#2: Shanghai Museum and Underground Boat Rave

The Shanghai Museum houses 5 floors of ancient Chinese artifacts ranging from carved jade to Buddhas to painted scrolls, and was built in the early 90s. As a neat coincidence, there was also an exhibit of American Art rotating through the museum which featured famous works by artists including Warhol and O'Keeffe. Below are some pictures of artifacts I saw (yeah, they let us take pictures!), which I wish I could tell you more about but the captions were in Chinese. The oldest things in the museum were from the 30th century, BCE.

The jade carving exhibit was unbelievable. This picture doesn't do this cup justice (it was shaped like a halved peach).

This guy (above) was featured prominently in a lot of Chinese folklore and myths, and always in this position of stepping on someone. He looked like a mean character.

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One of my readers gave me the heads up to this fantastic rave party that was held on a boat cruising up and down the Shanghai bay (Huangpu River) along the Bund. Me and Darren totally lucked out and got the last two tickets, which were sold by this chic club called Mural Bar in the French Concession. Two huge buses carted 300 already-boozy 20-somethings from the French Concession down to the pier and herded us onto a three-story riverboat with a *GASP!* open bar!! So much for the 'free shots' to anyone with an eyepatch (which cannot be procured in China, trust me, we tried.) The music was phenomenal, a great mix of pop, hip hop, 80s, crunk, from Michael Jackson to 'Son of A Preacher Man' the Bananas DJs rocked my face off. You can actually download their set from that night, here.

The flyer from the par-tay....

Here's a short movie with the boat scene and some of the music in the background. I briefly saw the back of my head (luckily I wasn't doing anything embarrassing!)

And of course, some pictures of us dancing the night away in the Shanghai bay.

Stay tuned for more....