California Academy Of Sciences

California Academy of Sciences is one of the museums situated inside the Golden Gate Park. I've been to this one during my earlier visits to the US. I went there again this weekend as my brother was visiting me.

The main attractions in the academy include the multilevel rainforest, planetarium and the aquarium. These in my option are a must-see. 

The rainforest has been recreated complete with all the insects, birds, fishes and reptiles. They have even managed to replicate the humid environment which adds to the authenticity of the experience. Macaws, gorgeous butterflies and lots of geckos and colorful frogs are on display. Most of them are so well camouflaged in their surrounding that it becomes a game to find them in their case. They have recreated the Bornean forest floor, Madagascar mid-story and the Costa Rican forest canopy. Once you reach the top level, you have to take the elevator to the ground floor where you can get an underwater view of the Amazon flooded forest. It is a breath taking view with all the colorful fishes and their surroundings. You have to see it to believe it!

The planetarium is equally impressive. There are set hours for the shows and you can get passes for those right outside the planetarium. The 75 foot dome is huge and impressive. They showed is a documentary on asteroids which was informative as well as entertaining. It almost felt like one of those immersive rides at Universal Studios. Who wouldn't love that!

The aquarium is enormous and houses marine habitat from Philippine coral reefs, tropical rain forests as well as the California coast. Each exhibit has a digital display that provides you info about the marine life. I was awe struck by the vibrant colors and the varied shapes of all the creatures. Made me appreciate the magic that is nature. Again, very tough to describe and should be experienced. 

The last exhibit that we saw was the one about earthquakes. There were three levels. The first one was a mini dome with a screen showing a short presentation on how earthquakes are caused. The second one was a room that mimicked the 1906 and the 1989 San Francisco earthquakes. It was a small sample of how scary and intense those earthquakes must have been. The final level was general information about preparing for and staying safe during an earthquake. 

There were several other exhibits but by then we were exhausted and it was time for us to leave.

Parking is free on the street inside the park but finding a spot is tough. The parking garage is conveniently located but expensive. So taking public transport is a good option. In addition, if you provide your bus or train ticket, you can get a $3 discount which is pretty neat since the actual tickets are expensive at $34.95 per head. 

Highly recommend this place if you're even mildly interested in aquatic life, biodiversity and science in general. 

What: California Academy of Sciences

Where: 55 Music Concourse Dr, San Francisco CA 94118

When: Mon-Sat 9:30am-5pm and Sun 11am-5pm

Cost: $34.95 per head for adults

P.S: I only have pictures of the aquarium as I was too busy looking at the exhibits and forgot to click!

Trip To The Big Apple!

6 amazing days in New York city! Loads to explore and experience. After the stunning Niagara falls, we headed to 'The City that never sleeps.' Since there was so much to see and do, we were on the move constantly. This was one of the longest trips I have ever planned and I'm so thrilled that everything went smoothly. I absolutely loved the subways which gave me the freedom to travel to any place without the hassle of worrying about transport.

Honestly, there is just too much to write about each place. For the lack of time and patience, I'm restricting myself to a few lines and pictures for each place.

1. Rockefeller Center:

I highly recommend the one hour guided tour where the guide talks about the art, architecture and history of the place which was pretty fascinating.

Sculpture in Rockefeller Center

Art Work in Rockefeller Center building

2. Top Of The Rock:

A beautiful view of Manhattan from the top of Rockefeller Center.

View from Top of the Rock

3. Grand Central Terminal:

I never knew a train station can look so exquisite. We were late for the audio tour so missed it but it is an excellent spot to marvel at the art work and also sit in a corner and people-watch. Trust me, you will be amazed.

Outside Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central Terminal

4. Statue of Liberty

A ferry from Battery Park took us to the Statue. We only went up to the pedestal but I did not find it fascinating at all. What I really enjoyed was the museum below it which had quite a lot of interesting facts about the statue, replicas of various parts, history and engineering details.

Replica of Statue of Liberty's foot

Statue of Liberty

5. Wall Street, Times Square, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge:

All these places required us to walk leisurely at our own pace soaking in the beauty and energy that is so unique to this city.

Brooklyn Bridge

The Charging Bull at Bowling Green

At Times Square

Central Park

6. Empire State Building:

Since we went to Top of the Rock during the day, I planned this visit in the evening so we could get a view of Manhattan at night. I was not disappointed at all. It was a dazzling view. It was freezing so most of the time I stood instead the glass door. They also have an audio tour which I found interesting.

The Empire State Building

View from The Empire State Building

7. Museums:

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art and American Natural History Museum were the three we visited. They are very big museums each with several large galleries. My favorite was the Metropolitan Museum of Art especially the 16-17th Century painting and sculptures. There is no way you can cover everything in any of these museums in one day. It is best to choose a few exhibits that you're interested in beforehand and focus on those.

8. Broadway:

We did manage to catch one Broadway show called 'The Cripple of Innishman' starring Daniel Radcliffe. It was quite an engaging play.

Outside Cort Theater

Inside Cort Theater

Legion Of Honor Museum

Legion of Honor is situated in the northern part of San Francisco, overlooking the bay. The building itself deserves some art-gazing as it a beautiful example of the Romanesque (neoclassical) style, complete with a fountain in the circular plaza in the front. 

