Where is Trond & Maren ?

Today we visited the National Art Museum, for the second time. In China EVERYthing has to be booked, at least the day before. First time we vent here, without booking, we where just sent on our way. Also – you have to bring the passport along with the booking….because of.. because…You need to hade ID to verify… Because!

We got in this time around -bearly, But after three different people checked out passports – we where golden.

Its a huge museum over 5 floors. Mostly paintings and calligraphy stuff – and some statues and video.

We found the fab four represented

Kinda looks like Paul is wearing shoes – the symbolism is sky high. What does the painter know – is Paul the real Painter? And what is the zebra doing our. That late..all alone?

We roamed around here for over two hours, it was a real nice museum, and with Google translate we got to understand a bit more.

I think what we found most interesting was the collection of old (from year 400 BC ish) texts, or sticks.

This was short messages that where sent around between private and military (lots from military) and also general buracrates…

Its surprisingly -cool- to use Google lens and translate these short messages several hundred and hundred of years old.

The messages are all kinds of things..From very formal messages about the inventory of rice or livestock. Who killed who.. People promising to pay a debt, but complain about the long travel to do so..

I

We spent a long time hovering over these ancient texts/sticks, it gave a really cool connection to what was going on at the time. A really cool display indeed.

there had to be hundred of sticks in the exhibition.

Not to much on the translation to English, but we do find that Google lens will translate most for us to an understandable thing.

We spent a bit time outside the museum to, looking at the different sculptures and of course had a visit in the museum store.

Might not be a good pic, but that was a metallic tree.

A bit weird thing we noted, in most museums they will usually give you a general date as to when the bit you are looking at, is from. Like..1987.. og ca. 300 BC.. something like that.

in China, or at least here, we did see some of this – but usually just on paintings from 1900-2000. For the rest it seemed that there was an overall understanding as to what dynasty this was related to, so adding a date was not ‘a thing’. Most have heard about the Ming dynasty – but that was one of the last (THE last?), the different exhibitions here was way older.

There was also a lot of space dedicated to calligraphy and art in/with calligraphy. The written language is really beautiful to look at, and there are ‘masters’ of this where they consider the writing art/poetry, thats is the look of the writing, not just the actually words.

.

She stood like that for to long.. then she moved around to the other side and went even lower/wider – but she saw me so I did not dear take a picture – I am pretty sure she was some kinda stay-at-home-ninja

There are a lot of spices and stuff in China..and tea..so much tea. But for us there is only one, our years long quest for proper Sichuan pepper.

There are different types, as you see with both cinnamon and safeon. There are Spanish versions, African and American. Getting hold of Chinese Sichuan pepper is not always easy peasy. But now – we’re here!

She had a nice day at work today 🙂

We had just been at the Chinese arts museum, and looking at the map we found a vegetable/fish market up the road. We where already a bit outside the tourist track so we where confident we could get some good stuff for normal prices.

The Sichuan pepper is either green or red, the red is the one regularly used in food. It not really a -pepper-, its in the citrus family and gives off what they call ‘cold heat’, also it makes you lips go slightly numb. You will get proper Sichuan pepper dishes at a few restaurants in Norway.

The lady in the picture above, in the Zhaojunsheng Vegetable Market had both red and green in prepacked pouches.. God knows what a punch weighed – probably 100gr pr bag. We bought 10 of each! ..So now we are very well stocked.

The price was 10rmb (thats about 14-15 Nok pr pouch/bag) so close to free, or at least very very cheap. I also bought half a meter of local cinnamon… Because.

The rest of the marked was full of other stuff to, lots of vegetables and some met n fisjmh.

Saturday is shoppingday! We first went to the Silk market which turned out to be more like a fancy depatment store. If you want the famous brands more reasonbly priced this is the place to be. We were more in the mood for a marked. So after looking around here moved on to the Pearl marked.

Pearl Marked was a super fun and intense marked. With everything from Electronics to clothes. We have done a little reaserch and haggeling is expected. And that you can get things at 70% under the asking price. We got a lot of presents here and Trond is a master at haggeling. The experience was so intense so we have no pictures from inside the store. But it was super fun and if you get the chance, derenetly give it a try. The locals think its fun when you haggel with them and all of them was intrested in communicating even if they didn’t know english. We used googel traselate a lot. We had to take a break after some serious shopping, super happy with the experience and our loot. We were also planning how to get our loot to Norway.

We feel very assimilated now, and Maren was super proud when one of the staff asked if she was part chinese.

We did a little research and found the place that the Internett belived to be the best Peking duck in Bejing. Jingzun Peking Duck Restaurant 京尊烤鸭店 It was truly amazing and the best duck we have tasted. In addition till the traditional way. They also served the crispy skin as sushi bites. Very nice,

Subway – so far – easy peasy. English messages and everything.

Quite a large map…

we made it, we are in Bejing. The flight went well and we the airport was very efficient. But when we came to the ATM it was not running. And it was the only one. The cabs didn’t accept cards. And we didn’t have internet to use Alipay. We were lucky and a cab driver who were willing to drive us to a ATM found us.

Bejing baby, its going to be an adventure.

Last day in Jeju, today we are leaving for Beijing – flying out of Jeju International on Oceanic flight 815 … , or, might be Korean Air flight..

Checking out of our Air BnB that has served us well – this one came with a dedicated girls and boys room, which was fine since I have had 3 days with a pretty annoying flue.

Right no we are sitting. On a cafe waiting to bag drop to be opened, we had a somewhat early checkout at Airbnb, didnt wanna drag the bags around, sonwe just got on the bus to the airport. So far things have gone smooth, checking kiosk worked as a charm…

Who dosent want to travel to a different era, step out of time and become someone else for a couple of hours. Impossible one might think, but in South Korea this is a common passtime. One dresses up in the clothes of a different century (the Jaseon era is often preferred) and one visits an old site. We visited Gwandeokjeong Hall, dated back as far as 1448. Of course a lot of it has been rebulit, but it is supposed to be consistent with what it originally looked like.

Most of us doen’t own sutible attire for such an exursion, but not to worry, there is usually a rental place close by.

Hanbok rental manmanbok is amazing. It has i vide range of outfits and it costs from 15 – 30 USD to rent an outfit for 2 hours depending on what you want. The efficient staff help you find something you wish to wear and help you put it on. They do your hair and makeup also if you want.

The buidings look amazing and have a lot of intresting facts on display in the various houses.

I have ofthen dreamed of telling off goverment officials.

Trond was not up for playing dressup, but he took the job as pursecarrier and photographer.