Sunday, March 22, 2009

SF Weekend Day 1: At the museum with YSL, Mootisse and Pigasso


I went to San Francisco for my annual spring visit with Ella and Tyler. I love San Francisco, and I was especially looking forward to showing Ella more of the city now that she's getting older and can easily walk around. I arrived late on Thursday night and woke up early Friday morning (no need for an alarm clock with Ella around). We had decided that Tyler would go to daycare and Ella and I would have a special day to ourselves.
Ella and I started our adventure with breakfast at Cafe Murano across the street. Ella learned a new word to go along with a delicious start-- a "croi-ssanT" as Ella said very clearly enunciated. We then hopped into a taxi for Ella's first cab ride, which she enjoyed immensely. She loved looking through the window and seeing all the cars go by, and engaged our cabbie in conversation, asking him if this was his car.
After waving goodbye to the cab driver, we picked up our tickets at the De Young museum to see the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit, which ends in early April. I was looking forward to seeing the exhibition, as San Francisco was the only American stop of the tour. Ella and I looked at all of the beautiful clothes, and Ella was especially enthralled with the videos of the fashion shows. The funniest part was when Ella asked if we could go downstairs to see "Mootisse and Pigasso." Last year I gave Ella a book I found at MoMA titled "When Mootisse met Pigasso." It is a cute introduction to the world of modern art, and tells a somewhat fictional tale of the rivalry and eventual close friendship between Matisse and Picasso. I was especially happy to hear that the book and its topic had stuck with Ella.
So, at Ella's request, we went downstairs to look at the art, and then went outside to enjoy the sunshine and look at the sculptures surrounding the museum. Ella loved a sculpture of a boy playing the flute. She likes to imitate him by wiggling her fingers in front of her and pretending to blow into a flute.
We then took a cab back to Filmore street and the MMJ store. Ella showed off her very fashion-forward look by mixing and matching the stripes on her pants to her striped coat. Ella likes to touch all of the clothes and then twirl in front of the ceiling to floor mirrors. She then made me laugh again with her very direct and clear request: "I want to eat and then go home." So Ella and I had a great lunch together at Osaka, where Ella impressed me by eating tons of vegetables. We started off with sharing a salad, and then Ella ate some of my rice and teriyaki salmon, and about half of my vegetable tempura with eggplant, sweet potato, carrot and zucchini.
We both needed a nap after our busy morning!




2 comments:

heatherp said...

An excellent day with Ella: I think she may be a budding fashionista thanks to her Auntie Kelly.

Jasmine said...

Yes, an excellent day indeed. I would have liked to have that day on Friday!!

That's hilarious about Mootisse and Pigasso. With her cab ride, art museum visit including haute couture, a visit to MMJ and a bento box lunch...Ella is definitely a cultured little person worthy of calling herself a San Francisco girl.