So this week HuiYin and Regan roped me into heading to the handicraft museum with them :) Of course, being a man with little plan, I said yes We cycled there on OFO bikes, we have them in Singapore now, but let me say this. The ones in China have little to no resistance on their wheels. It is so smooth.

Here we are, Regan and I sweating like pigs and HY looking fresh, with the Grand Canal behind us. The museum is next to the brown bank you see in the distance. We cycled over and disembarked. We walked into the alley joining the main road to the pedestrian path towards the museum and we found this wall which was I think the back of a TCM shop. With the words so nicely etched, I tried to do a dance move Javier taught me. Credits to him if he ever reads this. With a quick shutter speed and a brilliant photographer, I got my picture and we carried on.

Here we are at the entrance to the museum

And in we went.

We were first greeted by wax men. They were doing all sorts of handicraft and each was unique, if a bit grotesque. Then the true wonder of the museum came about. The handicraft done by masters. First wonder was this beautiful translucent blue umbrella.

And right next to it was a huge red umbrella

Regan and Huiyin for scale.

3rd wonder was this magical structure being slowly drilled by this very patient stonemason. We talked about his art and he shared that he normally takes 3 years for this kind of an art piece. The inspiration behind this piece was the Olympics. And each person was meticulously carved out.

Afterwards we strayed into the souvenir section.

But we weren’t done yet. There was more the museum had to offer. We went further and discovered more things to do. Wallet making, bamboo crafting, needlework, leather burning, pottery. It truly was magical.

And finally we decided to try our hand at pottery. I have to say, I was not that bad myself :)Although in this video you probably won’t be able to see haha. Pottery taught me to be patient with myself, and that mistakes are fun to smash.

A small glimpse of the unfinished bowl.

And that was all for the museum. We left and headed off for dinner.

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