Two days ago, we had two very special guests coming all the way from England to Singapore! Jena, who is one of the biggest antique bear collector in UK, came to Singapore for the very first time with his mum!
Jena owns many bears mostly in Mint condition and because of his love & passion in collecting Teddy Bears, he has been featured on several publications as well as television programmes.
Wayne specially arranged to bring Jena and his mum to the Mint Museum of Toys, a place where Wayne had previously worked at. In the museum, there are plenty of vintage Teddy Bears and toys on display which Wayne thinks they would be interested in. Wayne also arranged to have his friend Richard Tan, the curator of the Toy Museum, to give them a guided tour.
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| Richard, curator of the Mint Museum of Tour giving a guided tour |
Richard brought them around through the several floors of vintage toys and teddy bears, providing interesting snippets of historic information which people may not know about. We could see Jena's interest in toys as he took out his mobile phone and started to take pictures right away!
After the museum guided tour, we brought Jena and his mum to Sin Swee Kee Chicken Rice Restaurant to try local Hainanese Chicken rice and other local dishes. Jena's mum told us her last visit to Singapore was 35 years ago! She love Singapore as it is very clean and safe.
Jena shared with us his knowledge in collecting and maintaining bears during lunch. It was very interesting to learn the various techniques to maintain and preserve antique bears. Most of them suffer from "wear and tear" due to humidity and rough handling. Jena also shared ways to minimise damage to bears when cleaning them.
Jena shared some of his bears he had brought along with him. Wayne and Philip quickly "bearnap" his three polar bears made by Svetlana Khabarova to take a picture with them!
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| Back Row L-R: Wayne, Irene and Philip Front Row L-R: Esther, Jena's Mum, Jena and Richard |
We had a wonderful lunch with them and gained fruitful knowledge about Antique Teddy Bears as well. We hope to meet them soon again next time in London! We would like to specially thank Richard for giving us an educational guided tour of the Toy Museum, and Philip, Esther and Irene for joining us!
Hugs,
Wayne
Wow, what a nice visit you had. The museum was the perfect place to take them, and how nice you got a private tour. The food looks delicious. It looks like a wonderful day.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing this lovely visit! It was fun to hear and see what you did when Jena and his mom visited. I wish I could visit you, too! :) Someday maybe we will meet in person. Bear hugs to you all, and Happy New Year blessings from me and New Avenue Crew!
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