Natural Science Museum

The 5th day of the Chinese New Year is a day that is highly celebrated here in Shanghai. It is a day honoring the god of wealth. It mainly involves fire-crackers. Not fireworks...but firecrackers. The kind that has a string down the middle that you light and then pop-pop-pop-pop-pop....sounds kind of like a machine gun. Quite loud and not very fun for the kids. It starts the evening of the fourth day of the chinese new year and lasts about 36 hours. People set them off in front of their homes and places of business. Since our building has 32 floors and three apartments per floor, that would be a lot of firecrackers if even just half of the residents set them off at some point during those 36 hours.

After a little research, Alex found a great deal on a hotel downtown near People's Square. And so we had a two day 'refuge' from the firecrackers and got some good rest time and swimming time in for the girls in the indoor pool at the hotel.

As we were driving down Yan An Xi Lu in a taxi to our hotel, Alex noticed a sign around People's Square that said "Natural Science Museum" 800 Meters ahead. It has a large picture of a dinosaur on it. It was one of those brown, public-type signs, not an advertisement. We were intrigued, so did a little research online once we arrived at the hotel. There weren't very many reviews. We did find this review from a local blogger that explained why we hadn't ever heard about it before:

"The paint was crumbling, the stuffed animals were near the point of disintegration, and most of displays look like they were taken straight out of a 1950s science-fiction novel. We didn't get too close to the dinosaurs out of fear that they might collapse at any moment. That being said, there's something about this museum, schadenfreude perhaps, that made the whole 5 RMB visit worth it.".

Yes, that's right 5 RMB. For adults. Kids are free. That would be about $1.50 for our whole family to go to the museum. Despite the review, it seemed like it would be worth it to check it out and at least let the girls see some dinosaur bones.

Apparently, many of the exhibits were donations from a museum in London back in 1956. I would guess there have been very few updates since then. The bottom floor held the dinosaur bones, a small room with two chinese mummies (Wendy thought they were very cool), and the upper floors held exhibits of vertebrates and invertebrates. The invertebrates floor smelled like formaldehyde and the vertebrates floor smelled like moth balls. But despite the smell and the obvious lack of upkeep, I would say our visit was a big success. The girls LOVED it and want to go back.

Here we are, just arrived, and checking out the dinosaurs. Geneva and Vera were a little nervous at first. Most likely because the lighting was unbearably dim. They adjusted quickly and really enjoyed it, though.

A stegosaurus.

Alex talking to the girls about the skeletal structure of fish.

A few good friends joined us!

There was a modest little gift shop on the first floor, mostly filled with random plastic dinosaurs, plastic sea shells, and silk fans. But Wendy managed to find a gem of a souvenir... it was a little 'fossil kit'. A chunk of grey plaster with a tool and a brush for chipping away the 'rock' to find a fossil inside. Our very serious little archaeologist spent about 2 hours that evening working on it!

Her sisters missed out on the fun, and crashed early after a morning out followed by 3 hours at the swimming pool.

And, one more set of photos I just have to post. This is Wendy and a 'Nian'. They are dragon-dog statues that often flank the entrances of restaurants, hotels, etc. One is depicted as male (you can tell because there is a ball under one of his paws) and the other is female (she has a baby nian under her paw).

This is the traditional pose of the female nian: baby nian under her paw (sorry a little hard to tell in this photo...feel free to look it up on Wikipedia if you are really interested):

As we were walking back to our hotel, we spotted this Nian. Quite different than any I had seen before:

Yes, it appears to be nursing it's baby. A very sweet Nian, and my girls all were so happy to see it. We must have walked past a dozen or more of those statues on our walk, and I'm pretty sure my girls, like most little kids have a gut feeling that it just seems weird for the mommy to look like she is stepping on her baby. So we just had to get a photo of this one!

And our holiday continues. Since we only got two days off of school for Christmas, it has been amazing to have this two week holiday to recoup and rest up as a family before we head into another semester at Guang Qi Academy. Another exciting, but most likely challenging semester I'm sure.