A Trip To The Palace Museum.

Looking towards Hong Kong Island.

We have managed only one swim in Discovery Bay so far this year as the weather ranges from rainy, rainier, even more rainy, to rainy with thunderstorms. After our swim, we had dinner in the club.

The pool.

Bathing beauty.

Waiting for dinner.

Plus we have been busy sorting out two upcoming overseas trips, but yesterday, despite the rain, I finally ventured out. I went to The Palace Museum in West Kowloon Cultural District. This is a relatively new museum which has only been open since 2022. It costs HK$60 regular entrance fee for an adult, that's around about £6, but it's more expensive if you choose to go to the special exhibitions.

To get to the museum I went to Kowloon Station and exited via exit E. It's signposted all the way, but basically it involves exiting the station building, going left and crossing a footbridge over a major motorway.

Standing on the footbridge watching the traffic roar towards you from the Cross Harbour Tunnel is quite unnerving, but there are already good views of the Palace Museum, The ICC (Hong Kong's tallest building) and the sea from the footbridge.

Traffic from the tunnel.

Hong Kong Island on the other side of the tunnel.

View from the other side of the footbridge.

Tall buildings in the distance.

Looking towards the sea.

Looking towards The Palace Museum.

One of the most impressive things about this museum is the building itself. It was designed by renowned Hong Kong architect Rocco Yim and took five years to build. Its design is based on The Forbidden City in Beijing, but whereas The Forbidden City stretches out horizontally, this version stretches out vertically. Basically there are three different levels, each with windows facing out towards a different direction and there's a huge spacious central area on each level, rather like the open courtyards in the Forbidden City. These open areas encourage people to sit down, relax and chat. The bronze undulating ceilings of the building represents the golden roofs of The Forbidden City Palaces and there are bamboo like curtains falling down over the walls.

The museum houses more than nine hundred objects taken from The Beijing Palace Museum. There are nine different galleries, two Chinese restaurants and a four hundred seat lecture theatre inside the building. It's really very impressive.

The Palace Museum building.

Entrance to the museum based on the gates of The Forbidden City.

Bronze ceilings, bamboo walls.

Bamboo curtains.

Open areas.

Escalators.

Seating areas.

Seating areas.

Seating areas.

Looking towards a viewing area.

Gift shop.

Restaurant.

Although the Palace Museum contains nine galleries, during my visit two were closed as they were changing the exhibitions and two were special exhibitions requiring a higher priced entry ticket, so I visited five galleries in total.

I started in gallery number six which was housing 'Passion For Collecting.' This gallery displays a wide array of items which were donated to The Palace Museum and included metal work, religious art, furniture, paintings, clocks and ceramics.

Passion for Collecting.

Archer.

Winged horses.

Slipper.

Chairs.

Timepiece.

Religious art.

Religious art.

Religious art.

Ceramics.

Ceramics.

Metal objects.

Then I headed into gallery seven which was hosting 'Dwelling in Tranquility: Reinventing Traditional Gardens.' This was inspired by a field trip made by a group of artists to a variety of gardens in Mainland China. It identifies the main elements of these gardens (such as: bridges, moon gates, rocks representing mountains, running water, windows in a variety of different shapes) and creates modern sculptures based on these. There was an acoustic device which was supposed to make the sounds of wind and water and a bridge that changed intermittently into a moon gate.

Dwelling in Tranquility.

The bridge that changed to a moon gate.

Sculptures based on rock mountains.

Pavilions and windows.

Gallery eight was holding a special exhibition so I couldn't go there, but there was an escalator up to a Chinese restaurant and an outdoor viewpoint. Gallery nine is up on this level, but it was closed. The viewpoint was very popular and even on a dull day the views were beautiful.

The viewing deck.

View over the harbour.

View over the harbour.

View over the harbour.

Bridges and boats.

Boats.

Looking over Kowloon.

Downstairs again I entered gallery five 'The Quest For Originality: Contemporary Design and Traditional Design in Dialogue.' This exhibition had a hundred objects from the Palace Museum in Beijing in the same room as contemporary objects designed by Hong Kong artists. The idea of the exhibition is to show that people have always been interested in creating beautiful functional objects and have always had many innovative ideas. Plus many contemporary works have been inspired by the past.

The Quest For Originality.

Contemporary vase.

Contemporary glassware.

Contemporary artwork.

Gemstones that can be used in the creative process.

Outlining the techniques used to create this image.

Animal sculptures.

Bronzeware objects.

Teapots.

Picnic hamper.

Laquerware Box.

Laquerware Box.

Carving on wooden panel.

Brush holder designed as a shepherd sitting on a ram.

