Shanghai October 2014
Well John is over here visiting his twin Patrick for 10 days. The adventure started off with John, Hannah (Patrick's wife) and son Oliver going out to dinner at Jean Georges on the Bund - a must do for anyone coming to the city. The food is just georgeous!
The following day I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Renmin Square - a so so experience with it being a contemporary art gallery.
Then a walk around the Peoples Park watching those doing Tai Chi. Then on to the Shanghai Municipal Planning Museum, with a scale model of downtown Shanghai. Well worth a visit.
Then on to the China Art Museum over in Pudong. This is a huge gallery covering 5 floors, any one of which would exceed our national gallery. The art was excellent and there were a huge numbers of visitors. The building looks like an inverted pyramid and is bright red. A must see for the artophile.
Dinner follows with NZ guests of Paddy's from NZ over to do sawmill deals - a Chinese banguet with all the trimmings.
Then two art visits: first to the Long Museum in Pudong - a huge gallery with 3 guests ( I was one). They had an exhibition showing posters celebrating the 65th anniversary of the establishment of the Communist Party. A superb Art Gallery with lots of wonderful modern Chinese Art. Then back to the city to the Long Museum West at the Northern end of the Bund. A concrete monstrosity with walls 6m high. Not so good for seeing paintings at that height but great art nonetheless.
Some of Paddy's customers took me for lunch one day before an adventure tourism ride in a local taxi back home. Beats skydiving in Namibia any day!!! All drivers in China are certifiable....
Paddy and I went to hear the Montreal Symphony one evening playing Richard Strauss at the Oriental Arts Centre in Pudong..Its part of the Shanghai Arts festival. We drove over in his Ford Raptor.......
The next day I visited the Jesuit Library which boatsed 560,000 volumes, only 1500 of which were evident - really a waste of time. Paddy suggests the rest were almost certainly burnt during the Cultural Revolution.
Then on to what was billed as the finest art museum in China - the Rockbund.. Well, it covered 5 floors of a downtown building. All the walls were spraypainted in technicolour. Standing around were 25 humans dressed in clown outfits. MMMMMM Not sure who was kidding who!
Finally the Yuz Museum at the Northern end of the Bund, a converted aircraft hanger. Again a lot of modern rubbish.
Still, I had Paddy's driver to cart me around all these places for nothing.
No visit to Shanghai is complete without a visit to Oscars bar, and a snifter (or two) of Remy Martin XO....
This weekend we all went up to Hangzhou. It's a city of about 8 million 3 hours west of Shanghai. We stayed at a B&B. Spent all day Saturday (literally) in a traffic jam visiting an artists centre in the country. Visited Paddys Lake House on the way home.
The weather so far has been Ok, fine, but heavy smog - what a surprise.
Tomorrow Hannah and I will be looking after a 2 year old and a baby of 6 months for guests of Paddy's from NZ. All family group members will know what experience I bring to a role like this.
