Bodies The Exhibition

Sean and Andrea gave us tickets to go see Bodies The Exhibition for Christmas. I was both excited and wary to see the exhibit. I honestly wasn't sure how I was going to react seeing real human bodies displayed like that, but I was also too intrigued to pass it up. We used those tickets on Saturday.

The exhibit is located at the South Street Seaport near Pier 17. We have been there before. While we were standing in line to enter the Bodies Museum, I snapped a picture of these buildings. Since coming here we have learned more about George Washington and the events of the Revolutionary War that occurred here in New York. I love the colonial look of these buildings. It helps me imagine what this area must have looked like back then.

We weren't allowed to take any pictures in the exhibit. So I'm sorry there are no photo's of our experience. It was really an amazing experience. The first section took us through the body's skeletal system. We got to see a full assembled skeleton and then various bones on their own. We saw leg bones with the layers of cartilage covering the ends. I thought that was cool. We also got to see the individual bones of the ear. They were so tiny! It was crazy to think that these little bones help give us hearing. There were bones cut in half to show the interiors. They also showed bones that were affected by cancer. The cancerous growth was so disgusting.

The next section of the exhibit was about the muscles, tendons and nerves. This section got to me at first. They had a face with the skin removed to expose the muscles. They had left the skin around the eyebrows so the eyebrow hair was still there and also the skin of the lips. That reminded me that I was looking at the face of a real person, and I felt a little bit sick. But the feeling soon passed, and I was able to enjoy the display. The muscles look liked smoked turkey. That comparison weirded both Brian and I out a bit. The layers of muscles were so cool and the tendons in the hands and feet were pretty awesome as well. The toes and fingers still had their toenails and fingernails, which was weird.

We got to see cross sections of healthy brains, brains with brain damage and brains that had suffered strokes and hemorrhage. The brains with strokes or hemorrhages had large dark brown spots of blood. We learned that a human brain has the folds because otherwise it would be too large to fit inside the skull. They had full bodies with their backs opened up and vertebrae removed to expose the spinal cord. That was really cool. The spinal cord was white and as you followed it down the back you could see small white threads branching off of it on either side and extending outward into the back.

We got to see the circulatory system, the respiratory system, the digestive system, reproductive system and all the organs in detail. They displayed both healthy and diseased hearts, lungs, livers, gall bladders and other organs. It was crazy to see some of the organs. I was amazed by how small the appendix is. Its about as big a round and long as your pinky finger. We got to see a cross section of gall bladders and kidneys contain galls stones and kidney stones. The stones were pretty big and looked like peanuts! It was gross. They had a full circulatory system...just the blood vessels, arteries and veins. It was amazing to see how widespread it is and how it branches out and ends in tiny hairlike veins.

They had some parts at the end that you could hold and touch, since you weren't allowed to touch any pieces throughout the exhibit. We got to hold a tibia (shin bone), femur, heart and lungs, brain pieces of muscles and a heart. The tibia was triangular and pointed at the front where it faces out of your shin. The ball end of the femur was cool. It was almost perfectly round. The lungs and heart were interesting because the lungs wrapped almost entirely around the heart. The brain we got to hold was just the bottom half of the brain and it had dark spots in it which were areas of brain damage. The muscles were weird. It was hard because of the preservation process, but it felt like holding a hardened piece of turkey. The heart on its own was really cool as well.

I'm so glad we went to this! It gave me a new found respect for the human body and definitely strengthened my testimony that we were created and designed by a divine power. The layers upon layers of systems that all work together to give us life is incredible. Our bodies definitely are amazing gifts.

After the exhibit, we walked to the end of the pier to see the Brooklyn Bridge. It was so pretty all lit up against the night sky with Brooklyn behind it. It's pretty awesome that we live near these awesome sights.

When we flew back from our Christmas break, we had the perfect view of the city. The sky was clear and not only could we see the city lights, but we could make out specific buildings. It was awesome to be able to recognize the buildings as we flew over them and realized that we had been to a lot of them. Before landing, we flew over Flushing Meadows in Queens where the Unisphere is located. It was an awesome sight all lit up and again we were amazed by how big it was. Even though living in New York has been a huge adjustment for me and sometimes really hard, getting to experience all of these amazing things has been worth it.