dementia praecox

This is a rather back-dated entry; procrastination is key but I digress. The gang (namely K.L, Pat, Drew, Gene and I) decided to spend the Halloween together this year but the plans sort of fell through in the end and we ended up with this.

Drew and I had been really excited ever since we caught the news of the C.S.I: The Experience exhibition" (in collaberation with the Singapore Science Center) on various medias (him on TV, me on newspaper.) and it is no wonder that without any plans coming up, we decide that this is it; the time to go to Science Centre again. (The last time was for the Body Worlds exhibition.)

The night's event was planned by K.L, who haven't yet joined us on any costume play escapade but would love to.

Some minor details for CSI: The Exprience:

Exhibition Dates: 16th October 2010 to 20th February 2011
Location: Annexe Hall, Science Centre
Admission Charges: Adult ($20.00) Child [3-16 yrs] ($15.00)
W/ Science Center 2-in-1 package: Adult ($21.00) Child ($16.00)
Pat ended up at the other side of town with a client and Gene could only join us at night. I packed some sushi sandwich and plain water (like a Mum again -_-"') and we headed for the event.

Drew's friend told him that they finished the entire exhibition within one hour. All I can say is, they either didn't focus (and breeze through it) or they aren't that interested in the first place. (No. I refuse to think of myself as a slow poke.)

We got good parking and the mood was good when we start out. However, I think Drew's ego streak caught up and he was rushing around while K.L and I took our time to look at the details. I have always been very keen on forenics studies (though I wasn't able to study in that field) and of course took my own sweet time to decipher, understand, "talk" to the evidences; to take in everything. My only annoyance was the fact that we couldn't take any photos.

There are a total of 3 cases (plus 1 more for you to submit your "guesses" online) for you to solve using the different technologies to interpret the many data presented to you (be it by the evidence gathered, the information you decipher from the scene, the test results you derived from) and after you submitted your "findings" the head CSI (Grissom, the guy who loves his insects.) If you did well, you'll be awarded a certificate for the case you solve. Here's how it looks like.You can get your certificates printed on the spot for some $ or send it to your email like I did.

After that we explored the exhibition some more, doing some of the activities (searching for clues, making sound deduction, learning about different angles of spatter patterns etc.) before continuing the tour around Science Center. I "accidentially" walked away from the group and did some reading up around the area before we meet-up to leave for dinner.

K.L proposed the idea of spending our Halloween night at the ACM (Asian Civilisation Museum) Fright Night. I was actually quite happy about the proposal because for one, I have been wanting to go and it's free entry and there will no doubt be cosplayers at the event due to it being Fright Night and all that.We walked over from Esplanade because we couldn't find a better lot around the area and everything was fine. The lights were spooky green and there's a huge turnout with lots of people in costume (of sorts).

There's face painting, balloon twisting and free booze (for the adults), candies and ice-cream (for the kids and the cavities immune) and lots of spooky tales and trials which sounded pretty good right?

Wrong!

I felt really disappointed because I want to go and listen to some spooky tales and after that settle down to look at some exhibits because hey, it's not everyday you get to tour the museum at night. The vibe will be different. However, the place is so congested with human traffic and the crowd was so rowdy (because of the drinks maybe?) There were very long queues at the special Halloween exhibits (the films of supernatural, and spooky tale trails); so long that they had to stop people from lining up for it after 8pm.

There were also some inconsiderate (drunk?) people who waved around too much, bump into things (and people), destroying the exhibits and losing clothes as they go. (I need to purge my eyes of some unsightly things I saw. *shudders*)

The security couldn't do anything but direct "traffic" and one of the tour guides (some witch costume wearing auntie) pissed me off by saying some derogatory stuff in the China section ("none... boring shit..." I quote.) about the artifacts. 1) I bet she is drunk and the other visitors are too polite to correct her. 2) If you are a tour guide of the ACM guided tour, the least you could do is respect the exhibits (be your job voluntary or not.)

Every where I turn there's people, the noise is through the roof and there's no way I can concentrate on navigating through that maze and still focus on taking in the history while shunning away from huge noisy crowds without losing sight of K.L, Gene, Pat and Drew.

And when I finally had enough (at one of the sections with this hands-on thing and the jigsaw we were doing had missing pieces), K.L kept apologising for the bad experience.

Ask me if I want to go to this kind of events again.

Labels: Happenings