Singapore 2015 Trip (Part 1) : National Museum of Singapore

Hey peeps!

Wonder if anyone noticed me being MIA from the blog *LOL* (but i've been awfully active in Instagram though), been crazy busy last week, i'm still paying the price as i type this, super sore all over and couldn't get enough naps. The crazy HOT and humid weather in Surabaya doesn't help either, my sleep's not as satisfying as it should be *sigh*, even air conditioner's defeated by the heat.

I will be blogging about what i've been doing eventually (follow me on IG for speedier updates), but for now i'm actually going to finally start blogging about our Spore/Malaysia trip back in June-July. Since Singapore is my second home and we stayed there for about three weeks and mostly went shopping/family time, i obviously not going to do a day by day blog post, but imma do it per (interesting) place that we went to.

First up is our visit to Singapore National Museum (as usual, it's very photo heavy)!

I called Singapore home for three years during my high school days and i have plenty of relatives there, but weirdly enough... I've never been to National Museum. Sure, i passed it more times than i could count, mostly when i'm riding a bus to the city area-but when you live somewhere it's just different than just being a tourist. Now that i no longer live there, i'm more interested than ever to explore places that i've never before. 

While we were in Singapore, a very old friend of hunny and i (he's a senior of ours when we were in Uni) was also there on duty. He had some time off that day and he told us he planned to go to Singapore National Museum-we have nothing much to do that day (except shopping, of course... :p) so i quickly told hunny we should tag along.

Now, it's a bit embarrassing to admit-but we actually got lost while trying to get to the museum from Bugis >.< LOL. I always prided myself for knowing the streets in Singapore better than Surabaya, the problem is... I know all the roads to the malls... Museum? Not so much :p. And the problem with taking buses in Singapore... Is that you get accustomed to the buses to and fro your own residence-since there are so many numbers that you need to memorize (and i am oh-so-bad with numbers!). I can find my way just fine from our own condo, but put me anywhere else... I'd be pretty lost!

So yeah, we got hopelessly LOST! To a part of Singapore that's being developed, a part that i'm positive i've never been before! Found a flock of pigeons so we decided to not waste our bus fare and snapped a very touristy pic :

LOL

We did eventually found our way to the museum with the help of an overly friendly uncle (convo started when hunny found a penny on the ground and asked the uncle if it was his-turned out to be a Malaysian coin and now that i think about it, most probably was actually mine coz i have some different currencies coins in my purse that i never sort and always too lazy to take out!) and bus driver!

A little secret, i took all the pictures in this blog post backwards haha. These photos were the last ones i snapped before we left the museum!

Singapore's celebrating their 50th anniversary so they were in a very festive mood. Lots of blow up playhouse and stuffs were available for kids on the front yard

At last!

The majestic looking lobby

Lots of colorful paper art installation were up as well

The bad news was that the National Museum was under renovation and two or three galleries were off limit. The concierge of course told us about it and asked us if we still want to proceed. We're already there and with so much struggle to get there, so of course we decided to go in anyway. Ticket was SGD 6.00 per person.

The museum is extremely spacious and beautiful

Like i mentioned earlier, i post the photos backwards. We actually went to the exhibition on the basement first, but i decided to save it for last for a more coherent story

During that time, there was a limited time exhibition of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, the late founding father of Singapore. As my mum's side of the family is Singaporean, i am very familiar with this figure, having heard all about him (all positive, of course) growing up and i developed a deep respect for him even though i am not a Singaporean myself-so i was quite delighted that we were able to catch this exhibition.

I snapped some pictures for my blog readers and myself, coz there were so many stories that i prefer to read later when i don't have to rush through them

Got the chills when i saw this

Mr. Lee's famous red briefcase

As an Indonesian, i naturally noticed our own late former president among the pictures

The actual flag that was draped in Mr. Lee's casket during the National Mourning

The exhibition was not too large, it's mostly a memorial for Mr. Lee so we passed through them pretty quickly. Let's move on to the other part of the museum, shall we!

Another art installation, in the square were actually many many paper flowers (if i remember correctly, that is) and they're moving from side to side in harmony

Then at the basement we found this

I honestly am not very sure what it's supposed to be, looks like a colorful garden made from paper to me (i'm totally art-blind!)

Lots of "caves" that i had to resist the urge to try to crawl in

You can click the photos to read all the stories (i'm making them smaller and knit some into one to save the space!), the next exhibition we went to was the "Singapura : 700 Years". It's very historical and mostly filled with stories so, yeah... It's strictly for history buffs, actually.

The view that greeted us once we stepped into the gallery. They're very thorough and when they said history, they start from the very beginning!

From ancient times!

Most of the photos are self-explanatory so i won't be writing too many captions

Again, please click the photo if you're interested in the stories!

Samples of specimens in Singapore

Then we were taken to the next era

Well, this part is rather similar to Indonesia's history, of course-we're located so close to each other

Well, like i said. The two countries are closely linked, our histories intersectioned in many ways

In this section, we learned the history of each majority race that makes Singaporeans today and where they're from.

Chinese

Then, the Indians

Malays

Then it's another era yet again

During the Japanese occupation. Life was hard for Singaporean during this time, you can read everywhere in modern literatures (in my case... Errr Singapore True Ghost Stories hehehe) how some of the older generation of Singaporean still hold some grudges against Japanese, like Indonesian too. This is not a racist thing okay, it's history.

This part amazed me the most, the museum took the exhibition to a next level and let you actually imagine how life was if you're a prisoner during the Japanese occupation.

Yep, complete with fences so you can be "locked in"

Read all about the propaganda and how they were supposed to behave... Again, reminds me of Indonesia's history. As a modern human, i found it very hard to understand their logic back then. Everything was so ridiculous and sad. War is never good, no?

Well, of course this kind of things leave a deep scar to those experiencing it, i mean... How can it not?

The type of food people lived with during Syonan

Look at the size of the lavatory -____-

Even after the Japanese occupation was over, there were still a lot of problem facing Singaporean

Independent Singapore's first currency

Old TV set (Little O saw this photo and asked me what it was, when i told him it's an old TV set he asked me if it's expensive hahahaha)

A replica of a vintage Singaporean living room

And that marks the end of our visit to the National Museum of Singapore! Based on what we experienced, the place was immaculate and beautiful-totally magnificent. But the exhibitions themselves were probably not their normal, full scale ones and i was a bit... I dunno, disappointed? I love museums and i love to see old artefacts full with history, we just didn't see much of them here. Instead of telling the stories with artefacts and photos, the exhibitions relied mostly on stories, too many to read in one visit! I'm sure it's more interesting when their permanent galleries are open, but based on this visit... It's only for those strongly interested on learning about the back stories of Singapore, i didn't find it engaging enough like... let's say, Vietnam's War Renmants Museum.

I personally would love to visit again after they're done with the renovation, we'll see if i change my mind about them!

That's our friend, whom we affectionately call Papi hahaha

Have you ever been to National Museum of Singapore when they're not renovating? Is it interesting?

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