故宮, 大英博物館 250 年收藏展

Dad and I went to 故宮 again today and tried to go see the popular 大英博物館 250 年收藏展. We got up early and went there earlier this time. There will still queues for ticket sales and entry. But the lines were much shorter compared with last time. However, we still lined up for about 40 mintes before we actually entered the exhibition area. It was just about the time for the 10:30 guided tour.

The guided tour had a large crowd. The guide was an art student from a university in Tainan. She volunteered to do this work in the museum. Man, this is far away from Tainan. She took us to several areas and explained the exhibits. We got to know about the Greek and Rome statues, the chess pieces made of ivories, a sketch by Da Vinci, a Buddha statue that is a mixture of Eastern and Western style, an African wooden carving, Native American leather clothes, and a modern Maori wooden carving, and some others along the way. That took an hour already. Then, she went on to explain the remaining exhibits without taking us to those areas because those areas were too crowded. Afterwards, dad and I went to cover those areas, which included a mummy, a major attraction of this exhibition.

Judging from this visit and a previous exhibition last year, "One Day in Bombay", I found the guided tours are quite interesting and useful. The exhibitions may not have a lot of exhibits that made me go "wow" when I first saw it. However, with the explanations given by the guide, I could appreciate them more and have better understandings about how these things related to people's lives at that time.

There was such a crowd. In the museum, there were many people in front of the exhibits. Sometimes you have to line up and wait to be able to see some of them. It was quite noisy in some areas too. However, I guess it's a good thing that people are interested in these events. Even though most people, like me, probably don't understand and appreciate the exhibits as much as the artists or historians, we can still learn a bit about different people's lives in different times and places.

Thank Jenny for recommending this exhibition.