Celeste's Creations: King Tut and The Japanese Tea Garden

I know the title of this blog sounds like a bad D-list movie, but it was actually a great day in the SF city in late March. My best friend Sarah gave me 2 tickets to go see the King Tut exhibit at the De Young for my birthday back in October. We had gone to the exhibit a few years back in LA (a long action packed weekend that was). So I decided I should take my niece, Jasmine to see it as she just finished learning about the culture in school. Now everyone knows you can't go anywhere with Jasmine without her mom, Fonda, so her and our mom also tagged along, as I took a day off from work to avoid the crowds.
I don't have any photos from the actual exhibit as they don't allow photos of course. But for anyone who hasn't had the opportunity and it comes to a town near you, I highly recommend going to see it. I remember as I kid looking through the book of Pharos from when my parents (and I guess me too) went to it in LA in the 70s, when I was too young to remember. But I remember be fascinated by this strange world and not believing these people actually existed. I was attending a private Christian school at the time, so I never learned about this fascinating world that lived and worshiped the sun gods.
The extensive array of more than 130 extraordinary artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun and other ancient Egyptian sites features 50 of Tutankhamun's burial objects, including his royal diadem and one of the four gold and precious stone inlaid canopic coffinettes that contained his mummified internal organs. (ok I stole that from the website) and doesn't include many of the items shown in the original 1970s exhibit. It was amazing to see all that gold and ivory artifacts that existed back then and was included in the Boy King's tomb (sorry Jason, he is the original boy king). I couldn't imagine the excitement of finding all these gems hidden in the tomb. It was narrated by Omar Sharif, who has the perfect voice over for this world. You get to see items they packed in his tomb and others for them to take to their next life, such as games to play, mirror and makeup and riches beyond imagination.
In the last gallery (there are 11) you get to view five actual pieces found wrapped in linens with the mummified King Tut'6 layer coffin. It's on a grand scale that couldn't be imagined by today's standards at all.
At the end, you of course are lead into the gift shop where you can buy anything you can think of putting an Egyptian spin. I thought Jasmine and Fonda did a great King Tut impression.

Afterward we decided to head over to the Japanese Tea Garden. Of course it was another perfect day to visit one of my favorite spots in the city. The flowers were in bloom and the sky was overcast, making for perfect photography of this serene sight. I did think it's odd that they don't take atm or credit cards for the entry fee, but you can use them to purchase tea or soda inside. We scrapped together enough money to get us all in and then we wondered the grounds until it was closing. We hit NO traffic coming or going and had a relatively fight-free day between Fonda and Jasmine. Below are some of photos from the Japanese Tea Garden