Day 6. Shanxi History Museum and Mall

We visited the Shanxi History Museum (陕西历史博物馆) in the morning. It was awful.

The museum was free admission but required online reservation. However, the online reservation was always sold out. There were people online selling those reservations, they would take your passport information and make a reservation for you. Our friend Jane paid for such a service and got us tickets to get in. I didn't mind paying so this was not the awful part, although this was an example of the poor management of this place.

At the gate of the museum, there was no sign for any direction or any staff, just a huge crowd of visitors. We had to ask around many times and got into many wrong lines before we finally figured out that visitors with passports needed to go to a booth to get entry tickets. Even though there were less than 10 people ahead of us, the line moved so slowly that it took over an hour before we got our tickets. They copied our passports, took photos of us, then issued a paper ticket for us to get in. The lady at the booth was moving as fast as she could. I could't stop but wonder, was this whole process really necessary? This was a museum, not a military base.

Inside the museum, it was crazily crowded. A bunch of guides came to us offering guided tour, which we declined. Each exhibition room was full of people and noise and sweat. The experience was more like a night market than a museum. We left quickly.

Our friend Bei took us to a shopping mall. I couldn't believe that these words came from me: the mall was so much nicer than the museum. It was huge with an indoor waterfall. We had a great lunch there. We then went shopping in a few malls and Claire bought some pins, bookmarks and little toys that were related to the games she played.