The backstory for this park is also a good read, and must post it sometime. Will blog what I saw for now... without the pictures.


The main entrance has an open physics lab, with all imaginable physics experiments converted into a playground. There are giant pulleys, wave machines, ball coasters with complicated mechanisms, a automobile model compelete with a gearbox, crankshaft and steering. There was also a see-saw with a weight adjustment arm so that you could see-saw alone, a lift that could lift one guy up by his own efforts, a merry-go-round that had apparatus built in to calculate the centrifugal force generated on each arm, and what looked like a flower made up of circles of different colored metal disks, of apparently no purpose whatsoever. Turns out that it radiates different amounts of heat if you touch it... clever way to explain things eh?


Then there was the kubera garden, which was infested with money plants of the most exotic variety. Most of the names will probably be unknown, but things that could easily fetch upwards of half a grand for a few grammes. There was also the Darwin Room, which had HUGE shells of different deep sea molluscs, collected from singapore, Malasia and god knows where. There were a few dried starfish as well.


Then there was this amazing rock garden, with rocks more than 250 million years old, along with striations and places where the lava had crept in between the sedements. There were rocks from the palazoic, jurrasic and triassic eras, all carbon dated and catalogued. There were also rare minerals and ores, like Aluminium Silicate and Fluorapetite. The most amazing specimen, was however, the pillar like rock in the middle of the garden, which turned out to be the largest fozzilized tree in all of India, and something that I could actually touch. The best, however, is yet to come. the Geology department was full of rare gemstones, both polished and unpolished. Actually got to hold wrist sized topax citrines, epidotes, peridotes, huge conches and shells, all treated and polished, pearls, cultured and otherwise, some still in the oysters (contrary to popular belief, there is not one pearl in the middle of the oyster, but a bunch of them growing out of random places), Onyx sculptures from pakistan, as well as large Onyx stones, Jade crystals, raw aquamarine crystals, emeralds, Zyrcon jewellery, gomads, corundums, Rubies (I got a small ruby fleck, unpolished), quartz crystals some still in stones, jade, amethyst, agates, Flurites, Opals, psilomalanes and a rare stone known as the Banded Jasper. The coolest gemstone was probably the tiger's eye, a translucent stone with tigerish striations. THe star attraction, was however, a small box of unpolished, untreated diamonds. The best, is however, yet to come.


There was a mini forest, with a greenhouse which had, hold your breath, THIRTY FIVE different kinds of orchids, all in full blood. Orchids. Thirty five different kinds. Gemstones and flowers on the same day, along with rare butterflies flitting through a forest of rarer trees, collected from around the world and including apocyncacae, Euphorbiace, Durvasane (a foul smelling plant), combretacae (an ill-omened plant that villiagers refuse to touch fearing that it is inhabitated by Shani, the god of bad luck), Myatacae and Accocias. There was also this plant that was five hundred times sweeter than suger, got some. Also a poisenous plant that kills the nervous sytem - three leaves in my pocket. The most exotic plant was probably the telegraph plant, one that responds to vibrations by moving significant parts of its stem and branches.


lazed around for a while in the geology department, which had shelves upon shelves or blocks of various stones, not rare ones, just about everything you would expect to find. learnt how a simple Tulsi plant serves around eighty functions in the house, thats why one is always kept and worshipped. A lot of things turn out to become superstitious when they have a pretty valid basic scientific foundation. Came home tired with senses that were terribly assaulted.