Museum Libre

One of the things you appreciate infinitely more when you start to work are the weekends. That is why my last one was packed to brim with activities. It was quite marvelous.

An alumni band practice on Saturday morning started the weekend, following which was tuition. A message from the other party, however, safely left me with nothing to do for the next 4 to 5 hours save perhaps walking around TM (which got dull after an hour or two of oh-ing and ah-ing at the various cameras in Courts).

So after learning that 31st May was also International Museum Day, which meant free admission to all museums , I made my way down to the National Museum of Singapore.

Originally the Raffles Library and Museum, it underwent a major revamp in 2005. I have never seen the building in my life, but a quick browse in it's website got me pretty interested in it's architecture.

In a twist of fate, by the time I got there, it started to rain. As luck would have it, I met my friend and we went to Burger King to have a drink. We finished, he needed to meet another friend and I made my way down to National Museum of Singapore, umbrella in arm.

Now for the record I don't usually go to museums but that Saturday surely saw visitor numbers swell to incredible levels. It was wonderful to not know exactly how to go there and get there eventually, courtesy of the family in front of me.

This family of three was sharing an umbrella and if anything, they looked like they were walking the tightrope because the umbrella was exceedingly small. Before long, the wife had a quarrel about the husband not knowing how to hold the umbrella properly and the daughter of age 13 played peacemaker to the entire affair. I had been stalking the family for grand total of 5 minutes listening in to their colourful conversation when ahead of us, the National Museum of Singapore stood.



I was quite simply blown away. It was beautiful.

And that was just the facade. What greeted visitors at the lobby was a red cloth replica of Michelangelo's statue of David.



I thought the statue was pretty worth my trip down in itself.

But time was running short and so I made my way into the various exhibition venues on the second level. The museum's exhibits looks at Singapore's history through the lens of Fashion, Movies, Family and of course, Food.

In Fashion I saw the retro outfits of yester year and in Movies, old movie reels and Wayang headdress accessories were on display. The Family section saw the exhibition space filled with old family portraits and my favourite section ,food made me very hungry. I saw for the first time how the Roti Prata dough is made!

It was with a hungry stomach that I made my way out of the museum for what-else? Mayday Marathon at K box! I K-ed till I nearly died with Rong chen and Jinyang. Too much Mayday can cause a protracted Adrenaline rush and a bad sore throat.