Hong Kong Wanderings - Hong Kong Science Museum

This year Mr A came home telling me that his teacher had told them about all these places in Hong Kong that we had never been to before and pleaded to know: why not?  He started to list them off: Ocean Park, the Space Museum, the Science Museum... 

I recognised that the time had come when my son was of age to visit these locations and while they have been in our backyard here in Hong Kong, the desire to visit them had always remained low.  Mostly for ill-conceived reason too might I add.  For the longest time we felt that Ocean Park was all about roller coasters and therefore inappropriate for us with very young toddlers/babies and that the crowds would be atrocious and turn us off.  With regards to museums, I thought they would be boring for young toddlers and possibly even me.  I just felt they wouldn't cater for our family and the locations felt out of the way.  And yet, in Melbourne we have attended the children's exhibitions at the art gallery and visited the different museums and the kids have always loved it. They also love aquariums and zoos and while Hong Kong doesn't have either in the true sense, Ocean Park actually has animal encounters and play areas that suited our children much better than we expected.  Which basically means I have been wrong about a few things in Hong Kong and I will endeavour to correct myself one attraction at a time. 

So first off the rank is the Hong Kong Science Museum focusing on the new Children's Gallery. 

I had heard from previous parents that the Science Museum had a great interactive area for children but when I began researching the facilities, the Children's Gallery was closed for renovation with no clear date of completion.  When I finally heard about it reopening I was probably a few months late but I was really excited to visit.  Firstly there was a construction site area very similar to the one in Melbourne's Science Works Museum.  Designed to allow children to experience the imaginative play of a work site with foam bricks and machinery, this construction site play area also included adorable work vests and safety helmets too.  

There was also a new Miffy exhibition about ocean conservation.  The boys and I love Miffy and I certainly could not wait to see this new area. 

The day I decided to take the children to visit was a Monday morning when the Education Department had cancelled kindergarten because the Hong Kong Observatory had issued a typhoon 3 (T3) signal.  During a T3 signal, all preschools and kindergartens are shut until the signal is lifted.  When it reaches a typhoon signal 8 (T8), nobody has to go to work but historically speaking a T8 is typically in force after working hours or on Sundays.  

When the Education Bureau announced kinder was closed that morning, the sun was still shining outside and it looked perplexingly peaceful.  So I wrestled with the idea of going out into a potential storm but just didn't want to waste the day off either.  When I asked the kids if we should go to the museum Mr A was so excited he got himself ready in record time.  And of course just as I called for a taxi it began to pour buckets outside.  

The Hong Kong Science Museum is at least a 10 minute walk from the TST or Hung Hom MTR stations so with the heavy rain this was the least appealing option.  Taking the MTR from home would also take me nearly an hour with up to three train line changes.  Like I had mentioned, the location had also always been off putting.  So taking a taxi was definitely easier when it was just me travelling with the kids.  After approximately half an hour of rather harrowing driving through wet roads and rain, which thankfully stopped as we drove, we arrived at the museum dry and without need for our umbrellas. 

Where the taxi dropped us off.  I thought this was the entrance.  It is not.  This is the side.  Don't try to enter through the side.

The Science Museum is in an old building located in TST and built right next door to the Museum of History.  There has been a slow process of gradual renovation on each of the floors to bring the displays and exhibitions up to date.  There is a permanent display area and occasionally a special exhibition.  Every Wednesday all the public museums have free entry and an annual museum pass (see more info here) is incredibly good value as it covers entry to all public museums in Hong Kong including any special exhibitions which usually cost more than the regular admission fare.

When we visited the Science Museum there was a special Mummy exhibition on display.  As I queued for the ticket counter I was quite impressed by the staff who helped fill in a form to determine your ticketing needs as I waited so that I simply had to show the cashier my form and pay.  Since I only required tickets for the permanent display areas which includes the Children's Gallery, my adult ticket was just HKD20 and the kids were free. 

The foyer of the Science Museum has a large area to park strollers because you cannot bring them inside so if you have a young infant make sure you have a carrier with you or you will be lugging baby everywhere. 

We headed straight for the escalators and the boys were really in awe of the original Cathay Pacific aircraft suspended from the ceiling.  We then continued to travel up to the top floor where the Children's Gallery is located.  We could see groups of primary school children on excursion leaving the exhibit so we knew it would be crowded.  When we arrived at the top we were greeted by the sounds of hoards of children running about and having a great time with all the interactive displays. 

Going up and up and up. 

On the left of the escalators was the Miffy and the Ocean exhibition and to the right was a gated area containing all the interactive displays.  The entrance was well guarded by staff who explained that we needed to queue up for the construction site at the back.  We headed straight there as the queue looked like it could be a long wait and we walked past an ominous sign marking a point where the expected wait time was one hour.  There were even more museum and security staff attending the entrance to the construction site and a height chart states children must be between 80-150cm to enter. 

Fortunately it was actually a reasonably short wait as we stood in line behind a group of school children.  While we waited it was actually entertaining to watch the group of kids currently role-playing inside the construction site: basically it was a scene of organised chaos but everyone was clearly having a blast.  Before long the security staff were handing out vests and construction helmets to the prepare the next set of children and my boys were included in the cohort.  The bell was rung inside the play area and everyone cleared the construction site so we could run in and get to work. 

Bob the Builder can we fix it?

With no time to lose, the kids get busy moving 'stuff'.

The layout of the construction site was centred around a large double storey house frame.  There were multiple sized foam bricks that could be used to fill in the frames of the house. Children could bring bricks into the house manually, move them around with wheelbarrows or lift them onto the top storey via a huge crane. There were people absolutely everywhere because parents were also inside supervising plus there were more museum and security staff inside the construction site too.  The first floor of the house was only for children and Mr R bolted straight up to the top while Mr A tried to work the crane. 

