Travel Notes of Hebei: Bazhou Museum
On the morning of April 16, 2023, I had breakfast at the hotel around 7am, checked out at 8am, and walked to Bazhou Museum with my luggage, which was about one kilometer away, not too far. Originally, I planned to stay in Bazhou for two more days and visit Shengfang Ancient Town, but my wife wasn't very interested in ancient towns, so we decided to go directly to Hengshui. The museum was very close to Bazhou Railway Station, so we brought our luggage along and didn't return to the hotel.
By 8:50am we arrived at Bazhou Museum. The museum required an appointment. With the help of the staff, we completed the procedures, and by 9am we could enter. Bazhou Museum is a new facility with an impressive exterior.
Bazhou Museum is located at the intersection of National Highway 106 (Yijin Road) and Yingbin East Road, facing Yingbin Building across the street, and is one of the landmark buildings in the construction of Bazhou as a cultural city. The project took a year to complete, with a total investment of nearly 200 million yuan, and was put into use in October 2008. The museum covers an area of 55,036 square meters, of which the building area is 38,887 square meters and the square area is 48,746 square meters. The square on the north side of the museum is an ecological square full of modern dynamism, integrating green gardens, ancient coin symbols, strange stone lake scenery, and lighting decorations.
The entire square is paved with large granite blocks, and on the west side is a green ecological garden landscape. Small plazas, stone benches, ground-carved lights, and other elements complement the Yijin Road landscape avenue. On the east side of the square is an ecological natural water scenery lake, with lotus and irises and other aquatic flowers planted extensively along the lake; various shaped stones are scattered along the lakeshore, adding elegance. In the center of the square is a shape of Zhouyuan Tongbao (symbolizing the era and rebirth of Bazhou history), with an ancient spring in its center, and a pool of "mirror water" in the spring, reflecting the majestic museum and surrounding scenery harmoniously under sunlight, moonlight, and colorful lights, full of charm. The entire collection consists of the Huaxia Folk Collection Hall, History Museum, Science and Technology Museum, China Bicycle Museum, and Urban Planning Museum. It is a six-story frame structure, with five floors above ground (32,357 square meters) and one basement floor (6,530 square meters).
The History Museum is located on the east side of the first and second floors, with an exhibition area of 4,000 square meters, comprising five sections: History, War, Culture and Folk Customs, City, and Modern Times. The Science and Technology Museum and Youth Activity Center (currently closed) are on the west side of the first and second floors, with an exhibition area of 4,000 square meters. The Science and Technology Museum consists of four parts: Understanding Self, Perceiving All Things, Scientific Exploration, and Children's Paradise. The Youth Activity Center includes areas for Peking opera, calligraphy and painting, chess, open-shelf reading rooms, multifunctional literature reading rooms, table tennis, computer rooms, and activity rooms for vocal music, dance, erhu, piano, yangqin, guzheng, violin, etc. The Urban Planning Museum (currently closed) is on the east side of the third floor, with an exhibition area of 2,000 square meters, consisting of five sections: Construction Achievements, Urban Planning, Special Planning, Future Outlook, and Giant Sand Table Model. Huaxia Folk Collection Hall includes a Porcelain Exhibition Hall and a Calligraphy and Painting Exhibition Hall... The Porcelain Exhibition Hall and other collections are on the west side of the third floor, with an exhibition area of 2,000 square meters. All collections are from private sources. These items can not only be displayed and exchanged here but also traded, with ownership belonging to the collectors themselves. The China Bicycle Museum is on the fourth floor, with an exhibition area of 4,000 square meters. The museum has more than 400 bicycles from 16 different countries, half domestic and half foreign. Among foreign bicycles, those from the UK and Japan are the most numerous. The Calligraphy and Painting Exhibition Hall is on the fifth floor, with an exhibition area of 4,000 square meters. It mainly displays donations from Bazhou-born connoisseurs and collectors Jin Baoshuan and Wang Yusuo, covering more than 1,400 paintings and calligraphy works from ancient, modern, and contemporary masters.
Bazhou Museum is one of the best among county-level museums. Although the exhibits are not numerous, they are distinctive. Especially the Bicycle Museum, which might be the only one of its kind in the country, offering a truly unique viewing experience.
After finishing the tour at 11:30am, we walked to the railway station and had lunch on the way. Bazhou Railway Station is indeed very small. The waiting room is on the second floor without an elevator, and there is no restroom in the station; you have to walk 200 meters to a public restroom on the street, which is unreasonable. While using the restroom, I noticed an intercity bus from Bazhou to Beijing, with its starting point at Bazhou Railway Station, making it very convenient to go to Beijing.
At 1:21pm we took train Y505 to Hengshui, arriving at Hengshui Station at 3:40pm. We exited the station, took bus No. 31, got off at Leisure Square, and checked into the Home Inn business hotel for 134 yuan per night, which was quite nice. After settling in, we went out for dinner and tried the local specialty, Xianghe meat pie, but it was just ordinary. After dinner, we returned to the hotel to rest.
