The Asian Civilisations museum is touted as one of the best museums in Singapore so on a slightly rainy day, mid-school holidays, I took the kids along.
It isn’t especially expensive to get in and if you are Singaporean or a permanent resident, then you get in free. Also, many of the international schools buy membership so kids that attend those schools can also get in free. You can ask if your child’s school has membership at the ticket desk. It is easily accessed from Raffles Place MRT.
The museum looks much bigger from the outside than it is inside. There are several galleries, one of which contains artefacts from the Tang shipwreck. The kids were quite amazed by the concept of all of these items having been recovered from the bottom of the sea, and from so long ago (670-890). There were also some virtual reality goggles and information about an app which could be downloaded. This allowed the kids to explore the sight of the wreck and provided quite a lot of entertainment.
Sadly, my children were not so gripped by the rest of the remainder of the galleries, a lot of these contained statues and monuments relating to local religions. While these were interesting to look at and for me to read about, the kids weren’t quite so intrigued.
My junior travel freaks are currently 7 and 9, so maybe older kids would find this more interesting. I don’t feel that the museum is catered toward children of this age as, aside from the virtual reality goggles, there were no further interactive exhibits and a lot of reading. Whilst reading isn’t necessarily a bad thing, getting the kids to read everything throughout is a bit daunting and my kids are usually fairly avid readers. I therefore probably wouldn’t recommend a visit for kids of this age or younger.
It was also possible to get round the galleries in about an hour and a half so it really won’t take up much of your day if you do go. There are lots of places nearby for lunch though and a coffee shop on site (which looked like it had some nice cake)!
1 Empress Pl, Singapore, 179555. Website
