The first two days of this week were fun, fun, fun. Monday we went into San Francisco with Mom, and spent a good chunk of the day at the new California Academy of Sciences. This is an incredible new structure that completely replaces the old Steinhart Aquarium building, designed with the ecology firmly in mind (I wrote more last September).

We went to the new aquarium (the clown trigger is still one of my all-time favorite reef fish), saw the dive show featuring Diver Rick, looked at the rare white alligator (yes, he’s real, though he looks to be made of plastic until he moves)—they still have the original seahorse railing around his pen!, saw the show at the planetarium, walked through the rain forest, and went up on the roof. We could have been there at least two days longer—there was so very much to see—but we had to dash across town for an early dinner at Sinbad’s with my aunt and uncle. Sinbad’s is one of my all-time favorite seafood restaurants in the City. It’s on Pier 2, right next to the Ferry Building, and has a commanding view of the bay and the Bay Bridge, fabulous service, and wonderful food. Yum. We had a lovely meal, and an even nicer visit, while ships came and went, cars crossed the bridge, and the sun went down, lighting the sky and water with brilliant reds. Happy sigh.

The next day, Tuesday, Dave and I got up early, and went back across the bay and back to Golden Gate Park, to see the King Tut exhibit at the de Young across the plaza from where we’d spent the day Monday. As with most major exhibits, cameras weren’t allowed inside, so I don’t have any pictures to show you of that amazing exhibit. You’ll just have to go and see for yourself how incredible this collection is. And it is. It’s truly worth the time and effort to go see it, especially if you’re going to be in San Francisco anyway. After coming out of the Tut exhibit, we went directly to the car to get our cameras for the rest of our visit. Back inside and up in the tower, the new de Young has quite the view: 360° of stunning San Francisco vistas. One of my favorites is of the building across the way that now houses Steinhart, the rain forest, and all that wonderful stuff. You get a really good view of the shape of the living roof from here.

After having some lunch we continued our tour of the museum. We started with the large exhibit from Africa. Wow. Some really amazing stuff there. Toward the end, though, we hurried through it. We got full of seeing masks, costumes, and other things made with human skulls and other bones. Ick. The de Young currently houses quite a few paintings, statues, the sort of things that you’d normally expect in a museum. I loved this statue of a woman. Neither of us found anything at all that mentioned what it is, who she was, or who carved her. Anyone know? Then we saw this cathedral. It was designed with elements from a number of Europe’s cathedrals, and it’s made of parts of guns. Yes, guns. More than 200 guns, and 2,000 rounds of ammunition were used to build it. It’s beautiful, interesting, fascinating, and chilling all at the same time.

After leaving the museum, we decided to try to find one of San Francisco’s hidden gems that we’d found out about while having breakfast at Mel’s on Geary that morning. It’s the Columbarium, built in 1898 and lucky to survive the 1906 earthquake, it is one of the finest pieces of architecture around. It took some doing, and a fair amount of driving in circles, but we found it. It was well worth the effort. From the architecture to the stained glass and mosaic floors, it’s a feast for the eyes, plus it’s still in use.

Staying the extra hour to tour the grounds and all four floors of the Columbarium put us in the midst of rush hour traffic for the trip home, but we made it across the bridge before it had its troubles on the upper deck later that evening. Thank goodness! We were quite relieved to hear that no one was hurt.