Meet us at the Met

Last Saturday we'd seen Asian artifacts at the Natural History Museum.  During the week, one of the students who goes on these Saturday trips had been at the Chinese New Year's festival.  Today, it was Asian art at the Met Museum (http://www.metmuseum.org/).  They loved the trip.  The museum has really expanded its Asian art wing lately - to include an indoor garden and scholar's room and some exquisite decorative arts.  There were so many halls I lost count.

We saw bowls, vases, trays, decorative tables, wall hangings, brush work, implements for making calligraphy, textiles, carvings of bamboo, stone, precious stones, metal, yin/yang of plant/stone in the scholar's garden... endless art from 1500 years ago till almost the present - most of the more modern items were from the 19^th Century.

We topped the museum visit off with the costume wing - high fashion over the years.  It's not what I'd expect two high school boys to want to see, but they were intrigued at the bizarre dresses that have passed for fashion over the past few decades.

I bought them each a guide to the museum - with representations of all the types of art there.  We usually get small souvenirs.  This one was major, but they can not only find what they've seen, but what they might want to see on a subsequent trip.

We had Chinese food last week, so I took them to a Japanese restaurant.  One student has a new favorite cuisine!