Museum Hopper

i went to the detroit institute of arts museum to see the rembrandt and the face of jesus exhibit.  it was really great. we bought tickets online the night before to reserve our viewing time.  our biggest gripe about the entire experience was the $3.50 "convenience fee" that was tacked onto each ticket purchased.  the ticket price was $16, so this "convenience fee" was almost 22% of the ticket price.  at this point, purchasing tickets online is cheaper for the museum since they do not have to employee someone to speak to me and they don't even have to print the ticket!  if they are really counting on this fee, just roll it into my admission price please; it would make me a little less grumpy while still getting the same amount of money out of me! we arrived a little early to the exhibit, which ended up being a good move since they had completely sold the exhibit out for the day.  they let people into the exhibit in batches, so it was fine that we got...

it has been too long!  sorry about completely missing november!  i am pretty embarrassed! over the past weekend, my friend, kate, and i went to universal studios florida for a girls' weekend.  we visited the two parks, universal studios and islands of adventure.  within universal studios, they have a lucille ball tribute titled, lucy - a tribute .   the museum is near the front of the park and is located adjacent to a shop.  they have about seven large displays focused on lucille ball, her career and personal life.   i knew about i love lucy obviously, but was not as aware of the rest of her career including many movies.  it was great to see all of the awards she had received in her life and learn more about how she started the i love lucy show with her husband, desi arnaz .  she appeared on the cover of the tv guide more than any person ever has. times in museum: 20 minutes times visited: 1 overall: B+

this past weekend, my boyfriend and i decided to go to the detroit zoo !  i feel like it is one of the last major museums/cultural places left in detroit that i haven't visited yet (also missing = greenfield village).  the weather cooperated beautiful and we headed over on a sunday afternoon.  the zoo was all ready for zoo boo complete with many pumpkin vignettes.  we did the entire zoo loop.  some exhibits had definitely been upgraded since i was last at the zoo like the river otter exhibit and the lion exhibit.   i had remembered that the last time i visited the zoo that they charge for parking.  they still do.  i will admit that it really bugs me for a few reasons.  first, it is in the middle of suburbia.  land is not exactly hard to come by.  second, public transit to the zoo is nonexistent.  of course everyone is driving.  yes, i understand they are "incentivizing" you to carpool, but really? ...

last week, i was in new york city for a job interview.  since my flight was scheduled before i knew what time my interview was, i did have some time to kill before leaving for the airport.  my interview was basically across the street from the museum of modern art (moma), so i decided to pop into it for old time's sake. not much has changed since last year.  i did notice that some of the paintings had been arranged like van gogh's starry night.  i think was a good move, since it did seem to help with people flow throughout the museum (my biggest moma gripe).  henri matisse's dance is on loan until mid next year.  its location has also been moved.  it is in a much more prominent spot than it had been before.  you can actually see it now whereas before you had to know where it was to go seek it out. i did pop out into the sculpture garden for the first time in a long time.  it was nice to get a little bit more peace and quiet.  i love tha...

my last, but definitely not least post from my peruvian museum hopping!  i am going to combine the huaca de la luna y del sol and the museo huacas de moche for the blog post since they are affiliated and very much interlinked.  this is where we had our last bit of peruvian sightseeing up in trujillo.   stephen, my sister's new brother-in-law, highly recommended visiting the museum and the huaca.   the museum reminded me a lot of the museo larco , but this one was only focused on the moche people , which inhabited trujillo.  the museum had all the spanish descriptions translated to english, which was great.  the information was very engaging.  we also enjoyed not being reliant on a guide and could move around the museum at our own pace.  the moche people were one of the most sophisticated civilizations for the time period with sophisticated rituals, art and engineering.   Here is some of their pottery: once we wrap...

the day after visiting el museo larco , we as a large group went to huaca pucllana .  this is a large pyramid in the middle of lima!  here is an arial view of the huaca .  restoration and preservation of this huaca began in the early 1990s if my memory proves correct.  up until then, it had been used as a soccer field, motorcycle track and just a general gathering place! the huaca was used as a ceremonial and city center for the lima people who were living in lima (coincidentally) between 200 and 700 AD.   we had a guided tour for the huaca with a few other groups.  the tour guide was a little more robotic in her delivery and also was not as able to answer our questions than our guide at the museo larco.  that being said, her english was still waaay better than my spanish!  they also had llamas and alpacas on site.  here is a picture of an alpaca from another place we went: we found out more about the limas.  this nicel...

