Museums and More

Gosh! I’m leaving in a few hours yet again. And I haven’t even finish blogging about my London trip… I’m such a slow poke. This nomadic lifestyle though wonderful is starting to take a toil on me. I need to plan to stay in Singapore for a least 2 to 3 weeks straight! Maybe after CNY…

London’s iconic red telephone booth! Locals must think I’m mad when I started to take pictures at these booth but I liked the first photo so much I used it for my E-Christmas-Card. So I guess some of you have already seen that picture!

London is one of the place with gorgeous world-class museums. I could spend days just going from one to another. Yes I know… I’m kinda nerdy that way. There are over 240 museums just in London alone and a lot of them are clustered together in this area called the museum mile. So I’m sure everyone will be able to find one that will tickle their fancy.

I would try to cover in the post at least 1 out of the 3 largest ones I went. The first one I went to is the Natural History Museum. The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 70 million items within five main collections. You even have specimens collected by the Father of Evolution, Charles Darwin, himself.

As you can tell from the pictures, The Natural History Museum is famous for it’s collection of dinosaur skeletons as well as the fabulous architecture of the building itself. I personally am in love with the ornate design of the place.

Other then just dinosaurs… there is an area that have stuffings of a million birds. A lot of them collected in the victorian era when collecting birds for display was a very cruel but common hobby by the rich. This is what the extinct dodo bird looks like.

All the prehistoric animals and plants are quite amazing. Earth was so different then… and some parts of the earth and sea which have been untouched by man are still littered with these giants. You can even see “Archie” the giant 8m long squid which was captured in 2004 in the museum’s tank room. The remains of the whale that swam and got lost in the River Thames in 2006 is also in this museum.

At the geological wing, replica earthquakes can be felt and the whole plate tectonic and volcano formation is explained. Though I’ve learnt most of these in geography. Its a different feeling reading and leaning all over again especially when I just hiked up to a top of a volcano in my last Bali trip. (If you haven’t read about my Bali trip and would like to take a look-see, click here. ) Suddenly some of the rocks and formations I saw made better sense to me.

I could spend forever telling you the things I saw but then I’ll never make it to my flight… so I’ll pick a few photos for you. LIke this ostentatious 30 carat crystal among the many gems donated to the museum by wealthy precious stone collectors.

This is rather morbid tombstone clock but for some reason, I’m captivated by the words on it:

Nothing lives FOREVER.

Neither BODY

nor

SOILD ROCK.

R. I. P

restlessness in perpetuity.

I also found out Kryptonite from the Superman comics actually exists in real life. It is the only thing that weakens Superman according to the comics and it’s found here on earth! The writers of Superman Returns gave Kryptonite a fictional chemical formula of sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide with fluorine. But when scientist at the Natural History Museum analyzed a new mineral unearthed in Serbia they found that it contained the exact same formula! What a coincidence!

I also went to the V & A ( Victoria and Albert) museum followed by the Science Museum. Due to my current time constrains I’m gonna skip the most of the pictures of this 2 museums. But I have to say of the 3 museums.. V & A appeals to the younger crowd and has got the nicest decor inside. Especially the ceramic staircase. The insides of the V & A houses architectural designs of the victorian era with Elizabethan and Edwardian influences. The art works and the gorgeous chandelier in the entrance room are stunning!

In the Science Museum, you can see a collection of over 300,000 items including the oldest surviving steam locomotive, the first jet engine and an Apollo space capsule. The picture above shows the worlds’ first calculator… imagine something so big is now reduced to the size of our palm or even smaller. Technology is progressing at an astonishing rate.

I played a computer game acting at the Energy Minster of a country. Spot me in the screen? It’s a pretty tough job juggling energy needs, cost and environmental impact of the decisions.

Nissan has this super cute smart car that is intelligent enough to park and talk. And it’s eco-friendly too! I want one!

This chair is Toyota’s version of a smart car. It’s definitely more compact compared to the Nissan one and you could most likely drive it all the way from the office to your home’s dinning table just in time for dinner. But it’s too futuristic for me…I can’t imagine if you got into an accident along the way home!

The best part of the museums… I can always come back the next few days if I couldn’t finish it all in one day cause they are free! The whole idea is to allow free education and for those who would have benefited from this experience to donate freely to the museums.

The evening was spent leisurely at the local fun-fair and the local ice-skating ring.

 Would love to share more but I’ve gotta change and get to the airport now… and I may not get to blog as often as I’ve been doing but I will still reply to comments when I can =) Here’s the video.