Sch. Holiday Treats: Asian Civilisations Museum

As part of adding on to my daughters' learning experiences during this school holidays, we went to the Asian Civilisations Museum! Claudia invited us to join her on Saturday evening. I agreed immediately! It would be a lovely opportunity for the girls to explore yet ANOTHER museum this school holiday and there were activities lined up too! The last museum visit to the Singapore Art Museum and National Museum can be found HERE.

So that morning after a heavy pizza lunch, we got dressed with fairy wings and antennaes and I packed the girls into a cab and off we went... Eirian was happy to be a fairy again...

Lauren was equally happy too!

Mommy Me however, had to spend the taxi ride in a little pissed off state to drill the "rules" to the girls when they head to a public area ie, "stay together, what do you do when you're lost? Do you remember my number?... never run off where I cannot see you, talk in low tones & no screaming like hooligans...etc..." the list can go on and these are just REMINDERS.... -.-''

So we reached the place after meeting up with Claudia and paid $2 per entry for that day for us. Children under 6 years old go in free so we didn't have to pay for Eirian! She isn't 6 till the 17th of this month! Heh heh... So we were given 3 stickers which we stuck on our clothes and headed in.

There was a magician who did a short close up magic show in the first hall and the girls sat down to watch for a while. The hall was filled up quickly with more visitors and after 5 minutes, the girls decided that they didn't want to watch him anymore so we moved along through the various galleries.

There were touch screen stations with stories, audio tracks and even screens where there was a person talking about the exhibits or history of what was displayed in that gallery. The girls loved pressing these screens.

There were various religious statues and artifacts and I found the place strangely magical.

The ambience with these statues and soft lighting put me in a serenely calmer state.

And there were more... we stood for awhile looking at this one with the multiple arms.. interesting...

And there were more!!..... I didn't take many pictures within the galleries as we were soaking in the atmosphere of the place and looking carefully at the exhibits.

We came across an portraiture area where there were various headgear that people could try and take photos with. Eirian dived straight and swiped the tiara and happily sat herself down like a little princess.

There were small themed areas in some galleries that children have hands on opportunties. This one was a scale where they could stack "gold bars", grain sacks and goods to balance the scale.

In this area, there was a kampong style hut where the children could climb into and there was a "trap door" on the floor that they could open and it was a picture of a cow! I stood at the window and peeked into their little hut. It would be so nice to have a playhouse like this in real life!

Lauren didn't want to take pictures today so most of the pictures were mainly Eirian and me. And we stuck our faces into these frames and transformed ourselves into the QUEEN OF ENGLAND! wahahahaaha... Funny how Eirian indirectly gave the queen wings and antennaes! And I gave the queen long brown hair...

We completed walking through all 3 floors and various galleries and then we head outside where they sold various food items like Nonya kuays, Tapioca w/ coconut milk, green mangoes and mango salad, steamed cakes and cold drinks. We bought some and Eirian happily enjoyed her Ang Ku Kuay while Claudia took some pictures of her :)

We stood by the stage enjoying the entertainment as belted out by Jack and Rai. Up and coming local duo. Their website can be found HERE. They actually sounded pretty alright! Good Job Guys! I hope to hear more of these two in the coming months/years.



And then it was NANTA! What attracted me to the museum particularly on this day was this group! They were specially invited down from Korea to perform their act as the final act to close the Explore Singapore campaign and the girls loved the show. More about them HERE.

You could easily youtube this group and find various videos of their performances. Check out their website to find out more about them!

I was so amused by the "stomp" like performance and lively beats of them chopping vegetables - with the vegetables flying into the audience too!, playing with kitchen utensils and then drumming to traditional Korean rhythms with chopping knives!! It was very engaging and worth the trip down to the ACM to check them out.

And then we saw this!......

While we were there, I noticed something and pointed it out to Claudia and Rinaz. It was the Chili & Onion practice! If you didn't know what this was, this is an events organisers practice to place what you see above around the perimeters of the event grounds on the morning of event day to try to "avoid rain" for the outdoor event.

While we don't know how this came about or this superstition grew from, we do it and it has not failed us yet. I was amused to see several skewed into the ground.

I tried to google the reason for this but found this video thats even more amusing.. not only event organisers believe this but PM Lee believes it too!! So you see!! Chili Onion Power!! wahahhaaa!

So while waiting for Nanta, we found DK and Rinaz who came to the ACM for a look-see too!

And I took somemore pictures of my little Fairylet Eirian on the grass....

And just before both the girls entered the cow-like bouncy castle.. another shot of Eirian on the silver stone outdoor exhibit. *Big Sigh - this girl is just like me... maybe I should just get her, her very own camera for her birthday*

And Claudia whipped out her DSLR and took some shots of me too and I TOTALLY LOVE THEM!! Thanks Claudia!! :) Me happy with a big big smile! :)

And my most favourite shot of the day... *BIG KISS TO the photographer Claudia* Damn swee lor!! I like! Just looking at it makes me feel happy.... hahahaha....

And to end it all... skipping fairies leaving the Asian Civilisations Museum... very satisfied, happy, sticky and fluttering their way down the fairy walk.... so this is another one of our local Museums that you can and should check out for a little more educational experiences this school holiday, parents! Sure beats them rolling all over the floor and messing up their room this holiday. :)