the entrance was and than followed my instinct. After about 5 minutes of cycling past where Trip Advisor said the museum was, I found it.

Balls in the Water, very famous Chinese statue

I had to ask a local to help me lock up my public bike because I really can't figure out to do anything on my own (I was looking for an option on my phone, there was a button on the back of the bike,) but I finally parked and walked up to the museum and went inside. Right in the entrance of the museum was a sign that said, "You must have a Chinese ID number to enter the museum." I didn't understand how the Nanjing Museum was on so many must see lists if no one outside of China could get in, but it didn't matter. My hand had built dealt, and I had lost again. I lowered my head and slowly walked out of the museum.

Dejected statues out front

As I was leaving, a man approached me, showed me his phone, and asked me "where is this park located." On his phone was the Ming courtyard. I told him "it is five minutes in that direction" and he said, "I was just over there and all I saw was a bunch of trees." I told him "that was the park" and I guess he changed his mind about going. We started walking back to the subway together and he asked "Are you from America?" I said "yes" and he said "you have a strong American accent." I asked him "where are you from" and he said "I'm from Iran. I moved to Nanjing for business." I asked him "How long are you in Nanjing for" and he said "I live here now. I moved here for business" (why can't I talk to anybody?) He then started talking about how cool the Nanjing museum was. I told him "I just tried to get in but couldn't because I didn't have a Chinese ID number" and he said "oh, just use your passport." "Oh you can do that?" I asked. "Yes," he said, "you should go back. Here is the map I used." So I walked back, went to the front of the museum, gave them my passport number and got inside.

Inside of the museum were many signs that said no pictures. I saw lots of people taking pictures, but I was a good boy and followed the rules. Inside the first exhibit was some classical paintings that were pretty damn good. Most of them were very detailed sketches of birds or other animals or children. One sketch was of a sad student looking out the window at a bird. That one seemed to have the most story. There were a lot of birds on sticks (or branches, I guess) There were also a lot of sad students. I got the impression these artists liked birds more than school. A lot of these sketches had been done on fans or, I don't know what they are called, but those small collapsible walls that Austin Powers holds fruit behind to make erotic looking images. High class classical stuff.

There was another exhibition that just had some big words that said "Exhibition for the blind" and then had a lot of handicapped signs. This exhibition had a wall surrounding it and was located slightly below the main hallway, so you could only look down on it. I couldn't tell if this was some bizarre modern art that had been accidentally left in the wrong part of the museum, a translation error, or if I was dumb and missing something (probably the later.)

Downstairs, the first exhibit I saw was the Wu Weishan exhibit. This guy is good, I highly recommend you look them up. Wu Weishan is a sculptor and all of his pieces seem to be dripping with despair. They are quite heartbreaking. Some are incredibly realistic and others are barely the human form, but they all look very hand made. You can almost see every hand move he made, even his thumbprints in the pieces themselves. I'm pretty sure he did the sculpture in front of the Nanjing Memorial Museum, it had a very similar feeling.

Next I saw a Calligraphy Exhibit, and honestly, who cares. Calligraphy is boring. It's just handwriting. I don't care how nice anyone's handwriting is, even if it's in a language with cooler letters than ours, it's still just handwriting. You can try to argue with me if you want, but it you do you are lame because handwriting is lame. (I have bad handwriting. It's a sensitive subjective. I have essential tremors.)

The Su Tianci exhibit was also pretty cool. He's like a modern Chinese impressionist who paints in water colors and he does landscapes with modern architecture. Like, he'll paint some rolling Chinese hills but there will be a big telephone line in it. It sounds lame when I describe it, but it's cool, you can look it up if you want to. I would have taken pictures, but the museum had that policy. Plus it takes so long to add those pictures and I am nowhere close to real time at this point.

The teenager section was incredibly lame. When you enter, there is a giant DNA and underneath it the phrase "eternity begins with you." Inside here are a bunch of weird videos and interactive puzzles. Drag and drop the pieces of the pot to put it back together. There was a big crowd of people sitting an watching a screen that just had a CGI dragon going through the streets of Nanjing. The only thing they had that was kind of cool was model of the old city, but even that was nothing to write home about (although I guess I am technically writing home about it.

