So after about a month of tiredness, headaches, flying around the world and lack of proper sleep, Shirley (one of the last few remaining kindergarten...19 years!!!... friends.. and one of the closest few) and I FINALLY visited the Asian Civilizations Museum to view the exhibit that she was so eager to visit (She being Christian... I mean it in the gd way!). For me... I just wanted to look at the model of the Vatican and learn stuff.... and learn I did!
Start of our little journey... in the MRT
First off, being 2 mountain tortoises, we walked around the whole museum looking at all the stuff (relics? exhibits? what do u call those things in museums anyway?) on display. Not all are as old as you'd think museum things are, some are items from hilltribes in Thailand still running about. When we bought our tickets, we were told by the staff that the exhibit we were looking forward to was on level 2. So there we go bounding up the stairs to find ourselves looking at knick-knacks found in graves, Buddhist beliefs, statues of Buddha, Hmong tribal clothes, Vietnamese pottery, Malay wedding jewellery, big statues of the Taoist gods and Chinese manuscripts. One exhibit was rather creepy as u had to press the button and it would show a man in the background and how the exhibited stuff was worn. It reminded us both of the chinese funerals where the picture of the deceased head is put on a chair with the rest of it represented in clothes.
Then thinking we saw the whole of level two, Shirley was starting to complain about wasting $8 to look at all that and not one bit about Christianity. Both thought it was odd and eventually found the map which led us to realise that the Taoist gods of death/hell (well I forgot which) were actually pointing towards it (one using his long tongue). Over an hour before we got to the entrance which stated very clearly
NO PHOTO TAKING!!
This was before the sign so it doesn't count!
After an hour of searching what do u do? Take a break after you've posed for photos!
Checking her photos...
She's single. Anyone interested? Must love dogs
Once we were rested (well a minute leg break) we headed into the
"blind people's section" of the museum. Not that everything was in braille, just that everyone seem to have to put thier bloody face just an inch above the facts, or have thier fingers guide their eyes, to read it. Helloooo... if I can read it standing half a meter away, why can't you? It'll let everyone read the fact and look at the item at the same time... but nooooo... bloody
HOGS!
Anyhoo... I got a pic of the first item you see in the exhibit. It was a marble piece carved into a picture of the 12 apostles, or something, and someone (not sure if it was Jesus.... my memory is crap). Couldn't get it nicely as I wasn't using a proper cam, and I had to try and be discreet.
Try figuring it out, there's more than 13 heads there though.
Walking around, you'll see that the items were dug out from or around graves, paintings, scultures and the slightly more modern stuff like the Pope's clothes. There was this one exhibit with angel sculptures holding items used in the
Passion ("Suffering" in latin) of Christ. There was the cross, the hammer, the stick with a cloth, the spear (Holy Lance), a cup (the Holy Chalice) and the Crown of Thorns.
- The cross which he was nailed onto
- The hammer symbolising the nails hammered into his hands and feet
- The cloth that was dipped into vinegar for him to drink, instead of water, to humiliate him
- The spear that was pierced through his side
- The cup used to collect his blood
- The crown was made to humiliate him, that was put on his head
Ohhh big hat of cleverness to me! I don't know why that bit I can remember while the information of the marble I couldn't.
The tours started and that's when I got rather irritated, especially with that
angmoh guide who always contradicted words. You hear her say that she won't be talking much and the next thing u know, she's yapping away like she was fighting for her pay. (Long complaint sentence ensues)Worse part of this was when she mentioned that the area she was abt to bring them through is rather small, and so won't talk much, and then
YAP YAP YAP right at the start,
all the way to the end, stopping right at the end of the tunnel to yap a whole lot more about a painting, blocking the way to the other exhibits. Maybe that's why I remember the angels. I had to look at them a few times while waiting for the stupid tour to
MOVE!
When they eventually moved off, Shirley and me got enough room to squeeze (she didn't need to squeeze lah) past them to see the one I was searching for.
The (out-of-focus) model of the Vatican
Ok, it looks much better when you're there obviously. Makes me want to visit Rome and have tea with the Pope. Hahaha... well visit Rome at least. The whole exhibit ends off with stuff about the Pope, some Vietnamese scuplptures (that looked really odd, the crab that saved the cross lost at sea and a video of something which was blocked by the bunch of tour followers. I think Grandma and Grandpa would have enjoyed it.
That wasn't the end of our museum fun though. Although we were both hungry halfway through the Journey Of Faith, curiosity (and the Singaporean's value-for-money instinct) got the better of us, leading us to level 3. This housed the Islam and the items of various South East Asian Arts and Music. What caught our attention was actually the
kids section in the two halls. There were a few games and activities that had us searching for more, bringing us back to the Chinese area only to find the game not working. The last game was in the South India section, mainly focusing on India. Unlike the rest, the ceiling of the activity room was painted with many colourful patterns.
Once we were done with that game, we started on getting some free souvenirs for ourselves. I think the security guard that walked past was checking to see if we were nutcases. Who cares, as long as we had fun getting something free! Hahahaha!!!
The 2 bottom corners were ours, and the rest were other people's mess
Caught in the act... sort of
Yeah... the 2 nutcases
Our Final Masterpieces... more like crap
To end our tour, we went through the last room to find an Indian-looking Eeyore (blue horse), only to be shocked by the alarm that went off while I was taking this photo. Here I was thinking Shirley tried stealing something, while she came to ask what I did. Hahahaha!
Loads of colours but a blue horse?
The bench we were on was gumbling under our weight
To end our museum tour, we walked out to the the bridge across and take a pic of ourselves with the former Post Office.
Looks kinda fake
To view a few more pictures and read what Shirley learnt, then vist her
blog.
