Mechanics Alive!

We decided to watch another movie the other day, looked up the movie times in the newspaper that morning, and took the lift downstairs at the appropriate time. It turns out the movie time in the newspaper was wrong and the movie had already started. The helpful ticket seller told me that the movie times in the paper were never right anyway - I should check the web or call for the exact times. This seemed somewhat absurd - however, we took the extra time before the next showing to wander next door to the Thailand Creative & Design Centre.

Thailand has become quite the center for innovative design and this center was opened a few years ago - it consists of gallery space for exhibitions, an auditorium and a large design library. One of their current exhibits turned out to be wonderful for the kids - Mechanics Alive! It was an exhibition of automata - or mechanical sculptures and scenes, on loan from the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre in the U.K.

We spent a happy 90+ minutes playing around with the sculptures - the last part of the exhibition was an area where we could build our own automata, which the girls enjoyed immensely.

And then we walked 10 steps back to the movie theatre to watch "Hairspray" (in the regular theatre, not a super VIP version).