Other than visiting friends and family during Chinese New Year (CNY), many Singaporeans also went to visit the dead and coffins on the third day of CNY. I was one of them. =P

Why? Because it was free!

The National Museum of Singapore was opened for free admission on that day, and the Quest For Immortality exhibition attracted the most crowds. And I have to admit, the large crowd was a bit of a turn-off, because you have to (sometimes) squeeze through people just to see things closely.

See, I noticed this crack on the coffin after looking closely. It’s like the corpse, woken up by the crowd maybe, couldn’t take it anymore so it came back to life and attempted to break it open and escape.

Rather than only showing mummies and coffins, the exhibition also showcases accessories, tablets, scrolls, etc, to help visitors understand ancient Egyptians’ concept of afterlife and immortality.

That looks like a lot ingredients for CNY reunion dinner. But in this case they are probably used as offerings. How many different food can you spot?

It seems like ancient Egyptians have already discovered advanced printing and graphic design techniques to tell people not to touch their sacred artefacts.

According to my friend, a little boy came and saw this ‘do not touch’ sign, and thought that only the sign itself could not be touched, so he used his fingers to touch the artefact instead. Haha so cute!

This is the copper mirror they used in their time. Hmmmmm I think the surface it is lying on is much more reflective than it.

A mummy of a cat. It is said that millions of them have been found buried in cemeteries.

Bad thing about not paying to see an exhibition like this is that, you don’t feel the need to read and experience every single thing there. Even though there was some form of crowd control to regulate the number of visitors entering at a time, I still felt rather distracted by the huge amount of people wandering around.

It felt kinda like a huge CNY gathering happening in the dark (the whole exhibition was kind of dark).

All in all, I would highly recommend everyone to go there and spend S$15 for this experience! (Personally I wouldn’t mind going down again, because I didn’t manage to look through every single thing) Not all their artefacts have the ‘do not touch’ sign so feel free to touch (but be careful not to damage them)!

I touched his face.

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Lousy Movie Reviews!

14 Blades

I went to watch this movie purely because of Donnie Yen and Qi Yu Wu. And it certainly didn’t disappoint too much. The concept mainly revolves around dignity and bonds, with Zhao Wei’s constant reminder in the movie that ‘the world needs a hero to fight against injustice’. In this case, Donnie Yen is our hero in the movie. Frankly speaking, I didn’t really understand the storyline fully. The premise seems to be pretty complicated (or rather, maybe not very well explained) for a story that’s basically about good fighting evil. Luckily the fighting scenes and the occasional comic relief moments were pretty decent.

7 / 10

72 Tenants of Prosperity

Drawing audience into the cinemas using a large strong cast line-up is not new, and this is one of the movies during the CNY season this year that is heavily relying on this tactic. While the plot is paper thin and nonsensical humour not really funny (partly due to it being lost in translation from Cantonese to Mandarin, and partly because it’s really not funny when it tried too hard) sometimes, it was rather fun for me to spot various cameos of different Hong Kong actors and actresses. As the movie ends you might feel like you’ve watched a 2 hour CNY variety show.

5 / 10

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

The main reason why I’m (and maybe everyone too) watching this movie is Heath Ledger (it’s his last movie). And Johnny Depp. And maybe, Jude Law. Haha. And nah, not really a fan of Colin Farrell. When the movie ended, I thought it gave me a pretty weird experience. Not bad, but not mind-blowing great either. It surprisingly has a lot of Ledger moments, and a heavy dose of magical fantasy elements thrown in. The story has managed to keep me engaged most of the time, even though it went a bit slow sometimes. The enjoyment of the movie largely came from watching Heath’s character slowly revealing its different sides and knowing more about himself.

7 / 10

Received a phone call from my aunt on the first day of Chinese New Year, who’s residing in Canada now. Everyone in the family took turns to catch up with her over the phone and exchange well wishes.

While my mum chatted with her, my aunt said that after looking at my photos (in Facebook? maybe) she realised that I’m starting to look more and more like my dad back in his younger days.

To which my mum replied, “Yea, you think so too? I guess that’s good, if not we’ll have to worry who the boy’s real dad is. Haha!”

It was followed by a brief awkward silence. FHL lol.

I could almost see a semi transparent thought bubble over my mum’s head reading “Why the hell did I say that?!”.

Happy Lunar New Year everyone! =)