The costumes were actually enforced for (possibly?) safety issues and I know this how?  Because Mr R was struggling to keep his helmet on.  Either it slipped off because it was too big or the chin strap kept choking him.  But when the staff saw he had removed it and he was gallivanting about the top storey, they promptly escorted him down the stairs and out of the house!  Multiple staff came to explain to me but I didn't understand and I assume it was because of the helmet so when he put it back on he was allowed to play again!  Lesson learnt: please make sure your kids keep their helmet on (insert eye roll emoji, why my child!).

Some of the older children were very good at building the bricks into the frames of the house whereas Mr R would keep knocking them down.  I was relieved when he finally understood the concept and spent some time trying to construct and not destroy.  Mr A enjoyed working the crane the most and lifting large piles of bricks to the top storey of the house for other kids to unload.  Unfortunately the conveyer belt machine at the back of the construction site was out of service.  Given the area is so new it seemed a shame this was already broken. 

Trying to move the crane was really hard work.

The play session lasted about 15 minutes which went really quickly.  They cleared out everyone even more quickly and chased out stragglers like my kids (why me?) with great zeal too.  As I have mentioned there were a lot of staff available for this job but it kept the play moving and the area was well organised and controlled.

The boys were reluctant to leave but removed their costumes and hung them up on the pegs near the exit and ran off to play with the other interactive displays outside the construction site.  There were a number of different types of activities but my boys particularly enjoyed the car mechanic and engineering station.  There was a large wooden model car where kids could reattach wheels and repair parts of the engine as well as sit inside for a steer of the wheel or a ride in the back.  Along the wall was a work station for kids to find the parts to rebuild other car engines made from wooden parts.  It was a well designed activity with high quality materials however once again, it was such a shame as all the screws were missing so there was no way to attach any of the parts together as the instructions described.  The boys still had a good time pretending to be mechanics but it really took away from the experience when the parts could not be attached. 

It was hard to keep the car wheels on when there were no screws!

Other activities we tried were the large communication pipes that allowed the kids to talk to each other.  Always a hit but the OCD in me also feels that they are quite unhygienic given how close people speak into the mouth pieces.  There was also an optical illusion display to find hidden animal shapes which I thought were colourful and cleverly designed.  There was also an interactive station where a pair of hand-shaped sensors would literally sound your heart beat out loud through a huge base drum.  It was a great way to translate the concept to children and you could appreciate the difference between the heartbeat of adults versus children, especially after they had been running around the museum for a while!

Getting into position to appreciate the different animals on display. 

An important note here is the toilets are accessible outside the stairwell right at the back of the construction site area.  Because we had already exited the gated play area the staff made us go through the entrance again in order to access the toilets even though the toilets are closer to the exit.  I do appreciate the rules that keep this place well organised.  So another lesson learnt: the entrance is only the entrance and the exit is only the exit. 

Next we decided to visit the Miffy and the Ocean exhibit opposite the play area because honestly who can resist Miffy and the adorable illustrations of Dick Bruna!  The ocean conservation theme was particularly significant as Mr A has been learning about our planet at school and both my kids also love sea life. 

The exhibit covered topics such as the importance of our oceans to the oxygen cycle, the role of plankton in the food chain and of course conservation topics like the huge environmental burden of plastic waste and the need to save our turtles from pollution.  Each topic was presented with vivid Miffy illustrations, simple text and interactive displays.  The kids loved the magnifying lenses that let them see plankton and they enjoyed moving colourful magnetic fish around a wall displaying a huge coral reef.  There was also a very challenging computer game which required furious tapping to remove all the plastic litter to protect the sea turtles as they journeyed from beach to ocean. We took a while to realise if you accidentally tapped on a sea star or jellyfish you could lose points and achieve negative scores!  We persisted til we had finally done a "good job".  There was also a Miffy colouring area but unfortunately they had not restocked any colouring sheets which again was such a pity but giving away paper is probably not good for the environment anyway. 

Crying Miffy broke my heart! 

I learnt a lot from the exhibit and did not even read each display near the back as my children were well occupied with just a few of the displays near the front.  I did feel challenged to reduce the amount of plastic we as a family use and to make changes like avoiding plastic straws and buying bar soap instead of bottled body wash and hand wash. 

Our tip is do NOT tap the turtles accidentally or you will lose points!

The children were starting to get hungry by this time and so I decided we would leave for lunch.  On the way down the museum escalators we stopped off at the next floor quickly to see what was on display and though this area was quite dated, I could see it had lots of hands on displays relating to topics like transportation, food and digestion and many tables with interactive puzzles to try out.  We continued down to the ground floor and this area was buzzing with activity.  The display seemed to be about sustainable energy sources and looked very interactive and interesting.  But we had spent such a good amount of time upstairs already, we had to save it for another visit. 

This amazing plane stopped the boys in their tracks on our way back down.

I would love to investigate these interactive stations next time we visit. 

When we exited I was unsure where to go for lunch but thankfully there were so many shops surrounding the museum offering us plenty of choices.  We went across the road from where the taxi had dropped us off and had sushi for lunch.  We ate far too much as I always order as if there are four of us and not three!  When we finished up our over indulgent feast, we were able to easily catch a taxi outside the museum again and headed home. 

I may have forgotten there were only three of us eating and not four... 

The Hong Kong Science Museum was definitely better than I anticipated and it was easily accessible by taxi both there and back.  Furthermore there were plenty of food options nearby so I had no problems feeding my children.  What more could a mother want for a successful day out with the kids on her own!  I will definitely be back with The Hubs one day soon and highly recommend it to anyone with young children.