The museum and shopping in Singapore

Singapore museum

I spent most of today on my feet. From 10.00 am to 1.30 pm I visited the museum. The Pompei exhibit was there. Most of it was resin casts and copies of things but I still walked out of there feeling for all the people who were there. They had a time-lapse (computerised) film of the eruption of Vesuvius at that time and I kept thinking ‘get out, get out’ until the 1.00 am eruption with the pyroclastic flows and then I thought, ‘too late’. Even if they’d left before that they might not have made it, not with all the ash rain 20m deep.

The next exhibit I went through was the history of Singapore. Just brilliant. The detail and the explanations behind every decision made, particularly since independence in the 60s was amazing. The foresight required to push for such drastic (at the time) measures is mind-boggling. I can’t decide how to make things happen for me tomorrow, let alone plan for a whole country for the next 50-odd years.

I left the museum because I’d been on my feet for four hours (I walked from the hotel) and still hadn’t had breakfast. Like the library, I could stay there for a couple of days and still have new things to look at.

After the museum came Orchard Road, the up-market shopping district. I didn’t last long. I’m not a shopper at the best of times and the idea of miles upon miles of shops doesn’t thrill me. I stayed there long enough to browse through two shopping centres and buy a few things and lunch (finally had the chicken rice everyone keeps recommending to me) and then decided enough was enough. I didn’t go through all the really expensive shops. It would be interesting but I know it’s not for me so other things keep being more important. I went back to Selangor Pewter and exchanged the pate knife I bought on Monday and then back to Chinatown to pick up my suit.

Tomorrow is my visit to the Australian International School. I’m really looking forward to that although getting there is a bit problematic. I have three maps and none of them show me exactly where the school is. I know the MRT stop to get off and the street name but that’s it. I guess I just need to look at it as another adventure, albeit one that has a time restriction since I have to be there by 11.30 am.