Qin - The eternal emperor and his terracotta warriors

I went to the Historical Museum of Bern today to see the Qin exhibition.
Somehow, it felt like a bigger (and much more foreign) version of the Celtic Glauberg exhibition I went to in May.

The exhibition lasts until November 17th of this year. If you want to go and see it, buy the tickets online and show it at the SBB counter when buying your train ticket. You will get 10% off.

Also, download the official audio guide app from either iTunes or the Android app store.
The app runs in German, English, French and Italian.
You may save only 1 CHF, but if you go there to sketch, you will be thankful you only need to put in your earplugs and not have one hand occupied with the museum's audio guide device.

With each audio segment a related picture of one of the exhibits is shown on the screen. I can revisit what I have seen and heard today, which I think is really nice.

✎

When I got on the train in Zurich, an elderly couple with visitors from Sweden sat on the remaining free seats around me. There was one very blonde little girl with them as well.
I was already sketching at that point, just finishing up a few brush strokes before moving on to a light pencil sketch of the items on the little table in front of me.
I am not good at guessing the age of little kids, I only know that girl was past the three word sentence stage (yes, this is the linguist talking here) and she wanted something from the lady opposite her.
She was at first misunderstood, in the end it turned out she wanted to swap seats with that lady so she could watch me sketch.
After a couple minutes that girl got out her own sketchpad and coloured pencils.
I loved it.
The two of us sitting there sketching away, no words needed!

 Qin Dynasty (Wikipedia)

At the Qin exhibition there were a lot of items with very intricate and detailed patterns carved on them, which I quite enjoyed drawing.

I did give the armor made out of small stone plates a try, but soon gave up.

This armor was made to be a burial object, not an actual defense against swords or arrows. It weights over 18 kilos and would have broken apart quickly if someone did actually wanted to have a stab at it.

One of the museum employees walked over and asked if I was comfortable and had all I need. He was looking at my sketches and seemed happy. I saw him again later on and we nodded at each other, smiling. I'd like to think that my sketching made at least two people happy today.

After two hours of wandering around I felt quite hungry and thirsty, and got something Asian to eat at the museum restaurant. They had these nice little cups as decoration on the tables:

My museum ticket was also valid for the other permanent exhibitions. I did go to have a peek, but decided I could not take in any other cultures for today and left. I would love to come back though and sketch my way through the American Indian and Ancient Egypt sections.

I also tried to do a couple of thumbnail sketches from the train window as a memory exercise on the way back. Not satisfied with it though.

And then, that was it! I filled my A5 Moleskine Watercolor sketchbook, and it took me much longer than I want to admit.