Toy Museum

Visited the toy musuems in both Singapore and Penang. Here's what I saw in both (sorry no photos allowed in singapore toy musuem).

In Penang - it is located just outside the Copthorne Orchid Hotel.
Admission Adult:RM20 Child RM10.
Size of the place is about the size of a studio apartment.
At the entrance a huge Ninja turtle (i think! not too familiar with toys, sorry). Inside, loads and loads of display shelves, but most of them contained small figurines with the odd large one. 3 whole display cabinets all wholy dedicated to Barbie. Lots of collector Barbie sets. Whole shelfs dedicated to spiderman, ultraman, Lilo and stitch, sesame street, Incredibles, Barney, etc. Basically all the toys here are toys which our kids know...ie current generation toys.The toys are displayed in quite a messy manner, they try to squeeze ina s much as they can on each shelf. A lot of it is also from the McDonalds collection, ie those freebies that come with the Happy Meals., Chicky meals, etc.


Little D in front of the Lilo & Stich collection


Little D in front of the Barney collection



In Singapore - Located at 26 Seah Street, across from the Raffles Hotel. (For the bakers, it is just a couple of doors away from Sun Lik trading, which sells lots of baking stuff, for the foodies, it is just next door to Bossy Chicken rice - worth a taste, coz their chicken rice is not so oily, tho it is abit more expensive compared to your normal chicken rice shops).
Size- a five story building, with 4 floors dedicated to toys, ground floor is the entrance and "gift" shop. Cafe is in the basement.
Admission rates: S$20 per adult, S$10 per child. Family packages are available, and you get discount if you have an NTUC link card or the Toys-R-Us card.
You start by taking the lift to the 5th floor and work your way down. Each floor is like the size of a bedroom. Toys come from more than 25 countries collected over 100 years.

Here all the toys are properly displayed (just like a musuem) and labelled. You will find wind-up toys, battery opoerated toys, etc. All are in mint collection and with their original boxes displayed alongside. there are whole shelves dedicted to toys covering the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, a big collection on the Beatles, Betty Boop, Rin tin tin, Davy crocket,robots, batman, teddy bears, 1st generation Mickey mouse and barbies(our kids may not even recognise it!!), etc. There are old wind-up toys of ice cream men selling their ice-cream from carts,men on trapeze, etc. On the 3rd floor, there is a huge "hop scotch" on the carpet which my kids enjoyed. Most of the toys would be from our parents generation (ie collection from before 1970s). Mostly toys way before our kids time.

So which musuem is better? Well, they featured different toys, toys from different generations. What you see in one, you wont find in the other. If you want to see the current generation toys, go to Penang. If you want to be nostalgic, then go to the Singapore one. I asked my kids which musuem they liked better. N, my son preferred the Penang one coz it had all the toys he could relate to, and also compare what he had with what they got. My daughter, S, preferred the Sinagapore one coz they had lots of toys which she had never seen before and she felt was more interesting. As for me: I felt they were both rip-offs for the price we paid to see them. both musuems can be coverred in less than an hour. But if I really had to choose, I would say I like the Signapore one better, coz it brought back memories,and I would rather see those that I cant find in the shops now. So, looks like you have to visit them both to decide for yourself.