Years ago when I was in San Francisco attending a conference, my company actually rented out the entire Asian Art Museum and held an appreciation gala for their customers. So of course I got to attend it. It was one of the most memorable part of the conference. First of, I had never seen such an extensive collection of Asian artifacts. Secondly, because San Fran is known for its Chinese food, we actually had authentic Chinese food catered -- roast pigs, roast duck, dim sum appertizers...you name it. I have to give kudos to the event planners for giving such an authentic feel to the whole event. Finally, being able to browse some of the museum exhibits while munching on such delicious food was just the coolest thing ever.
Anyway, it was so packed that night that I never really got a chance to see the museum in full but I always knew that I wanted to go back and visit it some day. So a couple weekends ago, I suggested to my husband that we tried out the Asian Art Museum. The special exhibit this month and for the next couple months is from Bhutan. Who knew that people in Bhutan were so religious - most of their art work were very influenced by Buddhism. There were actually a couple monks from Bhutan painting their special religious art work (I forgot the name) the day we were there. One thing that really impressed me was these pictures of temples on the side of the mountains in Bhutan. One of these temples is very famous and was even in a Travel magazines a couple months back. Apparently, traveling in Bhutan requires a lot of hiking up these mountains and it's very still costly to travel to there.
In addition to the special Bhutan collection, the museum also has a huge permanent collection of other Asian countries that spans 3 other floors. So it's literally the biggest collection of Asian artifacts and arts I have seen or heard of. I didn't realize how big it was and only alloted 3 and 1/2 hours for the museum. So even though we walked around pretty much non-stop for 3 and 1/2 hours, we only saw part of the China and India collection. Then we had to speed browse the rest of the countries - Japan, Korea, South East Asia, the remaining China, etc.
What I like about this museum is that it has such a variety of things from stoneware to robes to bedframes to scuptures/art work to Chinese carved jade collection, etc.
So needless to say we really do need to go back again some other time this year and spend a whole day next time. Coming up this summer is the Sumarai (sp?) special exhibit -- which should be very interesting!
