A Trip To Riyadh's Cultural Sweet Spot (Part II)

I spent countless nights thinking of ways to write an entry about a museum which will not bore the heck out of you. After kong tumambling sa kakaisip (tingnan n'yo naman, anong petsa na bago pa namin nai-post ni Eyecandy ito), I resigned to the fact that come to think of it, there’s nothing exciting in a museum, unless you yourself will make it interesting!

Having put off this post for sooo long, I decided to just admit that this entry will probably bore you, as if you need another reason to be bored in the Kingdom. But wait (there's more)! Even if you think this is boring, I'll make sure you'll never regret taking this museum walk through with the crazy Pink Tarha Girls. This won't suck as much, I promise.

I'll give you a brief walk through by presenting the WHAT YOU SHOULDN'T MISS IN THE MUSEUM in photos and a little daldal on the side. I'm not gonna enumerate the 8 exhibition halls because you can read them here. I am straying away from hardcore facts and info so you can read them in the museum when you visit.

Now, let's go. Walk slowly, this will be loooong.

It's not your ordinary rock though it looks like it. This 2.75-ton meteorite found in the Empty Quarter (Rub' Al Khali) welcomes you at the entrance of the Riyadh National Museum. If only it could alien talk and greet with "Welcome, earthlings!" (Oh right, this is a museum, not a planetarium!)

Dizzy much? This globe is an optical illusion. Not the kind that will disappear but the kind that you're not seeing what you're actually seeing. Gulo ko eh noh? I mean this huge sphere that you're seeing is not actually a sphere. It's a series of monitors and mirrors that creates the illusion. It talks about the universe. (Eyecandy's brother on photo. Guest artist! :P)

The Pink Tarha Girls are not the only roses you'll find here in the desert. Meron din talagang tinatawag na desert rose. It's not a flower but layers of minerals that crystallized to form this beautiful pinkish formation. There are also many kinds of rocks and minerals on display (don't forget to read labels from right to left okay?).

Dinosaur, mammoth, or elephant? Eyecandy, why did we not take notes?! This skeleton is huge but people can actually go climb the rock and pose underneath this thing. We can even touch it and debone it.

Before we go further, if you see these telephones, wag n'yong akalaing pwede kayong mag-long distance call dyan. Hindi po iyan call cabin. These telephones are audio presentations of the exhibit where it's located. You can listen to what each display is all about.

Where is my match?! These handprints are etched in stone. The fingers of Saudi Arabia's ancestors are waaay longer than mine. (Eyecandy on photo.)

The Arabian civilization's writing system started with cuneiform and hieroglyphics (thanks to Mesopotamia and Egypt) too. Can you imagine if we still write with picks and rock tablets today? Writing this entry will not only take me weeks, it'll take me years!

Slides of early nomadic tribes will lit up on a screen showing the tribe's early settlement. From here, we got a picture of how the Arabs took hold of the peninsula.

Can you guess what this rock wheel did in the early times? At first we thought it was a water pump yah think?!, then an actual wheel that holds chariots stone age hello?!, and then we read the label brilliant idea! which says it's actually used by farmers as a rice grain crusher. It's used to separate the grain from the skin. A camel pushes the wooden handle and does a merry-go-round. The wheel then crushes the grains placed underneath. Kawawang camel.

There's a surprise waiting for you in one of the tunnel-like structure just before you go up the second floor. Syempre kung sasabihin ko, hindi na surprise yun. :P

The family tree of Muhammad (PBUH) welcomes you to the Islam Centre of the museum. The founder of Islam was born in 570 CE in Mecca belonging to the Banu Hashim tribe.

We traced the life of Muhammad (PBUH) and the conception and spread of Islam through a series of lighted multi-colored glass panels. You can read the text or listen to the audio reading the text for you.

What's amazing with this holy quran is that it's vintage... and hand-written! Imagine the scribes of days painstakingly writing in papyrus with feathers dipped in ink made with plant sap and... okay, enough imagining. It's written in course, aged paper with a calligraphy pen. The colored pages are vibrant. Some qurans on display are gold-plated. Huwaw! (Come to think of it, we didn't really paid attention if there were sensors on the displays but we're guessing there weren't any. Not that we're encouraging you to steal anything!)

If I can take this impressive, well-crafted brass door home in Pinas, I will. Several probems though: 1. the door is too heavy to take home, mamumulubi ako sa shipping, 2. wala akong mansyon, hindi bagay sa bahay namin and 3. how do you knock on this thing without getting your knuckle sore?!

If there's one major reason to go to the museum, this is it... a THEATER! Wheee, moviehouse! Okay, wag masyadong ma-excite! Even if it looks and feels like Greenbelt's cinema, it shows only one movie and it's about the unification of Saudi Arabia under King Saud. Boring? Surprisingly not. You'll be happy to know that there's real acting here. Makes us wonder where and when it was filmed... and how?! Kulang na lang popcorn!

Let's take a break! When Eyecandy saw her brother and I resting and posing under this tree, she thought this is a significant tree of life. Actually, apart from being a part of the bedouin tent display, this tree just served as a respite from the long walk we'd had from the entrance of the museum. Nakakaloko pala ang museum na ito. At first glance it looks small (yakang yaka!) because we only get to see little sections on each bend. By the time we reached this tree on the second floor, my feet were already killing me! (So wear comfortable shoes!).

You'll be surprised to see these Arabic houses. They're only the facade but just looking at how high these houses are, parang wala kami sa Saudi Arabia. Intricate details, wooden windows and door, vintage feel... they remind me so much of the houses in Calle Crisologo.

Saudi Arabia owes its wealth to the discovery of oil in their desert. This oil rig stands prominently in one corner along with this fiery red Power Wagon used in the oil mines.

Break muna ulit! This staircase leading to the first floor reminds me and Eyecandy so much of the MRT station. Wala lang.

How cool are these dramatic translucent panels? Super. These grayscale photographs of Arab ancestors hang above a miniature model of Saudi Arabia's geographic landscape.

For Christians, we do not get to see what's inside Mecca and Madinah because we're prohibited to enter Islam's holiest cities. The museum provides us glimpses through scale models of the holy mosques. They also have the Ka'aba door curtain prominently displayed.

Murals, which can be found all over the place, look so real! Perfect for kodakan moments. Wala kaming pinalampas na mural. Mapa-disyerto, kabayo, rocky mountains... lahat yan kinarir naming picturan. Performance level ang poses!

Props depicting houses, pillars, temples, caves, and streets look so real too. I was ready to enter gates, doors, and arches but I will eventually bump into walls. Hihi. I can feel myself walking in Di'riyah's old village streets, passing through the clay arches, living in a bedouin's tent on a desert oasis, farming dates... ah, the desert life!

There's an art gallery, just before the souvenir shop, waiting to awe you.

Some of our fave paintings.

How I wish I can prolong this walk through. But alas, kalas!

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the museum. We took a lot of pictures alright but more than the photos, we took in a lot of knowledge about Saudi Arabia's colorful history. From the point of view of outsiders like us, our initial thoughts on the Kingdom's history and culture is bleak - as dreary and cold as the desert. Who'd have thought theirs is an intricate, interesting tapestry of historic and cultural wealth that shaped their nation into what it is today?

As Filipinos, we are proud of our history , culture, and values. I'm sure the Saudis are too. It's probably true that Saudi's ideals and beliefs did not change as much but we should all remember that maybe history is like that... "from age to age, nothing changes but everything is completely different."

Did I bore you? Okay, unread! :P

PS. Thank you Eyecandy for the photos. Thanks for making me your mowdel for the day (ay ako yata ang nagpumilit?! Hehe.)