 

Legion Of Honor

 

The main entrance opens to a peristyle, where Rodin's Thinker holds court. 

The Thinker

 
Tickets are sold inside. The visitors guide provides the overview of the different sections of the museum. We weren't methodical, and were lured right away by the central atrium consisting of more sculptures by Rodin. But one can better understand the influence of Rodin on modern sculpture, after seeing some of the more classic samples in the other sections.

The Three Shades

The Call To Arms

You would do well to follow the history of art by starting with the innermost section in the left wing of the building. Section 1 was the Rotating exhibition, filled with huge wall-sized tapestries from the medieval era. The dim lights are perhaps special to protect the old wovens, but they slyly reminded me of the Dark Ages.

The next few sections are oppressive with heavy use of gilt in the almost-exclusively religious (Christian) themed art. You can see an exquisitely carved 15th century Spanish ceiling installed here. Highlight: El Greco's Mannerist painting 'Saint John the Baptist'.

17th and 18th century art forms a large part of this museum's collection, spanning a few sections on either side of the central atrium and its adjoining rooms. This includes pieces of French period furniture, and paintings from French and Italian Baroque periods as well as Dutch and Flemish schools. There is a Rembrandt here, but it's not a famous one.

Best to break for lunch now at the cafe: they serve sandwiches and pastries named after painters. If the weather is as good as it was for us, you will want to grab a table on the verandah.

The Neoclassical section of art comes (to me) as a refreshing change from the portraitures of the previous period. I mused here that even in the current era of photography where light and color can be tweaked indefinitely, composition still remains as the mark of an artist. Which then brings us to the Impressionist art section. Highlights here include paintings by Degas, Cezanne, Renoir, and Monet. At the time our visit, Impressionist art (specifically of a nautical theme) was also the subject of the Special Exhibition in the basement section

Very few works of post-impressionist art appear in this museum as far as I can tell. There are a couple of Picassos and a couple of Dalis.

We were not able to cover the other pre-modern, non-European, and ancient artifact sections to be found in the lower level, since we were running against the clock. This museum, as any other, needs several devoted hours of browsing. Perhaps better is to plan multiple visits, covering a few sections (chronological or themed) each time.
 

Main entrance to Legion of Honor

What: Legion Of Honor
When: Tue to Sun: 9.30am-5.15pm
Where: 100 34th Ave, San Francisco, CA 94121
Tickets: $10

EMP Museum, Space Needle and The Underground

This is the final installment of the Seattle series. Over the remaining two days, we visited the EMP museum, Space Needle and also took the Underground tour.

EMP Museum

The EMP museum is located right next to the Space Needle and has exhibits relating to science fiction and music. I skipped the Hendrix, Nirvana and guitar gallery as it did not interest me. I went right ahead to the 'Fantasy: World of Myth and Magic' exhibit which had costumes, props and artifacts from comics, video games, movies and literature. It takes the viewer through a journey of the fantasy world.
 

EMP Museum

 

Guitar tree

 

Dragon exhibit in the 'Fantasy:World of Myth & Magic'

The next exhibit I saw was the "Can't Look away: The lure of horror films" I surprised myself by visiting this gallery which takes an in-depth look at horror expressed through movies over the years. There are interesting videos about some of the most famous horror films that give a glimpse into the reason for their success and brilliance. There are interactive exhibits which are quite fun. This one is better experienced than described.

 

Space Needle

The Space Needle is an observation tower built for the World's fair but has now become a major landmark and attraction. It is 520 feet tall and elevators traveling at 10 miles/hr take people right to the top of the building from where one can see wonderful views of the downtown Seattle skyline, Mount Rainier, Elliot Bay and the surrounding mountains. At the top, there is also a rotating restaurant. We went in the evening as I wanted to see the illuminated Seattle skyline.

Space Needle

View from the Space Needle

Underground tour

This was one of the most enjoyable experiences of our trip. It is an hour long tour where the guide took us through the underground passages of Pioneer Square and gave us a very crisp and humorous account of the history behind it. Basically, the underground that we now see was, in fact, the original level at which the city existed. After the Seattle fire at the end of the 1800s, the city was rebuilt on top of the old level while the lower level  still was accessible. So now there are two levels one on top of each other. The lower level gives us a glimpse of the history and architecture of the time. The guide explained to us how Seattle got its name from the Native American tribal leader Chief Sia'hl with a brief account of rise of Seattle from a small lumber town to one of the top five largest cities in the US. I highly recommend this trip if history interests you.

Historical building in Pioneer Square

Underground passages

Vintage hotel in Pioneer Square

Some of the things that we had planned but missed seeing were Seattle Art Museum, ferry ride and Snoqualmie Falls.

Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum

While looking for things to do on the weekend, I hit upon the Rosicrucian Egyptian museum in San Jose. Since I'm very fascinated by Egyptian history, I decided to check this place out.

This museum is located in San Jose and is the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts in Western North America.  There are four main galleries and they take the visitor through the ancient Egyptian dynasties up until the Islamic era. One can get a complete picture of the history, rise and fall of the mighty Egyptian empire. Since we visited post noon, we could only cover one gallery in detail. I glanced through the other three as it was nearing closing time.

