After our rather successful day out at Sunway Pyramid, I was inspired to take Gavin to see more things.  One of the subjects I have been trying to introduce Gavin to is Astronomy and the planets.  I bought this book and mobile and showed him the planets some time back.

Not surprisingly, he wasn’t that interested.  I figured if he went to a planetarium and saw some cooler models of the solar system, he would find the subject much more interesting.  I was thinking specifically of the room with the night sky and the stars which I remember hearing about.  I figured that was probably about as good a night sky as Gavin is likely to see living in densely populated city such as KL.

Indeed, Gavin did find the planetarium interesting…

At least, he found the external sculptures surrounding the planetarium to be a fun playground.  I wasn’t exactly sure how Stonehenge was relevant to Astronomy…

…so I looked it up:

“Stonehenge consists of large carved stones assembled about 4000 years ago. Long before modern England was established, ancient inhabitants somehow moved 25 ton rocks nearly 20 miles to complete it. From similar constructs of the era, people could learn the time of year by watching how the Sun and Moon rose and set relative to accurately placed stones and pits. The placement of the boulders at Stonehenge, however, is not impressively accurate by today’s standards, nor even by the standards of that time. Therefore, modern scholars interpret Stonehenge as a colossal monument to the Sun in celebration of the predictability of the seasons.”

Another interesting monument – the Guo Shou Jing Observatory.  It was used by Chinese Astronomers to acquire calendrical and astronomical information for the Chinese Emperor to help provide his mandate to rule.

“Look Mummy, grass…”  At least that’s what Gavin thought it was.

The long trek up to the planetarium.

Gavin had fun walking up the stairs.

One of the few pictures of the planets that we saw.  The shot is a view of the Earth as seen from the moon.

Inside a space rocket.

The toilet that they use.

A place for handling samples without contaminating them.

We were the only ones there so Gavin had a free run of the place.

The take-off bunkers.

A model of the rocket.

A model of the engine from Viking, the space probe.

It was unfortunately that we went at a time when the planetarium was under renovations because there wasn’t much to see.  According to the staff there, the renovations won’t be completed until June or July.  Most of the planetarium was devoted to displaying stuff about astronauts and rockets.  There wasn’t much about the solar system, which was a big disappointment.  I suppose that was the part they are currently working on.  Well, at least admission was free.

While we were driving around the area, I noticed that there is a lot more interesting sites to see around the planetarium – a bird park, orchid garden, hibiscus garden, butterfly park, and the museum.  We were a little rushed for time because I needed to get some groceries so we didn’t end up checking out any of these other places.  Instead, we headed over to KLCC where we had a quick browse through the art gallery before heading to the supermarket.

Gavin found the art gallery pretty interesting, too.  Perhaps a little too interesting because he kept wanting to touch the sculptures.  I told him he could look but he wasn’t allowed to touch.  His interpretation of that was that he couldn’t touch them with his hands, but nudging them with his feet was okay. Toddlers…

I couldn’t take any pictures inside the gallery because cameras weren’t allowed.

The Petronas Art Gallery is a pretty small gallery currently featuring works from local artists.  Admission is free.  KLCC also has a Science Discovery Center which I think I will take Gavin to visit next.  They are also currently featuring a Dinosaur exhibit.