Cosplaying as a student with a cool uniform as opposed to the atrocity I had to wear as a kid.
The first exhibit I went to was the first I completed - the fossil exhibit! I love how the scale of the room changes in certain spots that shows just how grand it is. The first museum of natural history that I went to was when I went to the US, as I never went to one when I lived in Korea. I even completed my first fossil exhibit in New Leaf before I went to one of these museums in real life, so I loved seeing the in-game version of the museum upgrade throughout the games over time too!
Next, the bug exhibit! The first and only visitor I met at the museum was Tasha! She was hanging out in the butterfly garden, looking matchy-matchy with me in her coat. Fun story: I have a phobia of butterflies in real life. It started after a traumatic incident as a kid when I accidentally crushed a butterfly and it left a powdery imprint of death on my hand. Ever since that time I was terrified of them. My overreaction to seeing them fluttering about would be both embarrassing and dangerous, as there'd be times I'd accidentally step into oncoming traffic to avoid the path of a butterfly. I couldn't even look at photos of them. However, playing AC very slowly helped me lessen the severity of it, at least on-screen or digital recreations of it. For example, I can now scroll past a photo of a sneaky butterfly like a normal person instead of throwing my phone at the wall as a first reaction! I also don't cover my eyes anymore when my island rep catches butterflies! AC has helped me in
many ways but I never thought it would help me with my phobia. Of course, a real-life version of the "butterfly garden" has to be the final boss chamber of defeating my phobia and I'm not quite ready to do that yet, but I'm happy I can now play AC in peace even knowing there are little bloodsuckers floating about. Still, my favourite part of this room were these two buddies chilling far away from the danger, a snail and a lady bug.
One of my favourite rooms in the bug exhibit is the hidden room. It's just so different from the rest of the exhibits and the laboratory-type displays remind me of interactive parts of museums that I loved to mess around with. This was also arguably the hardest room of bugs to complete for me. I remember catching both the scorpion and tarantula pretty late in the game, not because it was necessarily hard to catch, but because they always got me first at the most unsuspecting times. When I realised that holding the net is what triggered them, I finally got the way of catching them down. Like most, I went through a short obsession with the money-making method of hunting down tarantula islands and hoarding them until Flick arrived. I felt so powerful, it was almost the same feeling I had when I first learned how to destroy a lynel from BOTW effectively for the first time and went on a lynel massacre when I was previously afraid of them. If I can conquer a lynel, I can conquer a tarantula!!! And finally, the polaroid to the right is my number one arch-nemesis. The VERY last bug I caught, the stick bug! The sound of the stick bug dissolving into the tree as I run by, barely missing it and not even noticing it still haunts me to this day. I either barely saw it, or it was covered behind some unfortunately placed furniture. And then there's the leaf bug that just wont STOP appearing. I hate leaving un-placed furniture out on the floor so seeing the furniture-leaf icon pulsating really pushed my buttons.
Oh, why can't we make these types of boardwalks on our own island!
I never noticed how cute these fish display cards were!
The next exhibit I visited was the fish exhibit, or aquarium, which is by far my favourite out of the whole museum!! The layout is just so fluid and pleasing. I went in front of almost every tank trying to zoom in with the handheld mode to see the details of each tank... Look at the little Ranchu's face! I admit I stood here way too long trying to get a good picture of him swimming towards the camera.
I'm riding a shark, wheeeee
When I was younger I remember watching a video of one of these giant tanks with giant sharks and schools of fish swimming around in a loop. Maybe someone has a similar study experience, but that video was what I played on loop while I did my homework and it was the only thing I could concentrate to. After college my best friend and I took a trip to Japan and on the spur of the moment on a rainy day we decided to go to the aquarium in Osaka. When I walked into the giant tank room it unlocked some strange deja vu memory I had of that video on loop. I think seeing that in real life was probably a core memory for me hahaha. We stayed hypnotised there for close to an hour. Fast forward to a few years later when I moved away, my best friend finally got ACNH and of course, the first thing I did was invite her over to my island. Our trip to the museum was the first time she had stepped inside one, since she hadn't unlocked it on her own island. I was excited to show her the big fish room because of our shared experience at the Osaka aquarium. I think that little Wi-Fi session was a little emotional for us because we were able to
recreate one of our memories in the game. It feels kinda sad for me to come in here alone now.
The last exhibit I visited was the Art exhibit! I had a lot of high hopes for the art wing when the update first dropped because I put in so many expectations of a beautiful MET-type sculpture garden (with maybe similar aesthetics to the butterfly garden). I was a little saddened to see how tiny the art wing actually was. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I rarely go in here and why it took me so long to actually complete it. Anyways, here I am with my favourite painting of all time on the right, the Isle of the Dead by
Arnold Böcklin! There's a couple versions of this painting and a lot of it online doesn't have great lighting. Ironically, this ACNH version might be the clearest version of the painting I've seen, haha!
Finally, I ended the night at Brewster's to get a cup of coffee. It was my first time calling a villager with the amiibo to the cafe (idk why I'm doing all these firsts so late after the update). Maybe I'm dumb or there's no way to do it, but I couldn't figure out how to drink coffee
with Dizzy. So I just took some pictures of him instead. Well that concluded my museum visit! Since I only really play AC now to run around and take pictures, this little trip definitely made me want to visit more often and stalk out any other villager museum-goers.
Ah, time to take off my school uniform and go back to adulting.