Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
121
ARTrium@MICA, with galleries displaying Singaporean, Southeast Asian, and European
fine arts. It's air-conditioned!
140 Hill St. at the corner of River Valley Rd., on Fort Canning Park.
&
65/6837-9527.
www.artriumatmica.
com.
Free admission. 5-min. walk from Clarke Quay MRT.
Kuan Yin Thong Hood Cho Temple
It's said that whatever you wish for within the
walls of Kuan Yin Temple comes tr ue, so get in line and hav e your wish ready. It must
work, as there's a steady stream of people on auspicious days of the Chinese calenda. The
procedure is simple (watch others to catch on):Wear shoes easily slipped off before enter-
ing the temple and join the queue. When it is y our turn, light sev eral joss sticks, bo w
with them, and make a wish before placing them in the urn provided. Pick up the cylin-
drical container filled with wooden sticks and shake it until one stick falls out—each
stick has a number. Give this number to the interpretation office and they will hand you
a piece of paper with v erses in M andarin and E nglish. This will tell y ou your general
fortune, plus a clue as to whether your wish will come true. (For a small fee, interpreters
outside can help with the translation.) N ow for the payback: I f your wish comes tr ue,
you're supposed to r eturn to the temple and offer fr uits and flo wers to say thanks
(oranges, pears, and apples ar e a thoughtful choice, and jasmine petals ar e especially
nice). So be careful what you wish for. After you're back home and that job pr omotion
comes through, your new manager might nix a trip back to S ingapore so you can bring
fruits to this little temple! To be on the safe side, bring the goods with y
ou when y ou
make your wish.
Waterloo St., about 1
1
/
2
blocks from Bras Basah Rd . Free admission. Open t o the public during the da y.
15-min. walk from Bugis MRT.
National Museum of Singapor e
The once-little histor y museum, the
former Singapore History Museum, has r ecently undergone a massiv e renovation. This
beautiful 120-year-old building has not only been r estored, but has been expanded to
more than twice its original siz e by adding a striking modernist wing to the r ear of the
building. Cleverly, the new wing is invisible from the front. An ingenious glass-ceilinged
walkway connects the old and ne w wings and provides a perfect point to view the mag-
nificent Victorian dome with its stained-glass panels and zinc fishtail tiles. The large
History Gallery, based in the ne w wing, tells the stor y of Singapore from two points of
view: from a historian's perspective and fr om the “man on the str eet,” accompanied b y
state-of-the-art multimedia exhibits designed to bring histor y to life and make it acces-
sible for all visitors. You decide which stor y you'd like to hear , then choose the corr e-
sponding audio headset that will guide y ou thr ough the exhibit. The four Living
Galleries are on the second floor of the old wing and show objects and elements of every-
day Singaporean life: food, fashion, film, and photography . The museum conducts fr ee
guided tours in English Monday through Friday at 11am and 2pm, and on Saturday and
Sunday at 11:30am and 3:30pm; the tour takes 1 to 1
1
/
2
hours. The building itself is a
mix of colonial and contemporary architecture; a free tour that focuses just on the archi-
tecture is offered Friday through Sunday at 3:30pm.
93 Stamford Rd.
&
65/6332-3659.
www.nationalmuseum.sg. Adults S$10 (US$6.70/£4.50), children and
seniors S$5 (US$3.35/£2.25); fr ee admission t o the Living G alleries daily 6-8pm. H istory Gallery daily
10am-6pm; Living Galleries daily 10am-8pm. 5-min. walk from Dhoby Ghaut or City Hall MRT.
Old Parliament House
The Old Parliament House is pr obably Singapore's oldest
surviving structure, even though it has been r enovated so many times it no longer looks
the way it was originally constructed. It was designed as a home for John Argyle Maxwell,
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