The first gallery is the 'Daily life,  trade and neighbors' and it has a huge collection of items of daily use. This includes the vessels, toys, seals, hairpins, mirrors, perfume bottles, razors, seals etc. Tablets with Hieroglyphics and Cuneiform scripts were my favorite.

 The second gallery 'Burial practices, mummies and afterlife' had a lot of mummies on display and items relating to the burial practices and mummification. I skimmed through the next two galleries 'Gods and religion' and 'Kings and Pharoahs' so I'm not writing much about them.

There was a docent-led tour of the replica tomb. There is a composite replica of the rock cut tomb of Khnumhotep II. I found it very educational and fun.

Some fun facts that I learnt from the museum:
-The ancient Egyptians, including the children drank beer instead of water as they did not have access to clean water
-They believed in the power of visualization and hence got their walls of the pyramids painted with images of a life they wanted to live in the afterlife.
-The hierogylphic script was written from  left to right, right to left or up to down. One can identify the direction based on the direction in which the characters are facing.
-Men and women both used makeup and painted their face green.

I will have to visit the museum once again to complete the tour of the other three galleries. There is also a planetarium which is temporarily closed so we could not visit it. Outside the museum,there is a beautiful garden called the Peace garden where one can relax.

What: Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum
Where:1660 Park Avenue San Jose CA 95191
When: Wednesday - Friday: 9:00am - 5:00pm
Saturday and Sunday: 10:00am - 6:00pm
Monday - Tuesday: Closed 
Cost: $9

San Diego-Day 2: Balboa Park

Balboa Park is easily one of the best attractions in San Diego. It has a little something for everybody. 14 museums, parks, 19 gardens, gigantic zoo, tennis courts, gym, theatre, shows, restaurants and more. Since V and I are both museum lovers, I decided to allocate an entire day to explore the park. It was a tough call to choose from so many museums. We finally picked 5 and armed with a map of the park in hand, we began our journey. 

It being a Friday, gave us some more time as some museums operate longer on Fridays. The five museums we visited were:

Museum of Man

1. San Diego Museum of Man: 

Mayan Statue

Mummy coffins

A beautiful display of exhibits that trace the journey of man. Right from replica of fossils of the early man to the Maya statues and modern photographs. My favorite part was the Anthropology section that showed the evolution of man. The changes in the brain, bones, teeth etc over time from monkeys and apes to modern man. It was amazing to see all the stuff that we learnt in history. Only this time, instead of text books, it was more of visual learning. I also saw mummies-real Egyptian mummies. They are truly fascinating. 

I would have loved to spend more time here but we had other museums to cover so had to limit ourselves to only an hour at each place. 

Evolution of Man Exhibits

2. San Diego Air and Space museum:

Aircraft used during World War II

The receptionist at the previous museum recommended that we check out this one. Although, neither of us was too keen on visiting it, we decided to go as she made it sound very exciting. This museum houses all the planes that were used during the world wars. It also has flags, clothes etc used by the astronauts who went to the moon. To some one who is interested in this subject, this would be a wonderful place but to me it was quite boring. The only fun part of this one was the 4-D theatre.  Three five-minute movies were played and the 4-D effect was mind-blowing. I would visit this museum again only for the 4-D show.

3. Museum of Photographic Arts:

I have no words to express what I felt at this museum. I was stunned to see the collection by Ruud Van Empel. Each work was a result of stitching together several different photographs together. I was surprised to find out that every individual represented in the pictures was put together using features from many different people. There was a haunting quality in each of his works-almost surreal yet piercing. Fabricated reality-that was the term used to describe his works. Photography was not allowed inside the museum so could not click any.

4. Reuben.H.Fleet Science center:

An interactive science center that has numerous exhibits that allows one to learn the different science phenomenon. Interesting, educative and fun. I'm sure my relationship with physics wouldn't have been so bad had I got a chance to learn it in an interactive way like the science center. All the models were thought provoking and had detailed info about the phenomenon it described. However, the place was crowded with children who were more interested in playing with the models rather than learning anything. It was quite sad that most parents too didn't try to use the exhibits as a learning tool and let the children use them as toys. The best part about this museum is the dome shaped IMAX theatre. We opted to watch the movie 'To The Artic'. The theatre is like a planetarium-the screen stretches from the ceiling all the way down to the floor. The movie depicted the sad state of the polar bear due to the melting of the arctic snow caps as a result of global warming. It was an irony that it was both touching and beautiful at the same time. 

5. The San Diego Museum of Art:

The last museum for the day. We only had 40 minutes to explore this one before it was closing time. There are several galleries for Asian, African, American, European and Modern Art. Since we were pressed for time, we chose the European section. We walked through the Renaissance, Impressionist, Post-impressionism paintings from Italy, France and Germany. V explained to me how the themes and art evolved during each of the periods. It was quite overwhelming to see paintings that were so old yet were magnificent.

Overall, the visit was very informative and fun at the same time. I would definitely recommend keeping an entire day for this activity. A day well-spent!