Da Vinci The Genius Exhibition

I managed to squeeze in some time to visit the Da Vinci The Genius exhibition in KL recently. (had to sacrifice some window-shopping time)

It was in held Pusat Sains Negara in Mont Kiara; which I found is quite an unaccessible place if you don't have your own transport. The buses run only on weekdays; what a pity.

Asked the hostel caretaker and he suggested that the best way to get there is to take the monorail to Hang Tuah, switch to LRT and go to PWTC, then take a taxi from PWTC to Mont Kiara.

So I did exactly that. Reached the Centre quite early and there were not that many people yet. Some families and a group of uniformed students were at the main foyer.

The place is actually a very good learning experience for children with its many interactive displays, games and stage programmes.

Overall, I thought it was a very good exhibition - the models of Da Vinci's creations and inventions and great paintings were reproduced very well. I was particularly impressed with the codices - they looked like the real thing I had to ask.

As with such exhibitions, no cameras were allowed, but naughty me managed to sneak a picture or two inside the 8-sided mirrored room. You can see your whole body from every angle! Wah, if you have this in your house you can spend a lot of time examining yourself, haha!

Blurry this.

Had to rush snapping the pics as there was a staff outside. There was a whole load of information on Mona Lisa and her 'secrets'. Amazing research using really hi-tech photography methods by a French scientist-photographer; he invented a camera that has something like 240 million pixels.

There were also replicas of the Vitruvian man, anatomical sketches (amazing), military inventions (a tank!), and other famous artworks, including The Last Supper and Madonna Of The Rocks. A BBC documentary was also played in a dark room.

Overall, the time spent there was worth the monorail+LRT+taxi journey, although I thought the whole presentation and set-up could be better, maybe it's just the venue that lacks some 'elegance'. After an hour plus there I had a quick nasi lemak breakfast at the cafe, and got the security to call a taxi for me. Got to Sentral monorail station and was back at Bukit Bintang in good time to continue window-shopping :)