the first place we went to when we arrived in lima, peru was the museo larco .  my family, boyfriend, grandfather and aunt were all down in peru for my middle sister's wedding.  it was quite the trip with a beautiful wedding, but it also let me see some new museums!  always a big plus when i travel!  the museo larco was a great place for us to start.  it has a great overview of pre-columbian art work, textiles and ceramics.  most (if not all) of the pieces were purchased and found by a single family who had decided to create the museum to preserve the pieces.  the museum flows through time and seemed easy to follow.  my sister had arranged a guide for us since most of the explanations were spanish.  our guide seemed very well knowledgeable and spoke much better english than i speak spanish!  we were a group of about 20 people and she handled all of our questions and inquiries with grace.  it can be hard to keep a large group like...

i have been sort of waiting to visit the seattle art museum until some of the new exhibits opened.  it seemed fitting to do it my last weekend in seattle, which coincidentally ended up being a mildly rainy sunday!  perfect activity. i was very excited to see the beauty and the bount y after walking by the publicity signage every day.  it was pretty magnificent.  the best part though, which was key, was that the exhibit was not crowded.  each painting had plenty of space around it.  this was so important for setting the mood of the entire exhibit.  they grouped the paintings (from what i could tell) by geography and sort of ending with the westward expansion.  landscape paintings are always so peaceful.  even the scenes with huge storms blowing through seem to have some tranquility to them.  this exhibit was no exception.  it reminded me a lot of j.m.w. turner's work that i saw at the metropolitan museum of art and the tate brit...

on the first thursday , my classmate, priscilla, and i went to the burke museum of natural history and culture up on the university of washington campus.  it's considered one of the better museums in seattle. we headed up after work on the bus to check it out.  priscilla has been living up near the UW campus and knew where to go.   it was an interesting combination of stuff like the royal bc museum .  the artifacts and exhibits definitely overlapped between the two museum.  i enjoyed the photographs of the owls .  i would have loved a little more details on how many hours or shots they had to take to get some of these amazing action shots.  the wolves exhibit was pretty neat, a little simplistic, but interesting to learn about the wolves.   the downstairs is the "culture" part of the museum.  it had a section of the "first nations" that had a number of the same or similar objects from the royal bc museum including a sectio...

on the fourth of july, my boyfriend and i rode the ducks of seattle .  i booked the tickets in advance and we left from the westlake location in downtown seattle.  i figured it would be a good way to get us around seattle, end the weekend and get on the water for a little bit. we arrived at the stop a half hour early like we were supposed to and waited in a line a bit to get on the duck/boat/bus.  we were a little late taking off since two ticket holders arrived late to westlake.  this was the beginning of a not so great ride with these two.... we headed directly from westlake up towards the north side of lake union, hopped in the lake there, boated around, then headed down on the pier, up 1st avenue past pike market to wrap up the ride.  we spent about equidistant time in the water and on land, which i was really happy about.  it was great to be on the lake on the 4th of july.  we could see everyone gathering to watch the fireworks as well as the ...

over the long weekend, my boyfriend and i went to the san juan islands off the coast of washington state and vancouver island.  while we were there, we stopped at the charming whale museum .    the museum is on the edge of town, so about three blocks from the ferry.  it had a nice sized gift shop on the first floor and then the museum is on the second floor.   the topics in the museum covered are the history of the whales, behavior and data about the whales, and then what is threatening the whales and what we can do to preserve them.  it was very well done and gave enough information.  i liked how they focused and gave details about the three pods that live around the san juan islands.  it definitely added fuel to the fire; we did not see the whales this trip and now, i really want to see them.  the museum was very spacious.  the usual problem with these museums is that they seem to get tired and run down.  it was obvious ...

this week, our internship company hosted a happy hour (or welcome event) at the seattle aquarium.  we had the entire place to ourselves after it closed, which was fantastic.  they nicely invited our managers, significant others if we have them and any children.  the size of the party is significantly less than would normally be at the museum.  they were serving us fish (along with meat) which was sort of an interesting twist on eating in an aquarium. the museum seems to be quite spacious with a large area when you walk in and then more of the exhibits in the back with the large mammals (the best part) in a second building.  the second building was pretty interesting.  it was designed to be "half open" as parts of it were open to the exterior.    some of the tanks were visible from the top and below, which is a great viewing point.   i also enjoyed looking at the octopus and the sea stars, which you can touch (gently). most im...

