I often feel that I am in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some may dispute it, and remind me that I live in the Silicon Valley, the epicenter of the electronic world, not to mention that my neighborhood is one renowned for its school district (and according to my father, who has been to Taiwan, even the people there know that our town is home to excellent schools) and my town is the headquarters of a very famous company. But for me, those are not the things that make a place the place to be.

Only a half-hour's drive away is the city by the bay, the place that Tony Bennett, according to his song's lyrics, left his heart: San Francisco.
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Labels: beach, california, city, confusion, de young, islands, lost, memories, museum, ocean, pier 39, places, san francisco, seashells, silicon valley, surprise, travel, treasure island, tulips

A few people asked me what I was going to do during our three-day weekend (at my school, the students have Friday off since it was Staff Learning Day) and I told them about going to see mummies. (Not that I actually saw any, but that's what I had expected to see) There is an exhibit going on at De Young Museum in San Francisco, called Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs. It started in June 27 of this year and ends on March 28 in 2010, so it's a pretty long exhibit. It seems not many people my age are particularly interested in archaeology, though. It's disappointing. According to my mother, the people in the area where I live don't love the arts and history as much as they should. That's why we don't have famous musicians from the area or good ballet troupes and orchestras... So you have to go to San Francisco to find the better museums.

I really would've liked to take some photos, but you're not allowed to take photographs in the exhibit. In fact, everyone pays more money to go to the exhibit, unlike the usual De Young exhibits (if you have membership, you can go in free! But not this time. Members get a discount, though). I suppose the artifacts are quite valuable and fragile. After all, they are from thousands of years ago...And yet some of them still look to be in good shape. I heard there were mummified fetuses that had been found and I thought that sounded really disgusting. And the fact that the brains of a dead person are removed with a hook through a person's nose is kind of disturbing too. Luckily you don't actually have to see that.

I was disappointed that the real King Tut coffin was not at the exhibit, though there was an animation showing the layers of the coffin. It reminds me of those Russian dolls that look like this.

If you remove the coffin layer by layer, you start out with a box, then another box, and another box, and then eventually to the actual person-shaped coffins, which also contain multiple layers, and finally you reach the dead person inside. So that's why I thought of the Russian dolls when I saw the animation.

There was a mummy coffin at the exhibit, though. It just wasn't Tut's. It was bigger than I thought. I would have liked to open it but practically everything is in glass cases.

I read an article about Tut which was free for the taking at the museum. Tut's lineage is a bit of a mystery. It is rumored that he is the son of the previous king, Akhenaten (his real name was Amenhotep but he changed it when he decided to change the religion of Egypt) and one of the king's wives, Kiya. Akhenaten had another, more famous wife called Nefertiti who might've been jealous enough of Kiya to have banished or killed her. Sort of reminds me of the Romans plotting to kill each other before.

By the way, let me explain why I said "kings of the valley"...It's because many of the Egyptian kings were buried in a valley named The Valley of the Kings. (Pretty obvious name, eh?)

Labels: akhenaten, artifacts, brain, coffin, de young, egypt, exhibit, fetus, kiya, mummy, museum, nefertiti, pharaohs, russian dolls, san francisco, tut, tutankhamun, valley of the kings

I can't speak French. But I saw this on some of the De Young Museum's souvenir merchandise. (Like t-shirts and bags) Apparently it was the old motto of Yves Saint Laurent. It means "Fashion passes, style remains". I don't really get it, so good luck to you figuring it out.

...Maybe I'd better clarify, before everyone gets confused. My family has membership to museums in San Francisco, and we heard there were some new exhibits, so we went to see the De Young and Legion of Honor (both art museums). At De Young, the special exhibits right now are 1) Yves Saint Laurent, and 2) Andy Warhol...While at Legion of Honor, the special exhibit is Artistic Luxury - Fabergé - Tiffany - Lalique.

Yves Saint Laurent is a French, high-end clothing brand. Apparently the guy who started it and owned it (until he died of brain cancer o_O ) was called Saint Laurent. The clothing in the museum wasn't all that old, I mean, my parents were alive then (1960's was around the oldest of the clothes displayed) but still, flash photography seems to damage clothing and art for some reason, so this guy in a black suit leaped out to stop a woman who was taking pictures with her camera. (That must be what those security guards do...I always thought it was weird since they usually just stand there, or walk around looking at you)

Anyhow, the YSL clothing is kind of odd. Some of it is really freaky, like this black, tall hat, and a "wedding dress" which covers you and makes you look like a little dressed-up doll. Here's some pictures of various types. (The third one is really disturbing, but apparently it is also a wedding dress)







And about Andy Warhol...He was an artist, who painted portraits of people, designed record album covers, acted as producer for some band called Velvet Underground (no idea what that is, even my dad doesn't know), and made short movies. My dad wanted to see a picture of Chairman Mao which Andy Warhol created, but apparently that picture isn't featured, so he was quite disappointed. I was pretty freaked out since when I walked in there was a little sign to the side that said there was nudity in the exhibit. Still, people bring their kids in!!

Finally, about the exhibit at the Legion of Honor...Carl Fabergé, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and René Lalique were all male jewelry/decorative art designers. Just so you know, the Tiffany's products we see today are from the same Tiffany's company in the exhibit. I thought Louis's name was weird, since Comfort is an actual word, and Tiffany usually seems like a girl's first name, not a last name.

If you like shiny things, you should look at that exhibit. It had a lot of things, like Easter eggs (made of rare stones, and they were bigger than usual eggs; sometimes there were other decorative items put inside the eggs) and combs (like a comb made from the shape of two swallows, carved out of wood; looks pretty, but would you want to use it?) and even dog collars (whoa, they look so expensive, people would probably steal your dog just to get the collar).

My feet got really tired from tromping around all day. My mother thinks that I need to exercise more, but...that's a different story. If you want to go to San Francisco's museums, and need a bite to eat, go to the cafe on top of De Young Museum. It has tasty food. :D

Labels: andy warhol, clothes, de young, dog collar, exhibit, france, jewelry, legion of honor, lunch, motto, museum, oddity

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