The Cowboy Bar organised an outing to the Asian Civilisation Museum (ACM) today. It's been ages since I've last sat foot into a Museum in Singapore. The last museum I've been to is in Taipei in November last year. Night In the Museum doesn't count of course.

We met at the Big Bird near UOB building. On reaching, I realise those that came are all couples. Except for 2 others who are good friends. So it was pretty boring.


On the way to the museum, we saw this uncle showing of his catch of the day. It's quite a big fish, and passer-bys are taking pictures of him and his fish.


The museum is divided into quite a few parts. I can remember the names of only a few. China, East Asia and Mystery Men. Mystery Men is specially set up recently. I think it's not going to be permanent in the ACM. The lighting is not very good in the museum and though taking pictures is allowed, we are not allowed to use flash. This statue of buddha is 1 of the exhibits that I managed to take pictures of.


This page of Quran is another exhibit with favourable lighting. From the parchment used and the script used to write this Quran, the experts can tell that it's very very ancient.


It was long accepted that China civilisation started at the Yellow River Basin. An archaelogical discovery near Guanghan city, in Sichuan Province challenges this belief. 2 sacrificial pits filled with over 4,000 objects were discovered. Bronze masks, elephant tusks, ceremonial jades, cowrie shells and gold were in the pits. They were burned and broken, which suggests it's part of a sacrifice ritual. if I remember correctly, the 2 bis are quite near to each other but there is a difference of about 1 century in age. This seems to be a very major sacrifice which suggests an imminent disaster. They were fashioned in a style previously unseen in any part of China. There was another archaelogical discovery in China, Anyang I think, of bronze artifacts that belongs to the Shang dynasty. But this Guanghan discovery has a very different style. And for the Shang dynasty, there is at least records of the it in the Zhou dynasty documents, though it's authenticity was challenged. The Anyang discovery confirms their existence. But the Guanghan discovery opens a whole new chapter in China's history.


This toilet is not an exhibit of course! I took its picture because it is very big. Double the size of the other toilets. Big enough to be an handicap toilet, but I don't think the handicap can use it easily. They should change it to a seated bowl.