A museum worth its salt

To up my knowledge of Singapore and meet my high-brow culture quotient, Tuesday brought an excursion to the National Museum of Singapore. Great choice - this was one of the neatest museums I've ever seen.

It was redone completely in the last few years and the storytellers have taken over. Upon entering the history portion of the museum, you get an audio guide. Then, you enter through a curtain, and find yourself on a bridge in a circular room surrounded by video screens. On your audio recorder an instrumental song begins to play. This is a day in the life of Singapore.

From there, you progress down a spiral ramp and are presented with a choice: the "events" path or the "personal" path. The events path explains the pivotal events that have defined Singaporean history. The personal path tells the story of the past through the voices of various participants, often ones that are little recognized. I chose personal, and was immediately immersed in the memoirs of some of the earliest chroniclers of Singaporean life under Sir Stamford Raffles. Cool stuff.

The most dramatic section came when the museum discussed the occupation of Singapore from 1942-1945 by the Japanese. The Japanese did not leave a good impression, and the museum communicated this through the stories, the lighting, and the exhibits.

It was such a packed museum that I probably made my way through 15% of it in an hour and half before getting kicked out. Really, it is exceptionally done, highly immersive, and probably great for kids (that are a bit older than Sahana, alas). It did bring some life to a picture posing board out front of the museum.

From there it was a short walk to Clarke Quay and to Brewerkz, a local microbrew that really hit the spot. Jenika and I enjoyed our beers (fruit beer and IPA, respectively) and Sahana enjoyed her coloring. We all relished the fries.