National Museum of Singapore

During our hop on, hop off bus tour we hopped off at the National Museum of Singapore. The museums main gallery is the History of Singapore gallery which covers from Mr. Raffles to the present. The free tour started at 2:00pm so we spent 1/2 an hour looking at the special exhibition from the Victoria & Albert Museum, London on the history of wedding dresses. Luke and I were soooo interested.

The tour group consisted of the four of us, which was really good, we walked up some stairs then down a spiral ramp which was probably about three flights of stairs. The first gallery was about the early history of Singapura and then about the English 'discovery' and what Mr. Raffles did for the town of Singapore. Mr. Raffles helped the elder of two brothers win the seat for Sultan. This formed a treaty between Singapore and England but like Australia, England wanted the lot.



This then brought us to the next section, the Japanese occupation. The Japanese took Singapore in WWII because, like now a days, it was a very big stop over point between north and south and east and west, so it was in a very strategic position. The Japanese propaganda told Singaporeans that they had saved them from the white ghost. When the war ended Singapore reverted back to being an English colony.



The last part was about the independence of Singapore. Initially it was planned that Singapore achieve independence as apart of Malaysia. But there were problems with agreeing with details - apparently if you read the Singapore history books it will say they felt like they where being kicked out but if you read the Malaysian history books they'll tell you Singapore opted out. So Singapore became independent seperately. This is what kicked off the Australian/ New Zealand like rivalry between Malaysia and Singapore. There was a lot of side galleries about people who helped and wanted the independence and democracy of Singapore.



The tour was absolutely free and it was one of the best. The tour guide was extremely informed about everything, she only showed us the highlights and what we needed to know while answering our questions. Interestingly she does it as a volunteer and has a full time job during the week. The museum was exactly what we wanted from it and compared to the expensive colosseum tour it was amazing.



This is Merlion the famous Singapore mermaid cross lion creature. The word Singa in Malayan means a mystical animal and Singapura means land of the mystical animal but white man changed it to Singapore for easy pronunciation.

Jake

Location:Singapore