Reality vs. Plan, March 28

Reality report for the plan of March 28.

Because we came very early to the cable car stop (9am), there was virtually no line and we sat on the outside seats. Of course, there were people in front of us holding the poles, but that cannot be helped. It was a nice ride up and down the SF hills, that took us all the way to Powell & Market, from which we walked to the Asian Art Museum.

Unlike our first visit, the kids were not as entranced, not surprisingly, as this particular museum material is harder to appreciate for ones so young. We enjoyed looking at the swords, animal sculptures, and of course, going up and down the escalator. Then we wanted to take the trolley back to North Beach, but it was broken. Well.

We took the taxi (we could have taken the metro, but there were 6 of us, and taxi was cheaper and faster) to Rose Pistola (reserved on OpenTable). On this, our third, visit there, we ordered smoked salmon & soft egg appetizer, sweet potato gnocchi with prosciutto, and chicken with asparagus, all very well done. This left us just enough room in our bellies to go next door to Gelateria Naia‎ (Rocher ice cream, mmmmmmmmmmm!). We found that for our family, splitting two entrees, occasionally adding an appetizer or a dessert, is usually a perfect amount of food for four.

We then walked to our garage (we parked at Hilton; we should have looked around the corner for cheaper parking). We did in fact quite a bit of walking, but it was a good day to do that.

After we drove home and put kids down for their nap, we left instructions to my parents, and jumped on the rare opportunity to go to theater. For dinner before the performance, we went to Emile's in San Jose, our second time there, and it was a bit underwhelming. We ordered cream of mushroom soup (good but average), les grenadines des troi roi (supposedly on grilled potato croutons, but in fact on just mashed potatoes), and roasted moscovy duck breast a l'orange with wild rice (solid but unexciting). Certainly, made us wish that we try some place else for the next time. The performance, however, was great. We saw Camelot, which in my haste to find something interesting I took to be a play, but was in fact a musical. The performers were professional, the set design incredible, and the story surprisingly complex (as average musicals go, of course).

Plan for March 28

light posting: grandparents in town

07:30-08:00 get up, get dressed, get breakfast to go
08:00-09:00 drive to garage at 590 Bay St, SF
09:00-09:10 walk to Hyde St. and North Point St. cable car stop (twd Columbus Av, right, left on North Point)
09:10-09:50 take the Powell-Hyde cable car to Powell-Market (end of the line)
09:50-10:00 walk to 200 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94102 (Asian Art Museum of SF) (20)
10:00-11:30 explore the museum
11:30-12:30 take F-line streetcar from 9th & Larkin (or 8th & Hyde) to the end Jones St & Beach St (see stops at http://blog.streetcar.org/assets/uploads/map.html)
12:30-14:00 walk to Rose Pistola (532 Columbus Ave, San Francisco, CA; RESERVED for 1pm)
14:00-15:00 drive home
15:00-17:30 nap time; prepare grandparents for the evening (ask to buy plain yogurt & milk)

evening:
- grandparents: have dinner with kids, walk to the produce store to buy fruits & milk, play, read, sleep
- parents: dinner @Emile's restaurant, Camelot @Montgomery Theater in San Jose

Plan vs. reality, March 21

Pretty smooth sailing. It actually rained (which I didn't factor in), but lucky us - the rain started only when we got into the car to drive home. Woke up pretty late, 8:45am, but plenty of time to dress and eat breakfast. Drove to CDM, parked really close (since we came early), went in for an hour and a half. They have two new exhibits, "Out on a Limb" (looks pretty but there's little to do) and water play. The kids really enjoyed the last one, of course, getting wet despite the aprons.

Upstairs, it was all old stuff, but they both got a huge kick out of a pyramid mirror, where you could see multiple you. I find the museum a bit boring, and it's really a solitary experience at this point: the kids play by themselves, one each, and we just follow them around, occasionally voicing a concern, a warning, or a suggestion. A good place to kill time, and excellent for rainy weather (albeit crowded), but not at all in the list of my favorites.

Then we walked to the Tech, a nice 15-20 min walk and the weather cooperated, bought the tickets for the Flight of Magic IMAX movie, had lunch in the cafe, and played in the store for a few minutes before the show. I took lunch to go, and it was a huge hit: chicken-celery pirozhki (which I heated at home and wrapped in foil and towel), havarti cheese-cream cheese sandwich, baby carrots, campari tomatoes, apple sauce and water. The movie was pretty good, although I wish they spent more time talking about how people learned how to fly (starting with Daedalus, not just Wright Brothers) instead of spending the largest proportion of the movie talking about Blue Angels who were preparing for the air show. The kids enjoyed it, of course, although A. (2.2-yr-old) enjoyed it only the first 20-30 min and spent the rest of the time trying to talk and walk around. Sigh.

We walked back to CDM, spent an hour at the birthday (it was a short event; they reserved the room for an hour), and drove home to nap. Unfortunately, they don't reliably fall asleep at nap time, so whatever we plan for after the nap, often doesn't happen or morphs into something else. As it was today. They played with each other instead of sleeping, so after an hour we separated them into different rooms, meaning they didn't fall asleep until almost 5pm. So I ended up going to Whole Foods by myself, which in this case turned out to be a boon: I was shopping for obscure things for my granola & kids' breakfast biscuits (wheat germ, flax, brown rice syrup, amaranth, rye grain flakes, etc).

After dinner, they wanted to play with flashlights, so we turned off the lights in the living room, handed each a flashlight, and off they went running after each other like crazing and making a "moon" and "sun" on the ceiling (they made me "fall asleep" when it was the moon, and "wake up" when it was the sun).