while we were in victoria, our last stop was the butchart gardens .  we arrived a little after noon on a beautiful clear sunday afternoon. we didn't have to wait long to purchase our tickets and we pulled in and parked.  we were surprised to see that they allowed dogs on the grounds.  the price to get in seemed a little steep.  hard to believe it was more expensive than my dinner the night before.  it turned out to be totally worth it. we followed the traditional path suggested in the map.  first, the sunken garden, rose garden, japanese garden and then last but not least was the italian garden.  i was so impressed.  the gardens seemed to keep going on forever with each step forward offering a new glimpse into the gardens.  i was amazed at how it never seemed repetitive.  the grounds were immaculate.  we were curious to know how many people are required to keeping it looking as beautiful as it is! overall, the only ...

over the past weekend, i went on a girls getaway to victoria, british columbia, canada.  while we were there, we went to the royal bc museum in downtown victoria.   when entering the museum, we were greeted by john lennon's yellow rolls royce .  we all used our student ids to receive a discounted rate on admission.  the museum is primarily on the second and third floors with the first floor housing the entrance to the imax, gift shop and cafes.   we headed upstairs first and took in the emily carr exhibit, the other emily .  i finally got to see some of her work after being thwarted at the vancouver art gallery .  i liked seeing the works by emily carr as well as the photographs of her with her family.  i did not quite understand why the curators needed to recreate the photographed portraits with paint.   we also checked out the pretty typical "natural history" aspect of the museum that contained lots of stuffed birds, ...

i would just like to say that i am super excited about my blog today.  my first guest post just went live!  if anyone else would like to contribute, please let me know!  thank you very much to steve vozar for his great post!

Guest post here from Katie's friend Steve. Last weekend, I visited DC and intrigued by the idea of the International Spy Museum . The museum itself is located near the National Mall, and features (if I recall correctly) three floors of exhibit space along with a spy-themed gift shop and restaurant. I was a little caught off-guard by the admission price; $18 plus tax was pretty steep, especially considering that most museums in DC are free. For an additional price there are also some more interactive activities available, called Operation Spy and Spy in the City , but I only opted for the standard museum self-tour, which had a bit of an interactive element as well. The whole museum experience is framed by a choose-your-own-adventure style espionage action story that unfolds throughout the exhibits. You first choose one of several covers and check out the dossier with your mission details. There are various checkpoints throughout the museum at which you progress through...

for my birthday this year, i decided to go on the underground tour with some friends, jessica, pascal and sarah!  i had really good things about the tour from both seattle locals and nonlocals, so i figured we should give it a go! i bought tickets online although the website was not very quick and took 15 minutes (and counting) to process.  i ended up calling to confirm that the purchase went through.  it had, but did with the wrong date.  they quickly fixed it and i was still given the student ticket price. on the day of, we arrived at the ticket building (for lack of a better word).  they did have a nice little restaurant in there with decently priced drinks.  it looked quite quaint and fun.   at tour time, we were all shepherded into a large room with seating to get the kick off of our tour (~20 minutes).  this gave us the foundation of what we were going to see in the underground.  after this, we left the building and headed ...

yesterday, i went to the experience music project with my friend noah from michigan.  we took the seattle monorail there, which was totally worth the $2 to get there!  it is completely unnecessary as far as public transportation, but was perfect for the start of this visit. the museum is laid out slightly unusually.  we had to "leave" the museum to get to other exhibits.  it was all in one building, but at times, you basically had to leave the museum that you paid through, walk through an area that did not require paid admission to go to another exhibit, which required paid admission.  for example, the avatar exhibit was in a completely separate area of the museum.   the museum name is not quite as representative as it could be.  as described on the website, the museum is dedicated to " the ideas and risk-taking that fuel contemporary popular culture."  the avatar exhibit and battlestar galactic seem a little out of place with the muse...

