July 19 - Hubei Bells

July 19 - Hubei Museum & Bells

Today we woke up in our stateroom and got our coffee - love the Viking coffee machines which give you several different choices, the best morning cup of coffee of the trip in my opinion. We went up to Deck 6 the Observation Deck and enjoyed our coffee and the warm breeze while in the shade. Made our way down to breakfast and then by 8:15 the bus pulled out for the Hubei Museum and the iconic bells. Everything in the museum was discovered when workers were digging a well in the late 1980s and stumbled across the tomb of an emporer from 2,400 years ago......yes TWO THOUSAND years ago. Above you see a very elaborate wine cooler - put the wine in the center and then fill the basin with cold (or hot we were told....yuk!) water or ice. The first photo below is the inner coffin of the emporer - it was about twelve feet long and about eight feet high - in the next case was the outer coffin which was much larger. All covered with elaborate designs. We saw later smaller coffins that were for the 26 females that were sacrificed to go into the afterlife with the emporer. The oldest was 26, the youngest 13! The second photo below is of the actual 2,400 year-old bells. We were told that if you took the eight lower white keys with the four black keys of a piano on both the low and high end off of a keyboard, then these bells can reproduce EVERY other note on a piano! WOW. And of course the obligatory photo of us with the bells - just in case there's anyone who thinks we're making this whole trip up with photos off the Internet :) Next is a dual shot from the 30 minute concert we got of authentic Chinese music using replicas of the bells. The final photo is of the Yangtze River. I shot this because the bridge you see in the distance was the FIRST bridge built across the Yangtze here in Wuhan. Built in 1957, one of the workers was the father of our guide, Iowa! And you note the ball .... that sits atop the local Howard Johnson's - unlike in America, this HoJo is THE ELITE hotel in town! Finally, as you look along the right side of the river bank in the photo you see three big ships, the middle one is ours :) We are leaving here at 11 am (actually underway) so I'm posting these now. We'll sail until tomorrow and if I can get a connection I'll have a separate page for the cruising shots and another for tomorrow's activities!