20 October 2008

The Parliament, Civic Center and Te Papa Museum in Wellington

On the day we visited the Botanic Gardens, we also went to a couple more places at Wellington. Yup, it was a busy day for us as we maximized on the weather's sunny disposition.

Our first stop is the Parliamentary Building, an impressive structure that features a neo-classical architecture. Right beside it is the Beehive, so named because of its shape. It is the executive wing of the parliamentary complex. As such the place is abuzz with news and views; a fitting name the Beehive is indeed.


After the botanic Gardens, we made our way to the Civic Center. The central library is located here. I've heard that the library houses an extensive collection of books and multimedia. I would like to see this for myself one of these days.
Finally, we made our way to the Te Papa Musesum which is right across the Civic Center. This is our second time to the Museum, actually. But the photos were accidentally deleted, so I was not able to post about our previous trip.

Entrance to the Te Papa is free. There are some areas where you need to pay, but the majority of the sections are open to the public. It's not just a place with dioramas, bones and artifacts. There's a lot of interactivity in the museum. Kids will definitely have a lot of fun there. In fact, we found it difficult to make Jo-Lo leave the museum.

Te Papa currently features Our Space, a multimedia section where visitors learn about New Zealand and its people in a visually engaging way. We visited The Map, where a satellite photo of New Zealand is on the floor. Stepping on particular sections will invoke video clips and photos about that place.
The Wall, on the other hand, is a digital graffiti wall of sorts. You can place photos, videos, words on it. Nearby are kiosks with video cameras where you can have your 2 minutes of fame, so to speak. Then this file is uploaded to the wall. Using remote control wands, you can move the images about, resize, write on the wall, even duplicate your images. Cool stuff.



9 comments:

  1. What's that floating orb-thingy on the 4th picture? Kiwi-built UFO?
    ^ ^;

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  2. Holy cow. Ano yun? Wala yun dati!

    Hehehe kidding. An aerial metal sculpture featuring a fern design predominant in works depicting New Zealand. It's suspended in strings. Amazing how the strings do not show up in the photo.

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  3. Anonymous10:05 pm

    Impressive looking buildings...I am surprised your son already enjoys museums...

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  4. Hi Nick,

    Wow, have not visited your site in ages. Adda ka ditta NZ gayam men! Anyway, wish you and your family the best. If you have not found a job yet in your field..check out Mauro's blog. I've been a reader of his for 4 years now. A wonderful family man in the IT business like you in Auckland.Maybe he know someone in Wellington. He's been helping out fellow kababayans thru his blog and cbox. I'm sure you'll pick an idea or two in his site. Try joining: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pinoyz2nz/

    Here's his blogspot:

    http://a-pinoy-in-nz.blogspot.com/

    Will try to email him. Nope, i don't know him personally but would love to meet him someday. Hope this helps. Warmest regards. Joe

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  5. Joƫlle: the museums here are fun and interactive! I wish I have the other photos... I will try to take some when we visit again.

    Joe: Thanks! We are also quite familiar with Ka Uro's blog. He's in Auckland though, and we're in Wellington. It's a good 9.5 hour trip by land. Anyways, I have been making my rounds online looking for work as well. :-)

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  6. Nick,

    thanks for the reply. i did email K U for the first time. he mentioned this Wellington Pinoy yahoogroup that you can join too. meantime, could you please email me that i can forward you KU's response.regards.

    P.S.
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WLGnzPINOYS/

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  7. Hello Joe. Thanks so much for the helping hand. You can e-mail me at watson.online@gmail.com. :-)

    I will subscribe to the yahoogroup you mentioned.

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  8. Kuya nicccccckk :-) Good to see na your family visited Te Papa .. teka .. where are you based ba? Wellington? Kaw ha .. magparamdam ka naman. :-) You know I am just around kahit Miles miles Away. -- clavs

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  9. Hi Clavs. Bilhan mo kami ng two-way tickets at magpaparamdam kami sa yo to the max. hehehe! Buti naman at napadalaw ka sa blog ko! Kelan ka start mag-blog?

    ReplyDelete

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