Reality vs. plan, March 15: Academy and Dumbo

Reality vs. plan report for March 15 (see the plan in earlier post).

When we woke up, my husband told me he has a cold and doesn't feel up to the trip, so off we went, just three of us. I get really tired during such outings, the stress of trying not to lose the kids in the crowd, not preferring one child's desired path over another, making sure they stay together, and answering all questions and pointing out things. With another adult person, you at least get an occasional respite.



Because the crowds at the California Academy of Sciences are not letting up, even though it's been open for 6 months now, we bought the membership and have been coming there an hour before the member hours start. What do we do for an hour? Well, if my husband was with me, we'd let them just run around in the beautiful park-like area between the Academy and DeYoung Museum. Since he wasn't, I took my laptop with me, which is filled with all sorts of digital books for the kids, and we just sat on my sweater on the ground and read. The kids were so engrossed that we didn't even notice the time. This time, we ran straight to the restaurant to make reservation for lunch and straight to planetarium to get the passes. They were for 10:30, so that's what we saw first (right after the short stroll through "Africa"). The show placard warns that it's not advisable for kids under 6, but we decided to wing it anyway, since how can one know if it's true for your kids unless you experience it? Well, if you read the post from yesterday, you can imagine how A. behaved (wiggly and talkative), but L. (more than 2 years below the guideline) of course liked it - it was about space, after all. He knows all the planets, and sometimes remembers other things we talked about (the orbits, lack of water and air on other planets, various spacecrafts, how you get there, etc). He recognized the satellite immediately. Some of the topics were pretty complex, but the show is only 30 minutes, and is certainly enjoyable on various levels of your understanding of the subject. The verdict: know thy child.

Then we skipped the butterfly exhibit, because the lines were huge (and I'm not a big fan anyway), and went down to the Aquarium where we did the usual route (tropical fish, jellyfish, all sorts of weird fish, touched the sea star, admired the alligator and turtle, etc). There were other parts of the museum left, such as the whole "fragile planet"-type exhibits, but we've seen them before, and I thought it was more important to give them time to just run around in the outside courtyard of the museum for 20 minutes until our lunch reservations. Impressively, the host recognized us from last time. Unfortunately, they phased out the incredible mushroom ravioli we all loved last time; so we ordered the new ricotta(?) ravioli (ouch, spicy), tagliatelle with meat, the very enjoyable duck confit salad, and chocolate mousse bombe. Solid 3.5-4 stars out of 5. Then it was time to drive home and nap. Of course, A. fell asleep in the car.

I must say, this is our fourth time to the museum, and it really does not compare favorably with the Field, Smithsonian or NY Museum of Natural History. You'd think there'd be at least one museum of such stature on the West Coast. The Academy, however, is pretty small; the biggest part is the Aquarium, the Natural History part is very bare, and Planetarium with a short show and no related exhibits - hmmm... Of course, since it's the only such museum in the area, we have no choice.

Once we got home and L. got his nap, I didn't feel like going to the mall without my husband even though we really need to buy those spring-weather shoes. So we watched Dumbo (which was scheduled for yesterday). A pretty sweet movie, with none of the stupid contemporary references permeating recent Disney movies, such as Aladdin etc; at one hour long, shorter than most Disney flicks; the end is a bit too capitalistic for my end (so he got rich and that's why no one mistreats him or his mom? feh).


After dinner, we played some hilarious games, such as throwing a pillow to knock A. off his feet (he asked me to do it again and again, for almost 30 minutes), and dropping little people into a chute ("slide", made out of hollow fence post with one side cut out - for a different former project).

Good, albeit more tiring than usual, day.

Berkeley Lawrence Hall of Science

I've been putting off blogging until my camera USB cord arrives, because it's more interesting with pictures. It is, however, taking its sweet time, so I better write before I forget, and illustrate afterwards. (Updated: obviously, it's arrived, hence, pictures).


So, Lawrence Hall of Science.

On the minus side:

It's a bit expensive and has no discounts like AAA

It's a bit far for a regular trip, and unlike CA Academy of Sciences, there's nothing else around there.

The cafe food is bleh.

On the plus side:

Very well designed for young children

Dynamic: exhibitions change often

Inside and outside play/exploration areas

Great view of the bay and the bridge

We started off exploring the "free" areas next to admissions booth. The kids are too young to really understand the math games, but they liked manipulating the objects. I tried to get my oldest L. (3.6 years) interested in the Towers of Hanoi; he could understand the rules, but apparently not the solution. Still, it was fun for a bit to see him grapple with it. Then we played a bit in the toddler area with its soft construction blocks, pyramid mirror, and the wall track for little balls.



We spent quite a bit of time outside, with L. exploring the stream and throwing things in the water to see them flow, and with A. (2.1 years) excavating with two shovels. L. found a stick, first pretending it's his tail, and then, his weapon.

Then we went back inside to explore the water play area which shows various uses and effects of water, huge rotating Earth, and new exhibition of Grossology (excellently produced).

At 12:30, we left for Mezze in Oakland. Pretty good food, although smaller portions than we were expecting and brunch menu as opposed to lunch I was expecting. We ordered a burger, a smoked salmon and bagel plate, two scrambled eggs on the side, and a chocolate croissant pudding. We shared everything as always. The pudding turned out to have a bit of alcohol in it, marking this the second time we gave them alcohol (inadvertently, obviously).

Then we walked back to the car and played in the playground right next to it (a block away from the restaurant).

Drove home. Good day.