Lee Kong Chian Natural History Musem opened its doors to the public on Tuesday and I went to check it out without the kids in tow. The most important thing you need to know before making your way down is LKCNHM that you have to purchase your admission tickets through SISTIC (online or at SISTIC counters). They do not sell admission tickets at the venue.

So here are some things you can expect to see at LKCNHM. I didn’t really go into details about the displays because the whole point is to go to the museum and see them for yourself, right?

About 4 years back, we visited Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research that was located at the Science Faculty of NUS. That was a much tinier place compared to LKCNHM. The new museum is spacious and beautifully done up. The staggered admission timings also ensure that it doesn’t feel uncomfortably crowded. Many of the specimens from that museum can now be found at LKCNHM.

The ‘Towards Animals’ display is simply fascinating. Do you know what Venus’s Flower Basket and Lazarus Jewel Box are? What about a sea mouse? Do the Smiling Worm, Fireworm and Peanut Worm look like their names?

A tip for the ‘Towards Animals’ display: the details for the items on display are all on the left. Instead of moving back and forth to check the information whenever I saw something interesting, I took a photo of the information and magnified it on the display screen of my camera so that I could look at the display and the information at leisure.

For most, the highlight of a visit to LKCNHM would be the dinosaurs. The three dinosaurs arrived in Singapore (in 53 crates!) between 2012 and 2013, and took two weeks of 12-hour days to assemble. There were more than 1 000 elements to the 150-million- year-old skeletons, with some bones weighing more than 200kg. Apollonia, Prince and Twinky are truly impressive and I’m so proud that we are able to see real dinosaur fossils in Singapore.

One of my favourite sections is the one on the geology of Singapore. This can be found on level 2. I think most of us living in Singapore don’t even know what is under our own feet so it was quite an eye-opener to see the type of rocks that can be found in each part of Singapore and be able to touch some of these rocks.

Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum
(next to University Cultural Centre)
Faculty of Science, NUS
2 Conservatory Drive
Singapore 117377
Tel: 6 601 3333
Opening hours: Tue to Sun and Public Holidays – 10 am to 7 pm
Admission fees: Adults – $15; Child/ Student/ NSF/ Senior Citizen/ Disabled – $8 (Local resident rate)

Read more about Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum over at Life’s Tiny Miracles!