Museum Hopper

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+