The next exhibit made my jaw drop to the fucking floor. I walked down some stairs, turned to the right, and all of a sudden I was in 1920's Nanjing. There were a few old cars, but on either side of me were old shops with propaganda posters on the walls and big neon lights advertising what sort of stores they were. There was an old post office where you could mail a letter to yourself in a year, some old rickshaws, an old train, some old gift shops, and coolest of all, an old bar!

I did snag a terrible picture here

My phone was about to die again, so I hopped into the bar, ordered a Carlsberg, and charged my phone. I was the only person in the bar, and the beer was delicious. It was so relaxing to just sit and sip a beer. I hadn't drank since I slept on the couch my first night in the apartment and this felt so much better. I feel like a lot of this trip has been me realizing things I don't like or hate. But one thing I really love is cold beer. That cheered me up even more than the strawberry slushie. I liked this place a lot. I would come back to the museum just for this little bar any day of the week (when I needed a drink before the museum closed at 5:00).

Ahhhhhhh!

Salma texts me back, she has a lab tonight and can't show me around. I'm a little sad, but also a little relieved. I'm so tired, I don't know if I could have gone out anyway. Salma was my only chance at having any sort of friend while I'm out here though, so that maybe sucks a bit (not to mention I loved her.) I ordered a second beer. I was a little worried what the bartender would think of me, having two beers at three thirty in the afternoon inside of a museum while I'm waiting for my phone to charge, but I wanted the beer more than I was embarrassed.

A young couple walked into the bar with there baby daughter and they all stared at me. The parents told there daughter to say "Hello" to me, and she instantly broke out into tears. They had to remove her from the bar. I continued to journal and drink my beer, but a few moments later they brought her back in. I tried to ignore them, but they again tried to make her say hello to me. I knew if I made eye contact with this little girl again she would start crying, so I chugged my second beer, grabbed my phone, and kept on walking around.

Inside the next room, groups of people were sitting at tables and sipping green tea while watching some Chinese Opera. I thought this would be incredibly boring, but the actress was so good. I think the character was getting married or something, and her servant was helping her get prepared for her big night but she was nervous and excited and couldn't figure out how to put on her gown. She was funny and cute and her faces were both exaggerated and honest at the same time. It was highly choreographed and authentic, whereas I thought it would just seem highly choreographed. I was very impressed and clapped louder than anyone when the piece was finished, which drew a lot of looks towards me. I was probably drunker than I had realized, so I quickly headed my way back upstairs to see the last exhibts of the museum.

Museum Pagoda

One of the exhibits just had this little pagoda and a few more rickshaws and the other was more stupid calligraphy. Ugggggh calligraphy, get out of here already! As I was walking out, I peaked in the gift shop and was very tempted to get a new phone case with a Su Tianci design on it, but on Chinese iPhones the camera buttons are vertical instead of horizontal, so I left the first building and headed toward the Ancient China part of the museum.

In between museums was a Brostore

This museum started with dinosaur skeletons. Technically, they were probably ancient mammal skeletons, but still, they had skeletons of animals that hadn't existed on earth for thousands of years, which automatically gets some cool points in my book. They also had some 9,000 year old graves, some 8,000 year old bowl (including bowls that looked like pigs,) wheels and necklaces, some 6,000 year old boats and kettles, some 4,000 year old bells and knives, and some 3,000 year old scales, shields, stone buildings with engravings, money and sculptures. It was human evolution in an exhibit. It was impressive. The 2,000/1,000 year old painted figurines, plates, bowls, carved archways, architecture, and jade figurines also looked sort of lame in comparison. I like the pre-Jesus stuff. But all in all, a very impressive exhibit. I wonder how often archeologists still find things. I mean, I know its still a job and people are still searching a stuff, but won't we have found everything at a point? When was the last big find? With our news cycle today, would we even know if we had another big find? (Ohhh topical! Good work, Riley.)

At the end of the exhibit was another entrance to the digital zone, which turned out to be another name for the lame teenager area. I took two steps inside, before sprinting to the third museum which held the special exhibits.

Sad Horse

The third museum started with an exhibit called the gentleman, which was just a large vase. It was a very large and elaborately decorated vase, but it sort of looked like every other vase I've ever seen. The museum made a very big deal about it though, it was a one of a kind. Some you get, some you don't.

