Natural History Museum

We've been on the hunt for things to occupy our weekends until we leave for Christmas, and last week Chelsie discovered that the natural history museum was pretty close to our apartment! That's one nice thing about living in the country's capital - there's always lots to do! We took the subway to the designated stop, but really weren't sure which way to go from there. We had the name of the streets and tried to ask a security officer on the street, but he had no idea what we were saying. Then this random guy came up and asked us (in English) if we needed help. We told him where we wanted to go and he told us to follow him. We pretty much had no other choice and he seemed pretty nice so we followed him and his friend to a bus stop, they got on with us, and then told us where to get off. He pointed us in the direction of the museum and sure enough, we found it! How awesome is that?! Sometimes I forget how nice Chinese people really are. As if I needed another reminder, when we got to the museum a lady was coming out of the museum with her husband and kid and just walked up and gave me her ticket! How often does that happen? Not very, I'd say. So Chelsie and I just split the cost of one ticket and headed in for our adventure! Our first encounter was a camouflaged dino hiding just outside the entrance....

We walked in and headed right in to (what we thought) was the dinosaur exhibit. We found a fun game that compared your weight to that of several different prehistoric animals....

Chelsie kept wanting to touch the fossils.....apparently the museum had encountered tourists like her before, because they had these signs all over the place (hahahahahaha):

We learned all about the evolution of several animals, as well as which specific dinosaurs were in China!

I've never seen a baby dinosaur fossil before! 

AND THEN.........we stumbled across THE DINOSAUR PARK!!!!!!!

How do you not notice when your kid leaves the museum without their shoes?

How T-Rex sees it

Something that I really appreciated about this museum was how they were committed to being realistic about their depictions of the animals. There were no lions laying with lambs here, no T-Rex's kickin' it with the little dinky dinos. Nope. Reality abounded......

My personal favorite. This guy had his stuffing guts coming out and everything.

Just like life on the African Savannah.

Baboons stealing ostrich eggs? Sure.

I think I've also mentioned before how there is always a little arcade or some area to entertain the children.....? Yep, this museum was no exception. I thought the point of going to a museum was to get the kids AWAY from video games and this kind of nonsense?

One of the things that Chelsie was most excited about in this museum was the human body exhibit. We were expecting to see cool partially dissected bodies and....whatever else. We had a whole different experience. Walking down the stairs, I thought I was seeing things and had to blink and make sure that yes, in fact, the path is marked by little sperms. Not a joke. I found myself wanting to sing a rendition of "follow the yellow brick road".....

There were many graphic and astonishing displays down here.....from preserved body parts to a partially dissected toddler. A lot of the things seemed like they should have been in a "Body Worlds" exhibit. I had the special opportunity to experience what it is supposed to be like in a womb....

I learned some nifty things about the human body, and was feeling fairly well-educated as I was leaving the exhibit. Then the spermies led me to this final picture:

Yes. That is what you think it is.

Well, that ends our adventure of the natural history museum. We were feeling hungry so we headed to McDonald's for lunch. It was so delicious and American-ly greasy. I can't wait to eat real American food again.
LESS THAN 3 WEEKS UNTIL I GET HOME!