2010-06-27 China - Jingdezhen ancient ceramic factory

Today we went to Jingdezhen for a visit to a ceramic factory that has produced pottery for at least 1,000 years. The royal court of the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties got their royal porcelain here: the blue and white, the family rose, the rice-pattern, and color glaze. Many of the cruise members bought some of the lovely offerings, and we enjoyed the demonstration of how porcelain is manufactured, from mixing the kaolin, turning the items on a wheel by hand, painting the designs, applying glaze, to firing in a kiln. The shop had a huge selection of exquisite items, ranging in size from tiny to taller than me.

We had a Chinese banquet lunch at a local hotel, it was quite good, with the usual variety of dishes served on a Lazy Susan from which we each took our helpings. The Chinese "local beer" has been uniformly good. It seems to have less hops than American and European beers, giving it a lighter milder taste. It goes well with the Chinese food.

After lunch we visited the "poreclain outlet mall", where porcelain of all kinds were on sale. The selection was incredible; virtually any kind of porcelain was available in all sizes. There were dozens of shops like this, on several streets. The goods were very tempting, but we could not easily carry any more stuff, especially fragile items. But many of the other tour members bought some very nice items.

After dinner the crew of the Century Sun put on a cabaret/talent show for us. We were surprised at the high quality of talent, and the beautiful costumes. It was a very enjoyable show, and it seemed the crew enjoyed performing for us (many of the crew performers had reminded us during the day that the show would be good and to watch for them).