today was pretty packed and fun :)

the weather was gorgeous again and so i went downtown. the goal? to see the seattle art museum. as i was headed there, some guy off the street came and started on this elaborate story of how his car got towed and he was a diabetic and just came out of a diabetic seizure and his wife was just across the street but i couldn't see her and etc etc...i had to stop him and ask exactly what he wanted. he wanted $20 for gas. somehow i was feeling like a philanthropist and thought i would give him something (but not $20 because dude, that's a lot of money to me and he doesn't exactly NEED it). was i cheated? probably but sometimes it's nice to see someone just helping someone else out when asked. :)

seattle's art museum was nice though! (just a note to all art-museum-goers, the pass here is also a pass for the seattle asian art museum if used within a week.) they had art from japan, korea, the near east, china, africa, natives, and a plethora of blown glass and american/modern american stuff. japan's collection was nice (they have tea ceremony demos on occassion but not when i went). korea's involved a lot of tiger paintings -- something about power. the exhibits I enjoyed most were those of China and the blown glass. The Chinese exhibit had a study laid out, a large stone horse, various artifacts (i.e. finger nail protectors, seals, pendants, hair pins, bi's, bowls, belt buckles, etc). I thought it was a very small sampling of artifacts since these were rather trivial things in comparision to EVERYTHING China had to offer but they were still lovely to look at -- the best handicrafts amongst all the cultures on display -- but then again, i might be biased ;) What's funny is that at some point i walked into a new display room and disliked everything in it. Looking around, I found what the room was curating: american art. go figure :) (again, i'm biased though). Second funny thing is that i blatantly disobeyed museum rules by taking a picture and talking on the cell. *sigh*. not deported yet but i'm working on it. :)

Moving on... my next love in life: food. today i was having lunch and had this idea to critique all the places i go to eat (i usually have good things to say) but sure...there's a lot of critics already out there. what would be so special about my critiques? well...not much. i would blog-format it, not get paid, and if there were people who miraculously wanted to give me money, it would be donated to a charity working to feed those that don't have enough. I was even going to call it The Food Project...only to realize that's already taken. long story short, i have a lot of silly ideas and i guess this goes into that pile. but i must say that food is still a big thing for me :) so...here goes with my daily food rantings...

Bambuza Bistro: viet food but probably with a little north-american touch (and no pho). I had garlic-spiced chicken on rice noodles with a spring roll (mainly because it was the cheapest entree at $8). Luckily, it tasted REALLY good -- that, plus i love viet rice noodles and spring rolls. Also had a Hawaiian blend iced tea and although refreshing, wasn't as effective as I would have thought. To me, i think Nestea (or equiv) when i order iced tea. For a brief moment there, i forgot iced tea in the US is not sweetened and to all those like me who like sweet, use sweet & low rather than equal since the latter has aspartame. (but it's still up to you. both are easy to dissolve in a cold drink which is why i like them instead of regular sugar). after this lovely meal in a restaurant i've wanted to try for a while, i headed over to the seattle art museum (above) and so went my day :) (I have pictures and looked like an idiot taking pictures of the venue and food but dah well -- remind me to post them when i get pics uploaded!)

Lastly, go to Gelatiamo for some EXCELLENT ice cream (great for a hot day). Prices are bit high ($3.20 for a small with taxes included). The small is 2 scoops and that means 2 flavours. I had spar...uh...i don't remember. it was sweet cream with chocolate shavings (that's what i was told) and frap...uh...(some berry thing). they went really well together (not too sweet or too creamy since the two offset each other), though I did have a preference for the cream + choco one :) hey -- ice cream is ice cream. you can never go wrong.

and....so goes my tale of the day. :)