Published via Ecency

Last weekend, the weather was not ideal to spend outdoor so my partner and I decided to go for a visit to Te Papa - the New Zealand national museum. We have visited this place many times already but it is still our favourite place to go as there are new temporary exhibitions every year.

In my introduction post about the city I am living in at the moment, I mentioned one of the top must-do activities is visiting the national museum of New Zealand which is located in the city centre of Wellington, around 15 minutes walking from my flat.

When talking about the museum, you might think: Nah just another boring place. However, in my opinion, Te Papa is an excellent museum with an innovative approach and the way the materials are communicated to the audience is technologically impressive. I can clearly see how much effort they’ve put into creating, designing and organising the exhibitions to tell the stories of NZ.

For a migrant like me, visiting Te Papa is one of the best ways to learn history of New Zealand in one place. There’s so much to see, I can literally spend my whole day inside if I want. As we live close by, we decided to spend a couple of hours exploring the nature exhibition, Gallipoli and the web of time in the Toi Art exhibition.

### Te Taiao | Nature Exhibition

This great interactive exhibition is a place-to-be for nature lovers. For me, it is an incredible journey where I become an explorer and go through different times in the past to see New Zealand extinct giant native birds Moa, listen to native birdsongs and learn how New Zealand was formed.

^{I was so excited to learn that I am about the size of the smallest Moa.}

^{And here how my partner compares to a small Moa}

^{Moa models demonstrate how a giant moa was attached by an eagle and the trace of the attack on the real Moa bone}

^{Look at the claws of the eagle, that's why it could make serious injury to Moa}

^{2000 species of butterflies, so pretty}

^{My partner learning how NZ was formed}

^{And my heart melts when I looked at these cutties}

While I was there, children are running around and eager to play with interactive areas of the exhibition. It was a bit noisy sometimes but I am so glad they love to be inside and explore nature in a special way.

According to the map, there is a house that simulates an earthquake in this exhibition as well, however, I was not able to find it this time.

### Gallipoli: The scale of our war

From the entrance, this is the first exhibition you will see. This groundbreaking exhibition tells the story of the Gallipoli campaign through the eyes and words of eight New Zealanders in World War 1.

Every time I visit this gallery, I always admire the work that had been done by the Weta Workshop. The giant sculptures have been created with fantastic skills. All of them look so real, together with their music and their voices in each set, I just feel like I was there with them in the battle, witnessing what they had been suffering and sharing their sorrow. It is truly amazing, but it can be gut-wrenching as it tells in detail the hardships of war.

I have to say this is a true gem to Te Papa in collaboration with Weta Workshop (the special effects company behind the Lord of the Ring production). One of my local friends in Wellington told me that when this exhibition opened in 2015, she was not able to get in as everyday there was a long line of people waiting to get in.

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Toi Art

One of my favourite parts of this exhibition is The web of time, an installation by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, which creates the vision of a night sky studded with constellations of numbers. I was gutted to know that it have been removed. By the time, I got there last week, I only can see numbers lying on the table and are ready to pack. I regret that I didn't know about it earlier so I could spend my last chance feeling the web of time.

Luckily, I got some photos of this exhibition last time I visited so at least I can show you how it looks like

When I enter this web, I feel like walking through the universe with all different dimensions. It makes me want to slow down to see clearer and to enjoy the feeling of discovering something big, something that I don’t know about it before.

There are some cool exhibitions on the six floors as well. I was tired at that time as we had been inside the museum for more than 3 hours. So we just took some quick glances and then headed home.