museums – Page 5 – thosecoolkims

Mausoleums and Monuments …

Today we headed out to visit the Cemetario de Recoleta, where there are hundreds of the most ornate gravesites you ever seen – the most famous being the grave of Eva Perón. After our history day yesterday, we felt like paying some respects. These graves are fascinating – they are huge and very old, some going back as far as the 1700s. Walking through the grounds is like walking through a concrete maze. Call us morbid, but there was something kinda magical about it. Either that, or it was the kick we were getting out of humming the Haunted Mansion theme song during the stroll (wait, that’s kinda wrong, isn’t it?).

Kinda spooky:

As we mentioned, this is where Eva Perón has been laid to rest. The aisles are narrow and the monuments are huge, so it was difficult to get good pics of the site, but here is her tomb:

We even got a short kitty fix, as there were lots of cats hanging out at the cemetary …

ThoseScaryKims:

We decided to lighten up and go visit the polar opposite of the cemetery – the Floralis Genérica, which is a monument depicting a living flower. It’s pretty amazing actually, and the severe size and materials of it are akin to a Gehry building. The “flower” actually has built in hydraulics that make it open up in the morning, and close at night – just like a real flower.

It really stands out in the park, as it contrasts with the majority of the classic French architecture in Recoleta. We dig it.

Lucky we caught all this today, as its raining again tonight in Buenos Aires!

A Day in Little Tokyo

Today was a fun filled day of art and Japanese wackiness. We headed up to Little Tokyo to catch the amazing Murakami exhibit at MOCA and then on to the Giant Robot retrospective at the Japanese American National Museum. Both were fantastic and made us want to reach our goal to visit Japan sooner than later!

First things first – Murakami. Nothing can be wackier, and nothing made us happier than to see this work being featured at MOCA. The trademark Japanese anime style has infiltrated our culture and shaken things up as much today as all of the big time artists in the pop art movement did in the ’60s. Murakami’s world is a different world alright, and we like it. You feel like a child, but at times the subject matter is very adult. You can’t take pictures in the museum, but we managed to find a few out there on the good ol’ world wide web.

The space was so transformed into this crazy land that the walls in some areas were covered in eyeballs – or flowers – and bright splashes of color were everywhere. Then of course there were the sculpture pieces that looked like space age plastic cartoon characters that were adorable and disturbing all at the same time.

We loved it!

After taking in all of the Murakami madness, we decided to stop by Starbucks – after all, the red cups are here, and Carrie couldn’t be happier!

Next up was the Japanese American National Museum (JANM). We hadn’t been there before, and were glad to finally visit. Giant Robot is a magazine that we’re both big fans of. Basically, it’s an artsy magazine featuring work by edgy artists and art school students that features hip pop culture references and tongue-in-cheek humor. It’s super cool and pure eye candy to look at.

The art was awesome and we were excited that they let us take a few pictures inside.

JANM also has another really interesting exhibit going on at the moment called Common Ground and it has tons of photos, posters and objects telling the story of 130 years of Japanese American history. It was pretty amazing and we both were pretty moved by it.

As it turns out, the museum also has a super cool gift store and we know that one day in the future when there is a cool little baby Kim, we will have to buy this shirt:

All in all, it was an inspiring day – and we say if you haven’t gone out and caught an art exhibition lately – get out there and see something!

We love a great restaurant…

We made plans to finally have a long overdue dinner with Carrie’s best friend, Carrie and her husband, John. She suggested Ketchup, and as soon as we saw the pics, we were IN! Besides the fact that Carrie is a complete ketchup addict, this place was all white and red – and very modern! We couldn’t wait to check this place out. Here are a few pics from their website:

(We sat right about where this picture was taken from)

The restaurant didn’t disappoint, although it was quite a scene. Ketchup is located right on the Sunset Strip. Ed kept sayin’ that he half expected the paparazzi to show up because it seemed like some celebrity was bound to appear. No celeb sightings for us though…

The place wasn’t just pretty, either. The food was pretty good. We ordered some fun stuff – the Ketchup Fries, which were basically 3 different types of French Fries with 5 different ketchups. The Fire Fries were Ed’s fave, the Sweet Potato fries were surprisingly Carrie’s fave, and the Parmesan Fries weren’t bad either. We can’t quite remember all 5 ketchup types, but they were pretty delicious. We know there was a classic, a chipotle, a mango and one with ranch. We also ordered mini Kobe beef chili dogs to share between the four of us. The two dogs came out and they were the funniest little miniature dogs we’d ever seen. They were literally “bite-size”. That was fine by us though, as we needed to save room for the main course…seafood plates served with lobster mashed potatoes. The meal was some serious over-indulgence, but it was worth it!

Next, we were off to the L.A. County Museum of Art for a Muse event. Carrie used to work at the museum, so lucky for us, she was able to hook us up with free tickets. (Thanks, Carrie!)

The event was featuring some 60s & 70s SoCal art from their permanent collection, along with some colonial Latin American art. It was okay – we all agreed we’d seen better there, but Ed was excited because one of his favorite bands, Los Abandoned played. They also had art projects that you could make on site. We love those LACMA events!

All in all, we thought it was an excellent night!!!

We love 3-day weekends.

Yesterday we ventured out to Yen to have Japanese food on 2nd Street. We’re sad to report that it was expensive – and it didn’t taste so great, either. We were very underwhelmed and say if you’re gonna get sushi on 2nd, stick with Apengo.
Yen does get points for presentation though…

And they also get points for a sunny outside location that makes you feel like it’s summertime…

We then decided to venture up to MOCA to check out the Poetics of the Handmade exhibit. It was very, very cool. This exhibit featured all Latin-American artists who made things by hand – and it was really fun to see. 100’s of lipsticks carved into intricate chess pieces, giant atomic structures hanging from the ceiling that you could walk through made of glue and q-tips…it was fun…

Downtown LA is cool though – but there’s always this really eerie feeling about it, because it’s always seems deserted. “Nobody walks in LA…” isn’t just a catchy song, we suppose.

Just a few pics from the day…

SF, Day 2

Today started off with a bang. We got up relatively early with plans to explore. First, Carrie got to indulge in a little retail therapy at a bonafide Benefit Cosmetics store. Benefit is from San Francisco and Benefit is Carrie’s favorite!

So cute. Carrie loves Benefit makeup!

Next we headed up (um, down) Lombard Street because a) it’s the curviest street in the country, and b) it just wouldn’t be a vacation if Ed didn’t have to go on some crazy driving mission. It was cool though, and it gave us a lovely view of the city-by-the-bay. Ed was very excited to drive down this famous street!

After Lombard Street, we hit up SF MoMA. Wow – it was perfect. They had this really cool student exhibition there – California College of the Arts at 100: Innovation by Design – it was AWESOME. We were so impressed by the collection. It was our favorite exhibit of the day, without a doubt. L.A. should be ashamed of itself, MOCA doesn’t even come close!

We shopped around in the museum shop, oogled all the fancy modern merchandise and decided it was time for a cocktail, so we cruised around the corner to the W Hotel for our usual martinis…

Speaking of swanky, now we have to go get ready, ’cause we’re going to fancy dinner at Frisson

Check this place out!