Took the kids to the SM Science and Discovery Center at SM Mall of Asia last Monday. Hubby read about it in the paper, I think it opened some time in the middle of October. The entrance fee is 330 pesos per head regardless if you're an adult or child. They can't accept credit cards at this time.
Probably the best thing in this whole complex is the Planetarium. It's equipped with theater seats and you get to watch a NASA feature entitled "The Search for Life: Are We Alone?" narrated by Harrison Ford. It's 30 minutes long with a 10-minute intermission after each show. Some of the attractions were not yet fully operational and closed to the public when we visited.
On the first floor, there's a virtual reality gaming section but good luck trying to get your turn as it's first-come, first-served with no time limits so if the people who are currently there want to play forever they very well can. There are some interesting interactive attractions such as the Flight Simulator, Build-Your-Own-Car terminal, Sniff Sniff booth where you get to smell all sorts of foul odors, a Grossology game booth where you can compete with other people, a Urine the Game arcade game, and giant cartoonish facade of a man featuring live demo of how a burp comes to be.
On the second floor there's a robotic tank game which can accomodate up to 4 players, a closed-off robotics classroom with Lego stuff, an earthquake platform also closed off to the public, an environmental video show which we didn't bother to watch, and a terminal where you can send emails to yourself or something like that...
The most memorable attraction on the second floor was the Virtual Reef, which featured some videos of fish embedded on the walls and this large interactive talking video fish which can answer your questions. Why memorable? First of all, the place smelled of vomit when we entered -- I don't know why. Secondly, the talking video fish sounded like a lady with a Visayan accent and really bad grammar. She actually said "Please be polite because I have a fillings (sic) too...". They could at the very least get somebody who can speak better...
True, compared to other countries P330 per head can be considered cheap. But all I can say is at the moment, you get exactly what you pay for.
