The Very Short Long Weekend part 2

In the morning the rain had stopped so we went and had a walk down by the river, the rain had cleared the air, it smelt so fresh and cool and everything looked clean and bright.

 We explored the small streams looking for fish and insects, found some tiny fish, water boatmen, some beetle thing whose name I don't remember and enormous coloured spiders plus lots of delicate, pretty flowers. I remember Maria Montessori writing that for toddlers, a nature walk may only take a few yards because they stop to explore all the wonders around them, it is good to remember that sometimes and just stop and examine a small area, it is often full of tiny wonders. 

 Once we had finished our mini exploration we headed up to the museum because it was actually a work/school day the place was empty which was great. They have a 15 minute show, which I was expecting to be the usual badly-put-together boring film that you often get in museums but Noooooo this was GREAT, and Ebi-kun agrees, just look at his face.....

 There was a animatronic scientist in the corner, who looked freakishly real, he was doing the narrative, when the screens opened there was a small dinosaur, an oviraptor, sitting on a nest, the dino's were animatronics and very realistic looking, I think there were 7 or 8 in all. The back screen changed from factual info to suitable backgrounds as the story progressed, here is ankylosaurus, Ebi-kuns favourite, to give you an idea of size, this was bigger than a large cow.

After seeing the whole of the first building we moved to the 2nd building which houses dino's from a dig in Mongolia, there were the usual dino bones and although it was well laid out it wasn't very interesting (in my opinion) if you can't read the explanations or are 5 years old. The most exciting thing in this part of the museum was the Mongolian outfits they had on display, how much do I want these boots?

 Between the two buildings they have made a replica of the dinosaur that they found, as it was found and the kids are allowed to climb on it. Here is Ebi-kun doing the "it has got me" shot.