National Museum, Manila

As I have mentioned in my previous post, Tim took me to six places to celebrate my 26th birthday and on my actual birthday, he brought me to probably my most favorite place in the Metro. Location number 4 is the National Museum of Natural History. I was ecstatic! The 10-year-old nerd in me almost collapsed in excitement. So hang on tight, this post is not only going to be photo-spammed but also quite lengthy!

We started the day pretty early, as we live about nearly an hour away but it didn't stop me from dressing up and putting on make-up so I could have pretty birthday photos which you might have already seen if you're following me on social media. LOL If you're not, then here are said photos haha!

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Forgive the vanity, it was my birthday anyway but kudos to Tim for doing his best to take good photos of me. It's a slow progress but he's doing better. haha!

Before I move on to writing about my day, here are some things that you might find useful when visiting the National Museum of Natural History and Anthropology: First, it opens at 10am until 4:30pm, but they stop letting people in at around 4pm. Second, They're closed on Mondays, too if you're planning to go there on a weekday but I guess the most important part is that (if you don't know it already) entrance is free of charge. (wink)

Moving on, we went there on a Tuesday shortly after it opened; we weren't expecting too many people in the National Museum of Natural History and although the crowd wasn't overwhelming in number, there were a lot more people than we expected. But the people didn't stop Tim and I from dropping culturally, historically, and most probably morally incorrect jokes. Don't worry though, we didn't say them out loud and no, I won't be specifying some of the funniest things we've said during our visit to save us from scrutiny, criticism, and possibly even banning from returning to the museum.

One of the countless reasons I love Tim is that we share the same humor most of the time, although, most of the things we both find funny are often inappropriate. Don't judge us, I swear we're pretty decent people if you meet us in person and I'm pretty sure everybody has a dark side, and perhaps ours is inappropriate humor. LOL

Going back, we marveled around each exhibit, amazed by the intricacy of the taxidermy, and the well-preserved models of certain artifacts and fossils. I find their dinosaur skull and bone replicas and the dioramas as well as their underwater exhibit amusing as well. Especially the dino skulls! HAHA!

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I was enthralled more than him probably as I am a sucker for places like that since I was a child. I might have gone overboard in explaining stuff to him out of excitement but he didn't seem to mind.

However, I realized that I wasn't the only one who was as interested, it just takes the right kind of exhibit to bring out the nerd in Tim. He was more knowledgeable when it comes to certain types of reptiles which made us search for the bones of the prized crocodile called Lolong which as you may or may not know was the largest crocodile in captivity at slightly over 20 feet long and 2,300 something pounds.

We would have looked around some more if the upper floors of the museum were not under renovation and if it wasn't lunchtime already. So we decided to go to location number 6 earlier and make it location number 5 instead. Haha! So location number 5 is now the Shawarma Snack Center in Ermita. I will be writing a separate post about that, so stay tuned!
So let's skip ahead to location number 6 which was still the National Museum but of Anthropology. LOL We would have considered both museums as one location but since the National Museum of Anthropology is quite a walk under the scorching afternoon sun on the opposite end of the Natural History museum, we considered it as a separate location instead.

Entering the museum of Anthropology brought back so many childhood memories of mine. My dad used to spontaneously take me and my brother there after a game of golf in Intramuros to walk off our heavy lunch and that's what Tim and I did on my birthday, too... we walked off our heavy lunch around the fascinating exhibits.

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We didn't take so many pictures inside, but we did find some funny stuff worth sharing (see pic on the right). There were a lot of funny stuff at the San Diego shipwreck exhibit and the picture on the right was just one of the probably dozens of similarly tagged "items". I would have taken a video of it all but taking videos inside the museums weren't lunchtime allowed, a piece of information that you might want to remember if you're planning of visiting the museums.

It was such a lovely day. I wish I could also express in words how happy I was on my birthday... I haven't felt such innocent joy (despite the inappropriate jokes) in years. Just when I thought that my birthday was just going to be just another day that would pass me by, my husband turned it into something I would always remember for the years to come.

Kayo? Anong gusto ninyong gawin sa susunod na birthday ninyo? Comment niyo sa baba hihi ^_^