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Monday, April 6, 2009

Learning Journey to the Heritage Museum ~7:32 AM

On 6 of march, my whole class went to the Museum. I was really excited as it was my first time there. In the Museum, there were no staff guides telling us about artifacts and exhibits displayed. Instead, we used a "Companion". It is a device that tells us about that current artifact we are looking at, and it even includes a map of the entire place!

When we arrived there, it started to rain and we were really lucky to have narrowly avoided the rain. The place looked really dark, so I decided to venture around with Didier. We read about something which really interest us, and it was about how slaves had to bathe in a red river in the olden times. The red liquid is not blood, which was what I thought it was the first time round, but later, I read on that it was actually medicine to kill insects and fleas. There is also a mirror room where all 4 walls of the room were mirrors, and there was a screen showing a movie about kampung life and how they survived.

After looking curiously at many other items, we came to a bench. We sat down and listened intently to the "Companion" when, suddenly, somebody jumped in front of us! It was Garyl! As the room was dark, it took me a few seconds to register it. He then asked to join the group and we of course said yes. So, we wandered around some more, and I found out the Museum wasn't that big as I thought it was. We were walking around in a huge circle! So after we took a different route, we encountered a toilet. I was at the point of bursting so I went and they followed me.

Then, I saw a huge brass bell and it had carvings all over it but I wasn't sure what it meant. After that, we did not know where to go. Then we saw somebody walking towards somewhere, and we followed him, and seated on the floor were many people! So I handed in my "Companion", and went in once more, the three of us. We went back to the mirror room once more and then we saw Mrs Azhar. So we went back and got ready to leave the gallery. Then we went to a small gallery where they were showing a clip about some weird monster and I didn't get the gist of it. When the clip was over, we went to another small room behind the screen and for entertainment last time, there was no television and they used puppetry. The common topic was about the heaven and the gods. But the stage was really cool! It was enormous, and the whole thing was made of paper and cardboard! And it looked old, so I wondered how old it was.
After that, we went to switch places with the other half of the class. We went into a different room and this time, it was about fashion and style in the olden times,but that one was pretty boring.

While we were in the room, a man from another country asked Jolene what the stars on her shoulders meant. So she replied that it was a sign that she was a prefect. So the man said it was cool and told everyone around him that in his country, children there had no uniforms to wear and they had to wear their own home clothes, and they had holes and patches,so it looked pretty tattered. After that, he said goodbye to us and walked away with a smile on his face.

Then we went to the last room. And it was about my favourite topic, food! They showed us the past of "roti prata", "char kway tiao"," laksa" and many other stuff. They also put a thing where you put your nose in it and pull a ring, the smell of that spice will puff out and all of them were smelly to me. After that, we sat in a small room and my teacher gave us a survey form. After we completed it we lined up and boarded the bus for home. And time for me to go too!