A Day at Mind Museum

              I’ve been staying on my aunt’s house In Taguig ever since I was a first year student, and I was aware of places like Market! Market! And St. Lukes Medical Center in Global City, but recently, I visited another place which makes The Fort stand out from other innovation places in our country – The Mind Museum.

                 I went with my blockmates to enter for the morning shift from nine in the morning to twelve noon. When you see the museum from outside, it doesn’t look like a museum at all. Normally, museums have Greek columns and huge statues outside. Yet it means that this museum is in modern style, manifesting technology and innovation. The doors in the entrance are running through sensors.

Outside the museum

                        The tour starts in the lobby where a robot named Aedi greets all of the visitors, introduce the tour guides and the facilities inside the museum. All of the tour guides ride in a rover scooter. There are five galleries in the museum – the Atom, Earth, Universe, Life and Technology.

Aedi, the welcoming robot

a tour guide riding a rover scooter

                We first visited the Earth gallery and the first thing to feast our eyes is the skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus-Rex. A spherical screen displays the surface of the Earth according to the timeline that you want and a part where you can experience fossil digging. The process of fossilization and different fossilized beings, like trilobites and leeches in rocks and insects in amber are also featured. A 3D short clip about the natural history of Earth is also for showing for all visitors.

       The T-REX skeleton

   

The spherical screen of Earth's timeline

I am fossil digging, :))

Examples of fossils

The 3D documentary

                The next gallery we visited is the Life gallery. First to catch our attention is the life-sized model of a whale shark or what we call as “butanding”. Another thing to mention is the different models of the human sense organs, parts of a cell, the DNA structure, a magnification of different insects and materials, and models of pre-historic man. It also features the human brain – its parts, its functions, and how it works.

The life-sized "butanding"

pre-historic man models

The human brain

parts of a cell

insects, a closer look

                 Next is the Astronomy gallery. It displays things found and used in space like the complete astronaut suite, the space radio, a remote controlled lunar roving vehicle – the moon buggy,   and different documentaries about how the concepts about gravity were discovered. The ceiling of it portrayed the vast universe made up of millions of stars.  Different planetary models are also featured. A planetarium is also open to its visitors.

The ceiling of the Astronomy gallery

an astronaut's suit

                The Atom gallery is our next destination. Here we found different things related to Chemistry and Physics. There were big models of cyclohexanes and test tubes. A dome is decorated with different molecular structures of different compounds like Paracetamol, Acetone, Ethyl Alcohol, Glucose and Caffeine. A globe can transfer static electricity to the person who will hold it and will make that person’s hair stand out. Some models depict the concepts of sound waves and kinetic energy.

Chemical structures for paracetamol and acetone

The static electricity sphere

                Last gallery, which is situated on the second floor of the museum, is the Technology gallery. This gallery features the applications of science and technology to the improvement and development in human life. Models of different vehicles from carts, junks and galleons from modern versions of cars and cruise are displayed.

                The tour continued to the Science-in-the-Park, a park outside the museum where you can still enjoy the concepts of science. Sound domes, bubble tubes, and visual views of different animals like shark, eagle and cobra are some features in the park that I most enjoyed. The slides and seesaws brought us back to our childhood and made us enjoy the park even more.

You can see how these animals see its surroundings. :)

Seesaw & slides. :) 

                This is the best museum that I had visited, so far. Compared to other museums, this place portrayed the modern technology the best. Hopefully, more museums like this will rise so that it can be open to anyone so that all can experience how exciting science and technology can be.

My Histo I Fieldtrip Around Batangas

Last September 8, 2012, our History I class together with the other classes of the same subject, went to different cities and towns of Batangas to discover different sites related to Philippine History.

First stop was the Malvar Shrine in Sto. Tomas. This was the shrine made for General Miguel Malvar, one of the elite generals during the American period. A monument of him stood in front of the Sto. Tomas municipal hall and a museum about him stood one block away from the monument. The museum is filled with different paintings, busts, documents, newspaper articles, artifacts like guns and coins, books, clothes, etc.

Some memorabilia in the museum

            Next is the Mabini Shrine in Tanauan. Here lies the remnant of our great hero, Apolinario Mabini. His museum displays some of his paintings, the Katipunan flags and also memorabilia like his glasses, parts of his clothes, his chair, his handkerchief, and even his first coffin. The museum also features his awards as an outstanding Batangueno.

Some memorabilia in Mabini Shrine

            The Cathedral of Lipa was the next site we visited. The church featured many small and life-sized images of different saints. According to its history, it was reconstructed after the eruption of Mount Taal in 1754.

Inside and outside of the Lipa Cathedral

            Next, we visited different places around Taal, Batangas. First is the San Lorenzo Ruiz Chapel followed by Barrio Caysasay, where a miraculous fountain lies. We also visited a factory of “panutsa”, a dessert made of sweetened peanuts.

San Lorenzo Ruiz Chapel

Barrio Caysasay's Miraculous Spring

Panutsa

            The place that overwhelmed me the most is the Taal Basilica. Outside, it looks enormous and old, yet it is a breath-taking scenery. The view of inside was more breath-taking as I expected it to be. Maybe it’s because I have never experienced to enter such a huge church. Its ceiling is really high and is painted with various patterns. Its altar is white with silver decorations. Its patron saint is Saint Martin of Tours. According to our tour guide, he helped Jesus who disguised himself as a beggar by lending him his cape. The church is also famous for its "pulpito" where the priest stood when he is giving his homily for the people, in such a wide basilica, to hear him.

                                               

Taal Basilica

            Next place is Leon Apacible’s house. He was a lawyer and was appointed by General Emilio Aguinaldo as the finance officer of Batangas, and then as a delegate to the Malolos Congress. The house featured some of Spanish-timed materials like tablewares, fans, clothes, hairpins, etc. Some blade makers demonstrated how to make a balisong.

 

                        Leon Apacible's house

Last stop is Marcela Agoncillo’s home. Marcela Agoncillo is the wife of Teodoro Agoncillo and the maker of the Philippine flag. The house brought out how rich the Agoncillo family is. Some of the family member’s things are displayed in the house like their bags, outfits, and religious possessions. Embroidery is also shown inside the house.

The tour was great. Even though Batangas is my father’s hometown, I never thought that it will also be the birthplace of some of our famous heroes. Being one of the eight provinces who fought back to the Spaniards, Batangas proved that its citizens are brave to claim their independence over the colonizers. I learned many things, whether it is something that goes inside my mind, but also inside my heart.