A Pleasant Visit To The Shandong Province Museum

We had a lovely visit to the Shandong Museum. Folks hereabouts decided to go digging up things in Shandong Province to justify building the biggest, baddest museum I've yet to enter. Seriously, the entry area of this bad boy could fit  maybe 10 of my own houses in it. The pyramid stairway is  eye-popping impressive. There are lots of historic artifacts to view from 1,046 B.C. to the present. 

We are standing with Si Bin. He graciously offered to drive us to see this magnificent looking museum. We met him at English Corner which meets every Friday at 7 p.m on our campus for anyone interested in speaking English on a variety of topics. He is a 32 year old professional who comes to our English Corner to improve his English. VERY nice fellow. And he has a brand new VW Passat which made the ride sooo nice compared to our usual crowded bus mode of transportation.

This HUGE wooden boat was discovered somewhere in Shandong province so they built a huge room to accommodate it. 

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A royal belt buckle. Must be holding up something important.

Believe it or not this is an Chinese imperial crown and the beads hang in the front of the king's face and the back of the king's head. Go figure.

Here's another Chinese crown. Queen's version.  Who else would be seen in public with an arrow threw their head. Tell us how you really feel?

That's Lily on the right with some Brits we met. Besides us, these were the first English speaking foreigners she'd spoken to. You'd be surprised how few foreigners,  people in Jinan get to interact with. You'd think the circus just arrived in town the way people crane their necks staring at us. 
Okay...many it's just our freaky good looks they're staring at.

In XIAN they dug up a who bunch of life size terra cotta warriors and built a hug museum to house them all. Shandong diggers only found a miniature terra cotta army; so all they had to build here was a big glass case.

I loved these Chinese paintings. They really are serene.

The artist

The artist's tools

One corner room of the museum is devoted to delighting the young ones with all kinds of fascinating taxidermy.

The Chinese are romantic to the core. A black peacock with a white peacock make the perfect romantic couple. Forget the fact they're both male.

How do you tell the Chinese ruler's chariot from all the rest? The umbrella, of course.

I was surprised at the discussion this humorous poster prompted. Do you believe man came from monkeys? Do you believe in God?

Telling the story of the diggers who justified the building of this museum

 

These are flat, metal bells: