Climbs up 7th Storey Pagoda~ Kek Lok Si, Penang

A week after back from Singapore, here I am at Penang again. The students is going to finish their internship and returning to Korea soon. So I am here to wrap things up and farewell with them. As what they wish, we came to visit Kek Lok Si for after have lunch together. Initially I want to let them start off from the bottom of Kek Lok Si where they need to ascend via stairways with shops and stalls that selling souveniers and stuffs alongside. However consider that it's 12 noon, hot and humid and the young one doesn't really likes to walk a lot. I drove them up to the main hall of Kek Lok Si and park the vehicle at a paid parking place instead.

After visit the main hall, instead of walk up, I let them experience to ride on the inclined lift to the highest ground of Kek Lok Si where the Pagoda and the 120ft tall Guan Yin Statue is. Since I have been making it easy for them, I then decided to make them climb up the seven-storey Pagoda for the view of Kek Lok Si and Ayer Itam from top. They do complaints when they making their way up, but when they see the view, they finally think it is really worth it. I am glad they have a g good time and they appreciate my time for always bringing them visit around here and there in Penang whenever I can.     

  

 

Singapore 2D1N~ National Museum of Singapore

Day 2 in Singapore. Visit Museums is one of my interest whether I travel abroad or locally. So I suggest to visit National Museum of Singapore and Ga-yoon agreed. The admission fee is SGD10 per pax. We top up another SGD1 to view another two special exhibitions~ The Wedding Dress - 200 Years of Wedding Fashion from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and Gold Rush - Treasures of Ukraine. We were astonish by the gold that exhibits in Gold Rush. We didn't take any photos in the exhibition hall as we thought it was prohibited. Later only we found out it was the "camera flash" that is prohibited. Anyway, the gold is exhibit in dark room, without flash it is impossible to take nice picture! We skip the wedding dress exhibition as they are having a launching and interviews. 

Before enter into the main exhibition hall, that's the iconic Swinging Chandelier & Glass Passage above us which we did not miss out after we finish viewing all the galleries. The Glass Passage is built entirely of glass, 11m from ground level. One of the world's largest outdoor self-supporting glass structures. The glass ceiling allows visitors has a clear view of the Museum's Palladian and Dome.

There are 2 main gallery - Singapore History Gallery and Singapore Living Galleries. Singapore History Gallery, tells the story of Singapore from its beginnings in the 14th century to the modern period; and Singapore Living Galleries, exhibits food, fashion, film and photography. Instead of follow a museum tour, we choose to walk on our own with the auto visual guide, more flexible and we can skip and view whatever we want.

Singapore History Gallery

The Singapore History Gallery use the story-telling approach to show what the country went through under the Japanese occupation and history of Singapore in the past and to modern days. We snap some pictures while listening to the auto-visual guide when we tour along the 2,800sqm gallery! It took us around 1 hour plus to finish the entire gallery.

Singapore Living Galleries

The Living Galleries with four galleries has more items to view compare to the history gallery. The 1st gallery is Fashion Gallery which exhibits the shifting identities of Singapore women from the 1950s to 1970s. 

Film & Wayang 

We both like this gallery the most. View excerpts of early iconic films, movies paraphernalia and listen to various movie theme songs. Also trace the development of Chinese opera and the emergence of home-grown films as popular entertainment in Singapore.

         





Food Gallery
This section exhibits Singapore's street food life back to 1950s to 1970s. 

Photography - Framing the Family

No offence but this gallery is a bit creepy. The lighting inside this gallery is very dim, I was standing at one of the corner of the gallery trying to get a best shot of all the photo frames, suddenly I had this goose bump attacked. Anyhow I rushed out after this & barely stay more than than 5 mins in this gallery.

          

Lastly, the museum architectural - the Rotunda Dome is also an attraction point to us since we both like heritage budling. Overall, we spent about 3 hours+ at National Museum of Singapore. Although the some of the culture and history are pretty similar to Malaysia's, it's worth for a visit. 

Gardens by the bay, Singapore

Gardens by the Bay that just open about a months ago! The night view is so stunning and feels like we are at Pandora from the movie Avatar. Actually it's kind of impromptu visit to Gardens by the Bay. We were standing at MBS Sky Park Observatory and saw this Avatar feel trees, decided to walk over. When we are walking over across the bridge, there is a light show on going~ orchestra playing with gigantic trees' light flickering like dancing. By the time we reach the park, the show just over. Still we are stunned by the view standing beneath the trees. From here overlooking at MBS, we could capture the Singapore flag showing from the bottom of rooftop. The flag is showing because Singapore Independence Day is coming soon in 2 more days. Look forward to come back here more when I visit Singapore again in near future.