摄·界: Musical Instruments Museum (MIM)

2013年4月23日星期二

Musical Instruments Museum (MIM)

Musical Instruments Museum is the only museum we visited in Brussels when we were there. We spent a long time in the museum, longer than we expected, almost half a day there. And I thought, it was one of the coolest museum that I've ever been.

Building opposite the back of MIM

MIM

MIM

I took this picture in the middle of the road

MIM is easily accessible. To go to MIM, you can either take metro to Troon station. Or, you could chose to walk from Grand Palace. We chose to take metro to MIM, and walked our way back to Grand Palace.

The reason I said MIM is only of the coolest museum I've ever been, is the audio guide, the abundance of musical instruments that you've never ever heard of, and the value of the ticket.

Some certain musical instruments have had some recordings. There is an audio sign on the floor for these instruments and all the visitors have to do is just to stand in front of the instruments with a guide, the guide will play the music from that particular instruments automatically. Besides, the screen of the audio guide will show the picture of that instruments too, so that you can be sure you're listening to the correct one.

There are total 10 levels in the building, and total 4 levels with display of musical instruments. I've learned a lot of funny looking/weird/interesting instruments, i.e. Jew's harp which makes funny sound, glass harmonica which was invented by Benjamin Franklin, Bible regal which is an instrument that looks like a thick bible etc. I also learned that saxophone was invented in Brussels, by a guy called Adolphe Sax. Because there are just too many things that were not explained in the museum, I bought a book in MIM, titled "50 Unusual Instruments", featuring the most unusual and popular instruments in MIM collections.

The ticket was only 8Euro per person, with an audio guide for each. With the abundance of instruments shown, I would say this 8Euro is really worth it.

After hours spent in the levels looking at the instruments, we decided to have our lunch at the top level of MIM to enjoy the view of Brussels.

From our table

Other side of the restaurant

From the outdoor seating which nobody wants to sit as it's too cold

Interior of the restaurant, it's simply packed with tourists

The food in MIM was actually good. I ordered a MIM salad, while the Man ordered Fish of the Day. As our bags were kept in the locker, I could not change my wide angle lens with a normal kit or my 60mm, I didn't take any photo of the lunch.

After the lunch, we made our way to Brussels Central Station which was only walking distance from MIM to get our train tickets to Amsterdam. And we enjoyed the walk back to Grand Palace.