This cute family fun experience is back this Summer in July and August at Beitan 2, Ganei Hatarucha in Tel Aviv.
For two years, the artist Yossi Abulafia created and designed dozens of colorful and spectacular monsters, to which the esteemed author Ephraim Sidon has adapted texts and created a special show of poetry, story and surprises for each of the monsters.
A large team of actors, singers, sculptors, composers, musicians, painters, designers and technicians participated in the creation of the giant statues of the monsters and in the preparation of the recordings and the rich soundtrack that accompanies them. This is the first exhibition of its kind in the world! Every monster has its own name, character, function, and characteristics: they deal with fears, angers, loves, laughs, and joy, with a mischievous wink. The exhibition also includes a sandbox for building monsters with sand sculptors, a monster coloring area, a throne for the king and queen of monsters and more. Some require minimal extra charges.
You can read full details and purchase tickets through their website.
Here is our review from last year. There will be some changes for the 2018 exhibit – July 2017
We visited the Monster Land on a quiet evening in July. We arrived at seven and found parking on the road outside (we checked carefully and found a sign that allowed parking from 7pm) although you can park inside for a charge. The park part is to the right as you enter the museum grounds, down a long stroller friendly path. As you get there, tickets are checked and you are offered to rent a headphone set for 15 shekel. I am not sure this is necessary as it just enables you to hear the songs at each monster when you want to, but part of the fun is to see when one starts to light up/wake up and run to catch the song.
When we arrived, it was still light – which was still fun but it was definitely more exciting once it got dark and you could see the monsters lit up. We walked by each monster and the kids (aged 7,8,10,5) enjoyed posing in front of them and vaguely listened to the songs (these are all in Hebrew). Then we reached the middle of the exhibition where there was
a soft play area, tables for coloring on, a roller coaster ride for young children (10 shekel a ride), food stalls and a ‘monster shop’. There was an interesting film showing them making the monsters and the highlight of the outing for my kids…a sandbox! Many people overlooked this, but our kids took off their shoes and with the really helpful advice from the guide there, set to work on sculpting their own monsters. It has really inspired them for our next visit to the beach!
When we dragged hem out the sand pit (because the five year old was getting pretty tired), we headed to the last few monsters.
Overall this is a sweet activity that all the kids enjoyed. It is not the most exciting, and there were not as many exhibits as there were at the Ice age Exhibit there last year, but it was definitely different and made for some fun photos. I highly recommend looking for credit card deals on tickets/the chetzi chinam deal to make it more worth it.
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