yesterday, i wandered over to the olympic sculpture park in seattle.  it's the first sort of touristy thing i had done since i arrived for the summer.  i liked it!  it seems to have a great view of puget sound.  yesterday was gloomy, grey and cold, but i can't wait to see it when it is a nice day.   i wish there had been a little more description about the sculptures when you either entered the park or near the sculptures themselves.  it was hard to tell which were the exhibits and which were the more permanent sculptures.  time in park: 2/3 hr times visited: 1 overall: B+

this is way overdue, but i was so far behind on my seattle posts!  sorry, wallace collection!  i was in london for a school project (awesome, right?)!  we landed on sunday morning and the hotel unfortunately, would not let us into our rooms early.  in an effort to kill time and not fall asleep, my roommate, daphne, and i wandered over to the wallace collection .  i had really wanted to visit it because it allowed me to check four new paintings off my 1001 painting list !  the museum is beautiful.  it reminds me a lot of the frick .  it is in this old home (think estate or mansion) nestled in a lovely london neighborhood.  it is a very manageable size.  i wish we had been a little more awake to really enjoy the architectural details of the house.   the paintings inside were beautiful.  i really enjoyed the four paintings from the list!  some of the rooms seemed a little on the crowded side, but the art was beautifu...

this museum was obviously jason's number one choice.  obviously.  after one false start, we arrived at the museum of flight early on friday morning.  we did get a AAA discount on the admissions, which saved us a few dollars.   the museum is basically split into three sections.  we headed over to the general wing first.  this is where most of their random collection of airplanes is kept (versus the other wing has the specialized world war I and II planes).  this section also has their space flight information.  this is where i wish jason would blog for me, since i am sure he would have a much better information and details and excitement about this than i do and would.  i did enjoy the section about the history of stewardesses in the airplanes, style in the aisle .  here are some pictures of the different planes we saw. my neighbor double dated to the prom with him the second wing is mostly the specialized world war II pla...

on this trip, i decided to take in the seattle art museum with my boyfriend, jason.  i was a little hesitant after our vancouver art gallery trip to take him to another art museum.  i even offered for him to view the museum of flight on his own and then meet up with him later!  (post coming later on the museum of flight, so he obviously did not take me up on my offer.   i thought this museum was very well laid out.  it was a few main floors and very easy to flow through each exhibit.  it is structured as you would expect, european art, african art, modern, etc.   i really wanted to go to this museum to see the three paintings they have on my 1001 paintings list!  i was able to quickly identify the museum area to target and was able to easily check the three paintings off the list!  jason also really liked the cars exploding in the lobby .  we were also quite impressed with the large collections of african and first na...

on the first thursday of every month , seattle hosts gallery art tours in the pioneer square district .  since jason and i happened to be in eattle on that date, i just could not help myself. we had to go and "get it out of the way" for my summer in seattle.  we got there as it was starting and i was very impressed at the quantity of galleries that existed in this little area.  i am not sure i would have ever noticed them if not for this tour.  i think we were a little amazed at the variety of people enjoying the art.  we saw serious art collectors to tourists likes us to "hipsters" visiting their artist friends.  it was definitely all over the board.  the galleries also varied from small single artist spaces to large galleries that seemed to have more developed artists.  one of the shows even was of an artist from michigan!  some of the art was quite out there.  jason definitely did not enjoy it.  i would have loved to have spoke...

as soon as we arrived in seattle (just about), we headed to the seattle space needle even with storms rolling through.  it was pretty crazy! the ticket sales are on the outside and actually, sort of difficult to find.  we headed up with just about no line.   it was quite breezy at the top with it swaying back and forth.  the needle has spectacular views at the top.  i also enjoyed that it had sections on the history of the space needle, the different neighborhoods you could view from the top as well information on a number of the different monuments/important places you can see from the top!  there is an indoor portion of the space needle and an outdoor place that is where pictures can be taken.  the gift shop was surprisingly awesome.  i was amazed.  jason bought a ton of seattle stickers for his extra fridge.  i almost bought birthday presents for my father.  the fudge for sale looked delicious.    ...

