A Letter to Dinosaurs

Dear Sue and Stan,

Before I met you at this exhibition, all I ever knew about dinosaurs were from small plastic figurines, a couple slightly fancier battery operated models, many different books and encyclopedias and of course VCDs and DVDs (with the likes of Aladdar the Iguanodon - my personal favourite, which I used to imitate the sound, much to the annoyance of my mummy & daddy; Barney, though he never really convinced me; a couple of really cool animated ones from Jurassic Park; and the many series of Land Before Time), to mention just a few.

When I first laid eyes on dinosaurs, I think it was love at first sight. Sure, some time in between then and now, they've had some hot wheels, thomas the tank engine, mega blocks to compete with for my attention, but still they will always be my personal favourite. Hey, afterall I did choose to wear my dinosaur print white shirt for my birthday party. Okay, so it was either the dinosaur print or fish print.

Anyway, my favourite things to do with dinosaurs was to carefully and painfully arrange my plastic ones in all different ways and manner and places (on a bed, dressing table, floor), have mummy and daddy make up stories about them - Terry the Triceratops, Dipsy the Diplodocus and many more; and the adventures they would go on. Similar to that shown on Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs, which I was totally excited about since I had already owned the books before the TV show. By the way, much to my disappointment, I could not go to Harry's "Dino World" by jumping into my plastic bucket. That took alot of explaning by mummy. I would also enjoy reading books about them. In fact i believe I knew the names of all my dinosaurs before the names of my cousins and aunts and uncles.

So you can imagine how excited I was when daddy and mummy took Musa and me to Singapore for an overnight trip (weekend of 22 -23 July '06). Just for the Dinosaur Exhibition at the National Science Centre. They had displays of dinosaur fossils, bones, eggs and skeletons, with the highlight being the two HUGE T-REX dinosaur skeletons named Sue and Stan. Yes, the two of you. Although you were not real skeletons but casts of the original skeletons, it didn't matter because I didn't know any better.

I almost leapt out of my skin when I saw the many different dinosaurs skeletons and fossils! It was a dream come true for me to be up close and personal with the dinosaurs, even if it was only the bones. You both obviously took my breath away. How huge and overwhelming you were!... But poor adik. Musa on the other hand was quite terrified of the dinosaur skeletons, especially those with HUGE fangs and sharp teeth!!

I'm glad that we got to see you and the others. You are afterall a very popular world travelling exhibition! I will always remember visiting you in Singapore; and hope to be able to see you or some of your other relatives in the not too distant future. In the mean time, stay scary, solid and stuck together!

With love from Umar and my li'l brother Musa