Just got back from another day out with the classes; it was really good fun. We went to a theme park, which in China does not imply any rides. There was the strangest museam ever called the Museam of Civilised Man, which nstarted off with the standard broken pots and axes and pictures of monkey-like humans around a fire, but then progressed to much stranger things. After leaving that section, there was a thing on farming, which apparently in China has 24 seasons, and then we went into a tropical rainforest. However, this was no normal greenhouse type rainforest. The curator clearly thought that having actual trees there would be terriblt old fashioned and to have the humidity and heat set up high would be stupid (Actually, they could have just opened the windows). In lieu of any trees then there were some bits of wood that looked like they had once been small trees, and a mass of concrete trees which had been poorly painted to resemble the rainforest. There was also a CD of various frog-croaking, a fake rainforest smell, and the whole ‘display’ was air conditioned at a nice 18 degrees. Very strange.

Progressing further through this piece, there was a log cabin which had been tilted to make you feel dizzy (how this is justified in a Civilised Man exhibition, I do not know), a map of a model sustainable village and some photocopies of drawings of fruits housed in highly protective casings. There were alsom some cement-based fruits as well.

We sat down and wateched some dancing – the can can followed by some break-dancing and then some indian dancing and then some flemenco. Very surreal. Then we ate a nice lunch and after lunch headed to the water section of the park – basically a few ponds with ropes across them or stepping stones etc. That was quite fun and it’s impossible to really describe here as there were so mant different ways to cross the pond. There was also a water-dodgems thing which was really really fun. Quite an enjoyable day out and I have picked up even more of a tan and my first sun-burn in a few years. It was quite blisteringly hot today 🙂