on our last day in vancouver, we went to the dr. sun yat-sen chinese garden , which was the first chinese garden of its type in north america.   it was this peaceful oasis in the middle of the city.  the area surrounding the garden was pretty seedy including walking right by a man bent over a police car surrounded by cops.  once you stepped foot in the garden, however, it was serene and beautiful.   we followed the tour...we did not, unfortunately, take the tour since our timing was not great to attend one of those.  it did provide enough information in the brochure to really appreciate the garden.  the views were just beautiful.  it was a great little break in the bustle of downtown vancouver.   times visited: 1 time in garden: a little over 1 hour overall: B+

during our walk through stanley park , we went to the vancouver aquarium to check out the dolphins and sea otters and the beluga whales .  it was a drizzling rain and gloomy.   the aquarium has some indoor and some outdoor exhibits, which we did not quite realize going into it.  the aquarium was quite easy to get around and had a number of above tank and beside the tank viewing spots (especially important for the whales and dolphin viewing).   we went to a few different shows, dolphins , beluga whales , seals and sea otters , while we were there.  we loved seeing the large mammals.  the shows were definitely written for children, but we learned some new little tidbits, particularly in the beluga show.  it was also interesting to see the exhibit on the local northwest coast.     the best part (and i cannot believe i forgot to put this part) was the rescued pacific white-sided dolphin, daisy.   if you head to the ...

my boyfriend gave me a book for christmas called the best art you've never seen .  i found the book fascinating since it also lists why you've never seen it!  this was reasons varying from being a private collection to being too "fragile" for viewing! i also have a new update on 1001 paintings you need to see.  i saw 3 in seattle!  you can see the updated list! here is the list !

our first official day in vancouver, we headed to stanley park ! we probably picked what ended up being the worst day to go, but off we trudged.  it was rainy off and on hovering around 32F/0C.  we started walking as cars can drive through the park, so out to the point on the north side of the park.  as we walked through, we stopped at the totem poles, which you can see here.  they are pretty interesting! we walked all the way out to the point to the lighthouse.   we also went to the vancouver aquarium, which is inside the park. overall, i enjoyed the park.  it had maps at often enough intervals.  my biggest complaint was the lack of path clearing anywhere in the park.  we spent the entire time trudging on half melted piles of snow.  times visited: 1 time in park: 5 hrs overall: B+

while i was in vancouver, i also headed to the vancouver art gallery ! i went with my boyfriend, who was not super excited about it to begin with. we arrived at the end of the day and were able to use our student IDs to get a discount on entrance. the museum had been mentioned a few different times in the guidebook and i was pretty excited. when we arrived, the building is quite beautiful. we asked for a map of the museum, but they do not have one. Once we started through the museum, we saw that a map was not really necessary. each floor was on a complete exhibit and the top floor is currently closed. the first exhibit started out as interesting...i hoped it would get betteras we went up. it was a good start. it was an exhibition titled we: vancouver . it was a good view of vancouver values and ideals. some of the ideas were unusual and i have seen similar things discussed in detroit like the urban farms and new urban building development. the next exhibit we visited was ken lum ...

this week, i went to the henry ford museum on friday with my friend kate and her two little kids!  kate has a membership to the museum and the village.  the littlest guy managed to sleep just about the entire museum visit...her other son is 2 and just loved the museum. i had never quite realized what a big place the henry ford museum is.  while we were there, people were walking laps around the outside to get exercise.  we did manage to see most of it although perhaps not with the greatest detail.   we saw the cars, trains, planes, tractors, doll houses and even an oscar meyer weinermobile!   as you can imagine, this is a 2 year old dream day.  i thought the museum had a great mix of things that could be touched and what could not be touched.  the little guy obviously wanted to get in every car, but he did end up having enough things he could climb in, like an old diner, plane, trains and inside a tractor.  a surprise hit was the ...

happy holidays!  over the break, my boyfriend and i decided to go to detroit and check out the detroit science center .  if you can't tell the trend, my boyfriend likes the science, hands on museums.  we headed down there for an afternoon of fun. we got there around 2 and were able to park in the lot right outside the front of the museum.  this parking lot was a "drop the parking money in the box" type of lot, so be sure to have exact change ($5);  otherwise you will need to go into the museum to get it. so, we headed in and checked out the speed section, which had famous cars, boats, motor racing as well as celebratory plaques of famous and innovators in the fields.  we then walked further into the rest of the museum.  we were first struck that a few portions of it were closed for repairs or maybe renovations.  i liked the energy portion about fueling cars.  we then wandered through the health and body section, which was interesting....