Really not worth the time and money - NASA - A Human Adventure Exhibition

Lesson learnt today: Museums are meant to be enjoyed on quiet weekdays.

I usually go for exhibitions on weekdays which is naturally less stressful for me because I don't have to get annoyed at the people who keep blocking my view when I want to read the content and see the exhibits or stand in my way when I want to take photos. Coupled with those selfie maniacs who wouldn't rest until they get the perfect shot in that pitch-black room, the boisterous young people who just want to have fun rather than view the exhibition or those who are bent on talking big business on their phones in that quiet hall, weekend exhibition visits are usually a big no-no for me. The reason why I made an exception today was my inability to make it on a weekday these few months and that it's ending tomorrow so there was no choice. However, the whole experience left much to be desired and reaffirmed my belief that I should avoid exhibitions on weekends as much as possible.

If you are planning to catch this tomorrow on the last day, do take note of the following:

1) Book your tickets online first.
On hindsight, I should have booked the ticket online but I wasn't sure if I could make it today until the last minute so I didn't. As such, it resulted in a 30-min wait just to get the ticket and another 10 mins outside the exhibition hall to get in.
There is a shorter queue to get your tickets if you have made the online booking so it will cut the queuing time considerably.

2) Make sure you go in a group of even numbers
The one-for-one offer means that you will be disadvantaged if you are going for this alone or in a group of odd numbers. There is no discounted price for people who are on their own so effectively, you pay the price for 2 tickets. What's more annoying is that, as a Sands member, there is no discount for this exhibition even though I've enjoyed this perk a number of times in the past.
By the way, in case you are wondering, you can sign up for the Sands membership for free and there is no minimum spending requirement. There are some privileges, offers and discounts at various shops and you can earn points which can be redeemed for rewards. One of the key reasons I got this membership even though I don't go to MBS that often is because it offers further discounts on the ArtScience Museum tickets.

3) Remember to get your free Vitaminwater
It is stated on the ticket that you get one bottle of Vitaminwater for each ticket presented to the museum shop so don't forget to get it.

4) Beware of the tight walkways
If you are intending to bring your kids along, you may want to consider leaving your prams outside although I'm not sure if you can leave it in the museum's custody. The main reason is that the huge number of visitors plus the narrower-than-usual walkways will make it difficult for you to navigate.

On the whole, I wasn't sure what the purpose of this exhibition was. It seemed like the exhibits were put together but there was no coherent "theme" linking all these elements sequentially in a line. For example, the section about the space missions only focused on Russia and US but it would have been better if there was some insight into the space exploration efforts from other countries as well.

The display of the information also left much to be desired. For example, in the section which featured various people who had visions about space exploration such as Leonardo Da Vinci and Jules Verne, the screen which featured individual write-ups about them took so long to move on to the next person that it was impossible to stand there and read everything especially with the never-ending batches of people coming into the hall and jostling for space. If it had been a less crowded day, this might not have been an issue but still, the slideshow really needs to speed up.

Another thing which got me really annoyed was that the explanation for the exhibits were placed too far from the exhibits. It wouldn't have been less of an issue if the hall was less crowded but then it looked as if the information was crammed into one board for a few groups of exhibits. As such, I had to keep shuttling to and fro just to make sense of what I was seeing. To do that against the flow of the human traffic was an arduous effort and you can't help but feel that people are annoyed about you "holding up" the traffic. In addition, some of these panels had a glass cover over it which created light reflections thus making it even more difficult to read the content.

As there were quite a number of equipment and space shuttle exhibits which are naturally quite large, this seemed to have affected the amount of space left for people to move around and to look at the exhibits from various angles. For example, there was a model of a space shuttle which was so long that I couldn't take a decent shot of it because the walkway was crammed with people who were watching a video on the wall opposite this exhibit. Just getting to see the information panel was a huge challenge. Based on my experience so far from various exhibitions, if videos are to be shown, there is usually a space for people to gather in front of the screen where there are seats provided at times. It is unusual for so many things to be fitted within one small space and it hinders both those who want to watch the video and those who want to see that exhibit. As you can see here, I didn't manage to take a picture of the entire shuttle and had to take four photos of different portions.