This museum had so more amazing gift shops too. Normally, I hate gift shops but I wanted to buy everything at these places. Sure they just sold staplers and socks and mugs and bags but these seemed like really nice staplers and socks and mugs and bags with famous designs from classical Chinese paintings or the Afghanistan exhibit.. They sold vases that to me looked just as nice as the gentleman, the sort of vases that make you actually want to keep flowers in your house.

There was a giant kids play area with a ball pit. I guess if you want to go to the museum but can't find a sitter you can just drop them off here. It's sort of like an IKEA but it takes less time to walk through the whole thing.

The main exhibit was about ancient Afghanistan. The Iranian man warned me not to buy a ticket for it, he said they just have a gold crown and thats it, so I took his advice and continued on with the free exhibits.

The museum had much more to see. Exhibits with bowls and vases and blankets and chairs (the Chinese museums really seem to love bowls and vases) There were ceramic bonsai which was really cool and ceramic coins. There was one exhibit that was just lots of old clocks that was also very cool. All in all, a cool museum. I'm glad I went, I'd go back just for that bar.

View from the Top (of the museum)

I decided to try and see the Fashion Lady one more time, so I hoped on the subway, rode for 15 minutes and walked back over. It turns out the Fashion Lady wasn't closed, but under construction, so I guess I may just have to try and check it out again when I come back for the Plum Blossums. At this point I really had to pee and Trip Advisor said one of the best salted duck places in town in a mall very near by, so I walked over and spent 30 minutes walking around the mall looking for it. I couldn't find it anywhere, it wasn't on the mall maps, this restaurant doesn't exist. Trip Advisor fucking blows. I peed in the mall bathroom and looked for another place to eat.

But I have no other app, so I used Trip Advisor again to find the best expat bar, hoping I could have another beer and hopefully meet some people who actually speak English. I went to a first location, where there was nothing, looked at my trip advisor again and saw that it was now telling me to head to another location 20 minutes away. So I headed over there and again, couldn't find it. I was walking in circles, pulling my hair out and panting from exhaustion and hunger, when a young Chinese man walked up to me and said "Finnegan's Wake?" "Yes" I sighed with relief. I guess the restaurant knows if they see a white person walking around incredibly frustrated, they are looking for their restaurant.

I go inside and sit down. The restaurant is completely empty other than the wait staff. I sit down alone and sigh. A very very cute waitress whose race is none of your business took my order, which was a jalapeño burger and a glass of johnny walker black label. The johnny walker black label was the same price as the red labels and the beer, so I thought might as well get the black label. It was all very expensive.

As I sat and ate in silence, the assistant manager came out and talked to me a little, though she barely spoke any English. She told me that the owner was out of town on business and the bar was normally very crowded and gave me a card for the restaurant, which I thanked her for. Throughout the meal, I kept making eye contact with the very very cute waitress (who was very cute.) I simultaneously thought what the heck and got very nervous. I walked up to the bar and asked, nonchalantly, "So, do you always work Tuesday nights?" The cute lady blushed and said in a thick accent. "Are you coming back next Tuesday?" I said, "No, actually, I'll be out of town next Tuesday, I'll be in Bali for the holiday. But I was thinking of coming back the Tuesday after that." "Great" she said. I turned around and started to walk out the door when the assistant manager ran up to me and said "Pay! Pay! You have to Pay!" "Right, Right, I guess that makes sense," I joked as I fumbled my phone out of my pocked and sent her the bill. I then walked out of the restaurant very quickly hopped on the subway, and headed home.

"Fuck, I'm flying back from Bali on that second Tuesday," I said aloud to myself on the train. "I'm going to have to rush from the airport to the bar with all of my bags if I want to see this pretty girl again. And I forgot to ask her name, I'm such a fucking loser." Everyone on the subway was staring at me for talking out loud but I didn't care. Too tired, sick and loopy to read, I played my stupid Dr. Mario game on the ride home. Even though many people are standing and there are no other open seats, no one sits next to me for the entire ride. An old woman and her grand daughter sit across from me and laugh at me throughout the ride, but I'm too tired to care. I'm pretty used to that now. When I get home, I take a quick shower and then fall down onto my bed and instantly pass out.