Where's a camera when you need one?

Honestly there's no good story about why I didn't have my camera. It was in the trunk of my car the entire day, but at every destination, I think I was too excited to remember to bring it.

At the De Young museum in Golden Gate Park, I learned a lot about art and the critique thereof. Composition, themes, meaning, symbolism, titles, colors, materials, hometowns, all came together in paintings, photographs, sculptures and installations. I'm thinking I'm more of a contemporary guy...

I liked the contemporary art exhibit called the Conservation Chair. We saw this seemingly-innocuous chair that upon discussion with my awesome tour guide :-P, revealed a much deeper meaning in the inlaid wood, the transformation of real wood into a cartoonish wood and the zen-garden qualities of the water flow. All while a metal pipe painted on wood fed water back up. I could really go on and on...

Oh and I forgot about the crystal tear-drop-shaped pieces that were suspended from the ceiling, pretty in itself, until I was pointed to the shadows dancing on the wall, did I realize the real exhibit! The shadows of the crystals hung on the wall like giant falling rain drops, with some having sharper shapes while others were fuzzy. Another pleasant surprise with the crystals reflecting light creating a rainbow effect. I'll have to give full credit to the tour guide! :-)

And then there was Michael Arcega's exhibit. Very clever sculptures at the end of a club. Take the picture for example, his "War Club" display pieces featuring carved battleships at the end of a club...get it? haha! In my view, the capstone piece were the "Dance Club" pieces which featured dance clubs at the end of wooden club, complete with flashing lights in the club and -- wait for it... -- an awesome dance beat subtly emanating from the display case!

From there an erratic car drive in search of a lost artwork brought us all to a hidden playground with the most awesome jungle-gym-ish structure. The most kid-un-safe playground I've ever seen was clearly the slightly-older kid's dream! (And I narrowly claimed victory to the top.) Here's the best picture I could find.


And after X number of years at school, I've finally had a chance to appreciate the Rodin sculpture garden (although I'm still quite skeptical of the bit about broken sculptures being deliberate, I'm more with the school of thought that the movers they hired weren't up to par, but until proven; I'll buy the argument that they were intentionally broken to convey the (only) human effort that went into the design).

And then there was dim sum, ddr, and dinner!