Musée Méchanique

Free to visit, you just a couple of quarters to try out the machines.

I have seen a lot of museums while travelling around the world, but my favourite museum has to be the Musée Méchanique in San Francisco.  Made up of a personal collection of 160 penny arcade machines (video game machines before there were video games and electricity), this museum is as hands on as it gets. 

Two of the classic machines that you can use and be entertained by.  The white machine
is a movie machine that you have to crank by hand.

You can actually still use all the machines (some are over 100 years old), from strength testers to dancing puppets, it is amazing to see how each machine is different.  The machines aren’t being stored behind a thick layer of glass, quite the opposite they are all out and waiting to be explored.  Pop a quarter into the fortune telling machine and wait for your fortune to pop out on a card. 

For only 25 cents this fortune teller will give you some very wise advice.

Feeling tired of today’s flashy, fast-paced video games?  You can revisit some classic video games like Pong and Pac-man here at the museum.  I think the real reason I enjoyed this museum so much is that each machine made me feel like a kid again, especially the strength tester, it told me I am as strong as a little boy!  Now that isn’t very nice.

The Santa Claus Work Shop comes to life and all the little elves start hammering
away when you insert a quarter into the machine.

Putting on a Puppet Show

Shadow puppet shows (known as wayang kulit) were once a very popular form of entertainment in Malaysia.  In these shows the puppets were kept behind a screen and the audience only got to see the puppet's shadow,  I guess calling them shadow puppet shows made sense!

A shadow puppet of Hanuman.  Look closely at all the detail that has been carved
out of his clothing.  He must have looked pretty impressive as a shadow.

You have to be very careful when you make a shadow puppet.  If you want the audience to see your puppet's face you can't paint on features like eyes, a nose and a mouth, because the paint can't be seen through the screen.  Puppet makers used leather to make their shadow puppets, and they would carve out all the details using special tools.  If you take a close look at the puppets here you can see how carefully the details are carved out, even things like hair and scales would be carved out so they would be seen by the audience.  The puppet makers would then paint the puppets just to decorate them, but during the show this paint isn't seen and doesn't help the actual performance.  The puppet would also have moving arms and legs that would be attached to its body by special clips.

The puppeteers would use special sticks attached to the arms and legs to move them around.

Have you ever made a shadow puppet?  Get an empty cereal box and try making a shadow puppet of your favourite animal.  Get an adult to help you test it out (you will need a flashlight and a white sheet or t-shirt to do this)  Go back and add the details that are missing once you test it out.  If you get really good at making shadow puppets you should put on a show for your friends and family.  Have fun!

The National Museum in Kuala Lumpur

The National Museum in Kuala Lumpur does a great job at taking you through history and showing you not only how Malaysians once lived, but how they live today.

Getting to the National Museum is tricky, and if you are walking
you have to cross a six lane highway to get there.  I felt like Frogger!

The museum is divided into different time periods, and my favourite was the Prehistoric room.  In this room, many of the tools that humans used thousands of years ago (way before electricity) are on display.  One set of tools are these stones,  can you guess what they were used for?

Do you know what these textured stones were used for?

They were used for beating bark (that had been soaked in sea water for two weeks) to make bark fabric.  This fabric could then be used just like we use woven fabrics today. 

Tree bark that has been beaten into fabric.

How about this black stuff, what do you think humans did with it?

Is it just a pile of rocks?

That's right, they used this charcoal to draw pictures on cave walls.  These pictures are usually scenes about things that were happening in the area at the time, so they help historians piece together a better understanding of what life was like long ago.

A diorama showing how humans would use cave drawings to document their
daily lives before they started using words.

The Egyptian Museum: No Pictures Allowed!

I have spent the past couple of days in Cairo exploring many of the museums that can be found here in the city.  Yesterday, I went to The Egyptian Museum and I couldn't believe my eyes.  It was just like something out of a movie.  There were rows of wooden and glass cases filled with ancient artefacts, all of them labelled with little handwritten cards that have yellowed over the years.  There are no big flashy exhibits, nothing interactive to play with, the museum acts simply as a storage facility for all these amazing items, all 120 000 of them. 

The crowd of people getting ready to enter the museum.

Some of the most famous pieces in the museum are King Tut's death mask.  If you look at the header of my blog you will see a cartoon drawing of it.  Seeing it in real life after having read about it, taught about it and even having seen a hologram of it in London, was pretty neat.  The room the mask was in was jam packed full of people, so you don't get any alone time with King Tut.  You simply catch a glimpse of his mask, and then you move on.

A picture of King Tut's death mask taken from Sacred-Destinations.com

Another brilliant part of the museum are the special mummy rooms.  They have rows of mummies on display and you get to see how the mummification process changed over time.  They started painting people's skin yellow, putting rocks under their eyelids to keep the eye sockets full, and even made special rings for their hands and feet so their fingers and toes wouldn't fall off over time.  It was fascinating staring at all the different mummies. To see a picture of the mummy of Ramses II click here (warning, it is pretty spooky looking!)

I am sad that I have no pictures of my own to show you from my trip to the museum, but there are very strict rules about pictures.  You aren't even allowed to bring your camera into the museum with you and have to check-it at the door.  The reason for this rule is that the items in the museum are so special and the light from a camera flash can damage them, so it is a good rule to follow.  So I guess not having any pictures is fine, just means that one day you will have to come to Cairo and see all these sights for youself!

Benaki Museum

Stairs leading to the front door of Benaki Museum.

I don't know which is more beautiful, the collection of artefacts or the house they are displayed in.  Antonis Benakis is the founder of Benaki Museum and all the pieces in the museum are from his very own personal collection.  Mr. Benaki knows that there is no value in hogging things and keeping them to yourself, so in 1926 he donated his entire collection to the state and the people of Greece.  It is much more fun to share with others, and by sharing his collection he is helping visitors to the Benaki Museum learn about Greece and its interesting history.  So what do you think, when is it good to share?  When is sharing maybe not a good idea?



Recreation of a sultan's room in the museum.



Some busts on display.





The upstairs hallway of the museum.