June 17 Chinatown

So today we took an adventure to Chinatown. We started off at the Museum of Chinese in America, or MOCA. I really enjoyed this museum because it was very modern and very interesting. The first gallery that I walked in to was of contemporary art. It was definitely odd, but still pretty cool. They had an exhibit that I wasn't expecting to be there, an LGBTQ exhibit. It was interesting to read the stories of these Asian families that accepted their child as they were. I was somehow surprised by this though, I wasn't expecting it.

Contemporary Art

 The picture below was a part of the LGBTQ exhibit. I really liked the quote that was had written in. I'm not exactly sure who wrote it, but it was really nice. Though the quote is hard to read in the picture the caption below the picture is the quote.

"Do nothing else today, then meditate because you can do nothing if you aren't here. If you can only do 1 more thing, then do yoga because you can take no action if you're not in your body. After that, write...+live+play (guitar)+cook, but always remember you are not what you do- you are far more magical than that."

The Ellis Island on the West Coast

 I was interested in Angel Island also. I figured immigrants traveled to the West Coast, but I didn't think that they had anything like Ellis Island. Angel Island is in San Francisco, and it served the same purpose that Ellis Island did on the East Coast. This makes me wonder if it is a tourist attraction the way Ellis Island is, or is it still in use? The picture below shows a dragon costume. I really liked the design on it, and for some reason it reminded me of the Rugrats cartoon, though I'm not exactly sure why. I think there was something like it in the Rugrats go to Paris movie.

Dragon Costume

Harold Lee Reconstruction

We got to learn about different families throughout the exhibits. I saw a little bit about the Lee family, though I don't exactly remember what I saw, I think the heat is getting to my head. I should really learn to take better notes. At 11:30, we went on a walking tour around Chinatown. I wasn't really interested in this though, it was so hot and humid. I couldn't really focus on our tour guide, and the action of the streets caught my attention more than the tour guide. We went to lunch at the Golden Unicorn Restaurant; it was a Dim Sum chinese restaurant. This experience was definitely unusual. I had never been to a place like this. In the afternoon, we went to the Tenement Museum. This too was really hot and humid and I was not a fan of how the tour was set up. It was almost like we had to initiate the conversation. I may have started daydreaming. My favorite part of the day was dinner. Me, Krista, Michelle, and their friend Shar went to Bubba Gump's Shrimp Co. It was amazing. I had only been there once and it was in Chicago. The food was absolutely delicious, and we even got to play trivia. Though it was a really hot day, we still had some fun at the end of the day. Until tomorrow...