97F in Beijing today. Thought I'd head out early, about 7:15 am, to the National Museum to try and beat the heat. This guy's just up the street, about a block from my house, selling breakfast
jianbing (煎饼: fry cakes).
It's about a 15-minute walk from my house to the nearest subway station.
Even this early in the morning, the Beijing subway commuters are out in droves.
The museum doesn't open until 9 am. I figured if I arrived at about 8 am I'd be right up toward the front of the queue. Wrong.
Here we are, waiting in the heat.
This guy looks suspicious, like he's selling drugs or something. Turns out he's clandestinely selling ice cream bars to the waiting (wilting) masses. Soon after I snapped this photo a street sweeper, made aware of the illicit sales by all the discarded ice cream wrappers, came along and kicked him out.
Finally inside the air conditioned monolith. But we all have to be frisked before we can head to the galleries.
I mentioned in my previous blog posting that this is one of the largest museums in the world. It's also the world's second most popular museum. (The Louvre is first, DC's Natural History Museum is third.)
I always head straight for the basement, a vast dark cool area where countless Chinese artifacts are displayed according to dynasty.
The jade shroud is one of the museum's biggest attractions. Hundreds of jade rectangles were sewn together with gold thread to make the burial suit. Supposedly these shrouds were quite common in China, but many have been lost to grave robbers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_burial_suit
Two of the famed Terracotta Warriors from Xian.
This drummer is one of my favorite displays, but not sure why he isn't holding his stick.
Tiananmen Square is just across the street from the museum.
Snapped a selfie on the way home. The glitter effect is caused by dirty glass.
