Rainy Days In Sydney

Perhaps it was a bad time for a vacation in Sydney. It rained incessantly. Well, that didn't bother me much. I could simply find an indoor activity to keep myself occupied. And so I did, at the Australian Museum.

I'd passed the museum the day before and had asked my friend the driver what that massive building was - he who had lived there with his young family for about a year already turned to me with a blank look and said, You know, I have no idea! Oh well, I found out from my guide book what it was soon enough. Museums might not be everybody's cup of tea, but it's mine! Especially on a cold, rainy September day Down Under!

And so, when it rained again that afternoon, I told my friend to drop me off at the Australian Museum. Went in without knowing what kind of a museum it was. Was quickly swarmed by loud groups of children in school uniforms. (Actually everywhere we went in Sydney - the Opera House, the harbour, etc there were groups of uniformed kids. Field trips seemed to be a big thing in Australia!) Got out of the groups, and went to buy a ticket.

At the information desk to pick up some brochures, the fellow there who looked like a policeman or a security guard looked me over and asked, Where're you from? Not in an unfriendly or intimidating way, but in a curious sort of way, like he'd never seen an Asian face in the museum before. I told him, and I thought he muttered something like, You may be the first Singaporean I've seen in here...

Ok, point taken. Singaporeans are not very museum-minded.

I soon discovered that the Australian Museum was a natural history museum. Oops, not quite what I had expected! I was looking for a "History of Australia" museum, which would show me displays of the archaeological finds, artifacts and stuff like that, but natural history is ok. No problem!

It didn't matter if it was raining a thunderstorm outside. Within the massive walls, I was soon lost in several impressive exhibits.

The museum's Mission: to increase understanding of, and influence public debate on, the natural environment, human societies and human interaction with the environment.

I found and explored three levels in the museum - skeletons and history of indigenous Australians on the ground floor, a large minerals exhibits on the first floor and lots of birds, insects and Australian mammals on the second floor.

I did not remember seeing any 'No Photography' signs anywhere, and so took a few photos during the tour. Some of the exhibits looked quite unreal, such as the giant crabs I posed next to, but... in a reputable museum, surely those must be real crabs? I soon found out that there were plenty of very real, live gigantic crabs for eating in Sydney's Chinatown! Did we try that... um, no, we settled on the hugest bowls of lucksa (that's how they spelt laksa) for our meals when the time came.