Around 12 years ago, I got my first Harry Potter book - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It had an interesting cover and my mom recommended it to me. Being not a huge fan of the fantasy genre, it wasn't until 2 years later, after I was smitten by the first film, that I finally finished reading it. And since then, my Potter fever has never stopped. I remember anxiously awaiting every sequel of the book to be published or the next film to be out and I'd always be the avid fan who has little 'fangirl' moments (which i'm totally proud of, by the way) over anything Potter-related. Books, merchandise, posters, movies, games et cetera. I'd go gaga over 'em. Anything.
I was extremely sad when the last film premiered, knowing deep down that there will never be a Potter film coming next. Just when I thought there wasn't anything to anticipate anymore, I got to know about the Harry Potter Exhibition that was going on at the ArtScience Museum @ Singapore, right after the Titanic one (which you'd probably read about it in my blog here) and it would be so disappointing if I missed out on this. It'll be the feeling similar like not going for the Lion King musical all over again. Just bad.
Anyway, two of my cousins came down from KL two weeks ago (yup, that's how delayed my blogging has been) and after taking them to the fly Johor Premium Outlet (JPO) and finished our Fossil + Cotton On shopping spree. Yup, I just had to mention Fossil and Cotton On cuz they are awesome! The next morning, we were off on a one-day-roadtrip across the causeway, on our own, depending on humble public transportation to bring us around.
So anyway, we got to the ArtScience Museum at a bit pass 11.30am and bought 11.00am entry tickets as the entries were hourly they are for timed entry only. After scanning our ticket to enter the gallery halls, we were greeted with a familiar hello by the real flying car from HP and the Chamber of Secrets! Of course, we couldn't resist not to take photos of everything outside the gallery, since photo-taking is prohibited inside the gallery itself.
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| Pardon my constipated expression, thank you very much. |
Attention to those who hasn't been to the exhibition and doesn't want to know what to expect, please skip all the words below and scroll down, thanks. If you want some spoilers and is eager to know what I saw, you are in for a treat. Just continue reading!
Hello then, fellow awesome Potter fan. Good to know that you're still reading this :) You just made my day, involuntarily! Haha Anyway, so as we adjourned to the gallery hall which was pitch dark. A short introductory video containing footage from every Potter film was played through 6 vertically rectangular screens which looked a lot like those quaint tinted windows of Hogwarts. After the video which left me a little teary-eyed (don't worry, I'm not crazy, just very sentimental), the wall which happened to actually be a black curtain unfurled and we were officially entranced into this magical world of Harry Potter. There stood the infamous train to Hogwarts on platform 9-3/4, it was really the front cabin of the train! "All aboard!" cooed this cloak-wearing Asian whom I didn't think replicates Hagrid at all. But, maybe she wasn't supposed to be him. Oh well.
We came to a room where the sorting hat was and there was this 'witch' who asked for volunteers to be sorted into their respective 'houses'. Two Australian kids were picked and they got sorted into their houses by the sorting hat. It was really cool as the voice of the sorting hat was depicted through the audio sound system which was pretty interactive, I thought. If only I was picked :(
As we came into the chandelier-lit Gryffindor Common Room via the Singing Fat Lady, there were moving pictures on frames, just like the ones in Hogwarts. It can be a little freaky but if you are a Potter fan, you'd be charmed (pun totally intended! haha). The artifacts displayed were sectioned by the characters. There were Hermione's costumes, her robe, her beaded bag which was on an expendable charm in HP and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, and the one thing which I took a closer look at was her time-turner. Made of bronze-y material and the detailing was superbly fine. And then there the exact parchment where Dumbledore's Army wrote their names on. I'd like to think the actors really wrote their names down in real ink because the handwriting were different and I found great joy in scrutinizing at each name written, reading their handwriting.