Considering how expensive the ticket was (mine was $19 for a local resident ticket but it would have been halved if someone shared the extra ticket with me), I wasn't expecting this G-Force experience to come with a fee. In fact, the museum's website didn't indicate that at all:

Experience gravity as you never have! Take a trip to space and back and have a taste of what it feels like to be an astronaut embarking on your journey out of the Earth’s atmosphere. Let astronaut and test pilot Gus Grissom be your guide as you go on the famous Mercury Liberty Bell 7 flight, the second in a series of successful U.S. manned suborbital flights in 1961.

Imagine my surprise that this comes at a fee of SGD 6 per ride! From my video taken outside the fence, the whole ride was a mere one minute. How does that sound to you? No wonder only the young people were queuing for this!

On the whole, I was very disappointed with this exhibition. Frankly speaking, even if I had gone on a weekday and didn't experience all these issues with queuing and crowds, I would still have been dissatisfied because the content was very lacking. This was a shame especially considering that most of the exhibitions I've been to at the ArtScience Museum met my expectations. When you think of the fact that their admission tickets are generally pricier than our local museums which offer free entry for citizens and PRs most of the time (except for some special exhibitions), there's got to be more effort in ensuring that the content matches up to the price tag. And I really hope that I won't be penalised yet again for going to museums alone.

Showcasing Hokkaido's charms @ Japan Food Town

In recent years, there's been a significant increase in promotional events from Japan especially those organised by and featuring specific prefectures. During these events and exhibitions, the local companies come to Singapore to showcase their products and services which usually comprise of food & drinks, technological products, handicrafts and art works. It's a good thing that there are coordinated efforts now to promote these places and their specialties for the purpose of doing business and boosting tourism although the scale and content of these events tend to vary across a wide spectrum.

Currently, there is an event at Japan Food Town (Wisma Atria) featuring Hokkaido which is a place that's probably very familiar to most Singaporeans. At the event square, the crafts and cosmetics fair consists of a number of booths featuring such products from the prefecture. This fair will run until 8 March.

From what I observed, the brands and products featured are those which I've not seen before at other events such as travel fairs so it should be fairly interesting for most people. On the other hand, as the event space is very small, the variety of items exhibited is somewhat limited. In addition, it doesn't look like there is a lot of publicity for this event so unless you happen to be dining at Japan Food Town, chances are you might not even walk to the event space to look at what's on offer. In my case, I swung by after my meal and left in about 5 minutes or so as I was rushing elsewhere. If I had more time, I would have stuck around to talk to the exhibitors to find out more about the products. As such, my observations below were largely based on what I saw and what I gathered from the brochures given to me.

One common grouse about Japan's products is the high price tag which is understandable to a certain extent due to import costs and of course, exchange rate fluctuations. Much as we all know that their products are of a certain quality, we can't deny that the price tags do intimidate consumers especially those who may not understand the value of the products fully or cannot reconcile the price with their assessment of the item's value. This is like a chicken-and-egg issue where if there is a larger quantity circulating in the market, costs may be driven down but Japanese products tend to be in limited quantities here so there won't be significant cost savings. Ultimately, this cements the impression that Japanese products are good but pricey.

Besides the fair, there are also dishes using Hokkaido's products from the restaurants at Japan Food Town so you can give these a try while you are dining there. I had the Hokkaido deep fried potatoes at Rang Mang Shokudo which tasted good as expected but I didn't quite like the taste and smell of the cod roe sauce that was poured onto the potatoes. The dishes featured in the poster will be offered by the restaurants until 8 March which is the same date as the end of the fair. As such, if you are keen to check this out, you probably need to arrange a visit this weekend or anytime soon. There is a promotional campaign where you can take a photo with one of the photo boards there and upload to your social media account. Upon doing so, you will be given a free gift by the exhibitors.

