Free entry to National Heritage Board Museums

To celebrate National Day, all the National Heritage Board Museums will offer free admission to Singaporeans and Permanent Residents in August. The museums are:

Asian Civilisations Museum
Memories at Old Ford Factory
National Museum of Singapore
Peranakan Museum
Reflections at Bukit Chandu
Singapore Art Museum
Sam at 8Q
Singapore Philatelic Museum

I will definitely be checking out the Peranakan Museum as I’ve been wanting to visit for a while now, although I’d recommend the Asian Civilisations Museum too.

It’s a nice museum with a fairly good collection of interesting artefacts from different parts of Asia – South Asia, Southeast Asia (mainly Indonesia and Thailand), China (specifically Singapore-Chinese culture) and the Middle East.

       

From left: A Chinese bridal costume, Chinese demons/spirits from hell (I think), replica of an Indian wall.

Currently, the main attraction at the Asian Civilisations Museum are the terracotta warriors of the Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Unfortunately, this will still be ticketed as it’s a special exhibit, but will be free on National Day itself and Hari Raya Haji. I’d suggest going for the free guided tours as it’s most insightful, and non-iPhone users should try to visit with a iPhone-toting friend as there’re some cool effects that can be viewed with a specially created iPhone app*.

There aren’t many terracotta warriors on display, but it beats having to travel to Xi’an:

A general (above) and cavalry soldier (below).

The cavalry soldier with his horse behind him. Note how small the horse is – apparently the larger breed of horses from the Mongolian plains were only introduced to China after the Qin dynasty.

I also liked the art installation of terracotta cybermen – do check out the Terracotta Warriors exhibit!

 

*: As an Andriod-user, it annoys me greatly that such OS discrimination exists. The National Library Board is also guilty of this and they really should correct it immediately.