Around Harry's bed which had detailed carvings on the side were some of Harry's possessions like his irritably round glasses, his wand of a phoenix feather core, his acceptance letter to Hogwarts which I carefully read each and every word printed, the golden egg he won from the second task in the Triwizard's Tournament (HP4) and his Marauder's Map, given to him by George and Fred Weasley. The map was extremely detailed and exquisitely-made.
As for Ron Weasley, there were his costumes, his taped-up broken wand, The Howler and some of his books, with pages printed as if it really was a real book. The funny thing was Gilderoy Lockhart's section where some of his test papers were displayed. Let me tell you some of the details that were on that piece of parchment that got me smiling at it.
"What product do you use for your sparkling teeth? Fairy Sparkle."
"What would be an ideal gift on your birthday? A flower on the 2nd of December"
"What is your greatest achievements? There're many but greatest, definitely the ones with ghosts."
Rolling on the floor yet? I thought so.
Other artifacts include Lupin's Boggart, the freaky-looking Jack-in-the-box from HP3 which I thought was exceptionally-made, the 'I must not tell lies' parchment Dolores Umbridge forced Harry to write in detention from HP5, Snape's Potion book with all the hand-written additional notes/scribbles at each page which I thought was amazing cuz I could literally read what he scribbled, Prof. Trelawney's teacup where she saw the Grim in Potter's, life-sized Centaurs, dementors, a giant Acromantula spider, Buckbeak, the resurrection stone, a petrified Colin Creevey wax figure, Quidditch-related items and more costumes which were all finely-detailed. The attention to detail, I tell you, is amazing! All the effort these prop/costume designers put into their work give me such admiration towards them.
The props in Hagrid's Hut were all larger than life. It was eye-boggling to see everything so gigantic. We even sat on his huge comfy sofa! Oh yes, there was also two other interactive sections, one being an area modeled after the Herbology greenhouse where you can pull out a Mandrake from its pot and experience the screeching these plants make when disturbed and the other is an area with three Quidditch hoops where you can try your hand at a game of Quidditch by tossing quaffles through the hoops and earn your house a point!
Wanna hear a funny incident that happened? You know how I like to have a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other during exhibitions where I'd jot every detail down? Well, to toss the Quaffle, I needed both hands to be empty, so I decided to rest my notebook and pen at the sidebar of the Quidditch area. So, as we all decided to move on after quite a lot of rounds, I noticed a couple looking at my notebook, as if it was one of the artifacts! Hahahahaha I was like: "Erm, sorry. This is not an artifact, it's mine!" I couldn't stop laughing after that.
The sets were fascinating. We were going through chronologically from platform 9-3/4 to the Common Room, Hagrid's Hut, the Forbidden Forest, Hogsmeade and finally, the Great Hall, with floating candles up at the ceiling. It was all very grand and golden. At the end of the exhibition, we came to Flourish and Blotts, a muggle-known gift shop where almost everything that reads Potter were sold. Wands, posters, pens, notebooks, keychains, necklaces, T-shirts, robes, broomsticks, the Marauder's Map, more t-shirts! But everything is extremely costly! I initially wanted to get a Hufflepuff t-shirt as I was sorted into Hufflepuff on Pottermore but I thought it would've burned a HUGE hole in my pocket. So, I decided to share a pack of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and a Chocolate Frog with my cousins.
All in all, the exhibition took about an hour, depending how much of a fan you are and how much time you'd spend staring at them artifacts! Haha I felt the exhibition was really great, in a way that it gives Potter fans a chance to take a look at the fine detailing on each prop/costume up close and not virtually through our TV screens.
Harry Potter: The Exhibition runs everyday from 10am till the last admission time which is at 9pm, until the 30th of September 2012. So, make sure you don't miss the train!
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| Roaming around Marina Bay Sands after the exhibition |
Wanna know how the Bertie Botts jellybeans tasted?
Wanna know where we headed to after lunch?
Wait, what did we had for lunch? :O
Check back here for the next post of my Singapore blog series in a few days!
such torture.
much optimism
~ char
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