Clock with figurines.

Silk robes front.

Silk robes back.

Chinese platform shoes. I don't fancy trying to walk in these.

Gallery four was called 'Stories Untold: Figure Paintings of the Ming Dynasty from the Palace Museum.' This exhibition showed paintings of people going about their everyday lives in Ming Dynasty times.

Stories Untold.

Painting.

Painting with figures.

Painting with figures.

Painting with figures.

Painting with figures.

Painting with figures.

Painting with figures.

Viewing the exhibits.

Just outside this gallery there is another outdoor viewing area with a different perspective from the last one. The weather was very overcast when I looked out from here, but nonetheless I enjoyed watching a boat progress down the harbour.

Looking across the lawns. The IFC in the distance.

Boats and buildings.

Boats and buildings.

I just had one more exhibition to look at as there was another special exhibition in gallery three and gallery one was closed in order to change the exhibition, so I headed to gallery two to look at 'From Dawn to Dusk. Life in The Forbidden City'. This exhibition showed objects and events from a typical day in the life of an emperor or empress living in The Forbidden City. This exhibition was the busiest of all with a tour group wandering through and a class of secondary school students on a school trip.

From Dawn to Dusk.

I noticed there were many clocks on display. When I was looking at one, one of the guides explained to me that the emperors got up early at around 4.30am because they had so much to do in terms of running a huge country like China.

Clock.

Clock.

Clock.

There were Silken robes on display next to a film called dressing the emperor, showing the palace servants assisting their emperor to wash and dress.

Silken robes.

Detail of another robe.

There was a very elaborate mirror where the emperor or empress could check their appearance before beginning the day.

The front of the mirror.

The back of the mirror.

I was surprised that the base of one of the clocks was elephants and the base of the mirror was elephants, then I found huge elephants carrying vases. I don't associate elephants with China, but then what do I know.

Elephant vase.

There were dishes the emperors used for eating and drinking. Some of them even had poems written on them. I'm not sure whether these were composed by the emperor or for the emperor. There were little booths you could step inside to look at the poems either in English or Chinese, plus you could press a button to listen to the poems.

Bowl.

Ornate dish with lid.

Teapot.

The 'Three Purities Tea' poem is written in Chinese on the lid of this cup.

Three purities tea poem.

The Jade Plate Rhyme is written here.

The Jade Plate Rhyme.

The tilling and weaving poems are written here.

Tilling and Weaving poems.

I even noticed one ceramic container that intrigued me. It turned out to be a box for transporting your pet cricket. Now there's something I have never felt the need of.

Box for carrying your pet cricket.

There were lamps for lighting the palace at night and incense burners to freshen the air and ward off insects and for religious purposes.

Lamps.

Incense burners.

There were religious images and art. The ones on show were from Tibet and were accompanied by the sound of chanting monks.

Tibetan art.

Religious images.

Religious images.

Buddha.

There were chops for sealing official documents and wall hangings to bring good luck.

Chops with the emperor's seal.

Good luck hangers.

I was also fascinated by something called the emperor's wish granting stick. In my head this conjured up a magic wand, but when I looked it up later, I found out it was a speaking stick, so you had to be holding this before you could speak in the emperor's presence.

Wish granting stick.

For entertainment in the palace there may be performances of Chinese opera or the emperor could test his wits on a board game. These entertainments may take place outside in one of the palace gardens.

Palace entertainment might be in the form of a Chinese opera.

Watching the opera.

Board games were a popular pastime

I think this is Chinese chess.

Approaching the garden.

Garden.

There were paintings showing scenes from the emperor's life.

Scenes from the emperor's life.

There was an area where you could practise calligraphy on a computer screen using a brush.

Practising calligraphy.

Finally there was an area where you could lie down and watch images of the emperor and empress's lives on the ceiling above you. I passed this twice. At one point it was covered in sleeping school boys. Haha!

You were meant to lie here and look up. At one point it was covered in sleeping secondary school boys.

Another thing I noticed in this museum was it was possible to borrow a folding stool and take it round with you in case you got tired. What a great idea! Perfect for Peter.

Folding stools.

Well, that was me done and I headed out for a walk around The West Kowloon Cultural District. I was looking at the other buildings and the beautiful flowers when once again it started pouring with rain, so I got my raincoat on and my umbrella up and headed for home.

Wandering around.

Free space another venue in West Kowloon Cultural District.

Street art outside Free Space.

Street art outside Free Space.

Restaurant.

This exhibition space was having a private viewing. I noticed it because of the lovely flowers.

Flowers.

Flowers.

Flowers.

Flowers.

Flowers.