Here are some of the items showcased at the fair which you may want to check out on your own:

Here are some art and craft works from the Ainu people said to be indigenious people of Japan and Russia. According to the brochure I got at the fair, the town of Nibutani in the Hidaka area (Hokkaido prefecture) has a number of Ainu households, some Ainu-owned craft shops and two Ainu museums i.e. Nibutani Ainu Cultural Museum and Historical Museum of Saru River so this is a place for visitors to interact with the Ainu people. The items featured here include the Nibutani Ita which are wooden trays with spiral Moreunoka patterns and Ramuramunoka fish-scaled patterns and Nibutani Attus which are textiles made from tree barks. These two categories of works were designated as Traditional Craft Industries by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on 8 March 2013.

For those who like ornaments and items made of wood, this corner features trays, wine bottle holder, photo frames, clocks and even a handphone holder with rather simple designs and clean lines. Although these products have a feel somewhat similar to Muji (no frills and a simple design) and I must admit that they look rather nice, the prices are pretty steep in my opinion so it may be that you have to find out more from the exhibitors why exactly these products are priced at these levels. On a related note, most of the items I saw had a tag saying GST included but you may want to ask about the price again just in case what's displayed does not include GST.

This brand Sucremor offers a range of skin care products using beet sugar from Hokkaido. Apparently, the inspiration of their name came from the French word sucre which means sugar. The founder of the brand got the idea from a colleague when she was working in New York about using sugar for moisturising purposes and it turned out that this brought about an improvement in her daughter's eczema condition. From the company's brochure, it was said that the company compared and analysed about 200 types of different sugar before deciding on the sugar made from Hokkaido-grown beets for its moisturising and anti-bacterial properties. There are five aromas to choose from i.e. citrus, lavender, rosemary, hakka (Japanese mint) and vanilla. For babies, you can get the organic sugaring massage scrub which is supposedly gentle enough for their delicate skin. I'll probably go back before the fair ends just to know more about the product and get one to see if it's as good as it claims.

For those who like Japanese traditional artwork and dyed products, you would probably be interested in what Mizuno Somekojo has to offer. This dye-printing factory from Asahikawa, Hokkaido, has been in business since 1907 and specialises in dye printing of various products such as noren (the curtain used outside Japanese restaurants), clothes for the Yosakoi festival, flags and curtains. Even if you are not visiting Hokkaido anytime, you can head to their shop Some no Anbo in Asakusa, Tokyo, for their products which should be quite accessible. Although I find their designs and products very attractive, I was deliberating for a long time whether to buy anything because I struggled to think of a place at home where I can hang it up! Perhaps I should just go back for a second look and get the snowy scene item which I saw yesterday?

One booth which I found quite interesting was Date Yasai which introduced the vegetables grown in Date City, Hokkaido known for its warm coastal climate and volcanic soil. In its brochure, there is an extensive list of vegetables from the city with the names in English and Japanese. This should come in particularly useful to those who are learning Japanese or those who want to know the names of the vegetables in case they want to buy them in Japan. There is also a calendar indicating the harvesting periods for each type of vegetable so depending on when you visit the city, you are aware when is the best season to eat what vegetable. Perhaps the only thing which was lacking was that the booth was too small and there were no "real" vegetables showcased there. When it comes to promoting foodstuff, seeing and being able to taste it would be essential in helping to build awareness and demand from the customers. If there is a future opportunity for the vegetables to be showcased in Singapore, having some food samples would definitely attract more attention and interest. It was also not apparent if the vegetables from Date can be bought here so I suppose that they are here to build awareness for a start.

And last but not least, here is the main stage where you can take pictures with the photo board and upload to social media so as to earn the free gift.

On the whole, I think the fair is well-intended to inform the public about what Hokkaido has to offer. However, due to the nature of the location and limited event space, it is a bit lacking because it feels like you are just getting a small sample of what each of the brands have to offer. In future, they can probably do more to get a place with more human traffic which will allow them to bring in more vendors with a wider variety of products and services. Considering that you have to go all the way up to the 4th floor to get to Japan Food Town and walk inside to the event square, having a place where passer-bys can be attracted easily might be something to consider next time.