Wednesday, January 31

After breakfast in the room, Larry went off to work. Eileen went to the National Museum of Singapore.

First was a stop in Starbucks in Wheelock Place, then a bus from the Thai Embassy bus stop on Orchard just west of the Yotel to a stop a 5 minute walk from the museum.

A note on the buses and MRT. There are two excellent phone apps that plan your route for you on buses and MRT. Google maps works pretty well too, but I really rely on the two Singapore apps more. The apps are real-time and tells you which of a number of possible bus lines is the next one, so the bus number can change depending on the time you want to leave. The apps are MyTransport and SMRTConnect.

The museum was excellent and a nice respite from the heat.

The first stop was the Story of the Forest, created by the renowned Japanese digital art collective teamLab. The Story of the Forest is an immersive installation that transforms 69 drawings from the William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings into three-dimensional animations. It’s in a glass rotunda that you enter on the second floor and walk down a circular ramp to the first floor. The animations and music are continuous along the wall as you walk down.

After the animation there was a picture gallery of the connection between trees and humans, beautifully done, showing long-standing trees and the people who visit them.

Then Eileen spent over two hours in the Singapore History section of the museum — an extrememly well-done and informative visit. The history exhibit spans a large space with many rooms and exhibits in the middle of the rooms and many nooks and crannies. It was actually a little confusing trying to find the next period of time in order. There is, of course, a Singapore Museum app. The displays were numbered and could be typed into the app, so you could read the displays on the wall, your phone, or the sheets in each room. The history spanned 12th century to present day, with many audio visual installations, and audio phones to hear recorded oral memories.

There was a mural-wall movie depicting how early residents lived, a whole section on the defense and surrender during WWII with a movie of original footage to watch. There was a movie of the press conference of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew announcing the split from Malaysia in 1965. There was also a well-done animated digital installation on modern Singapore.

After a well-deserved latte in the cafe, it was back to the Story of the Forest to use the Story of the Forest app. Then back to the street and a bus ride home.

Orchard and Scott is a pretty tony, upscale area – malls and high-end stores.

The ION mall.

One of the food stores we frequented. This one in the Shaw Center by our hotel. There is a mall on each of the four corners, connected by underground passages that are also the access to the Orchard MRT.

Dinner was at Old Chengdu on Pagoda Street in Chinatown with a group of Larry’s work friends. It was our third time there (twice on our last visit). Hard to try another, as this is so good.

YouTube Story of the Forest — a must watch!