The Stateside Adventures of MinkeyMo the Christmas Monkey MinkeyMo the Christmas Monkey and his adventures in America

UC Berkeley Botanic Gardens

Against all expectations (and several weather reports) the sun was still shining today. Marvellous. So MinkeyMo decided to take a stroll to the Botanic Gardens. Well, more of a hike really. Up hills. At least there were some nice lichen-y trees to look at on the way.

In the end, however, it was definitely worth it. What a lovely garden! After getting lost within seconds of starting on the self-guided walk, MinkeyMo found the tropical house and checked out a real Cacao plant. You know, where chocolate comes from:

After leaving the tropical house, MinkeyMo walked all over the gardens, checking out a laurel bush, a Japanese Plume Cedar, many flowering Rhododendrons and Californian Newts! D was chuffed.

Turns out it's Newt breeding season. Here are some Newt eggs. Not good with bacon. Despite bacon being good with everything.

Carrying on with the walk, MinkeyMo was confused by a bunch of monkeypuzzle trees:

That was enough for one day. After finishing the tour through the gardens in the Southern Africa section, MinkeyMo made his way home. Downhill.

SF MOMA

Today MinkeyMo ventured in to SF to check out the very famous and previously elusive Museum Of Modern Art. G was very excited...

What a neat place! Lots of wonderful bits of art were seen and enjoyed, and a whole lot of other stuff merely seen. All agreed that the extremely large gray canvas was just annoying, but the art of Felix Gonzalez-Torres was really quite special.

MinkeyMo liked this one:

After a long hard day of art appreciation, a beer was definitely in order!

Berkeley Campus Adventures

Today was the first day the sun came out in forever! So MinkeyMo decided to take G and meet D for lunch, which required a walk through the Berkeley campus.

There were huuuuuge squirrels eating lunch... UPSIDE DOWN! MinkeyMo thinks they're not right (note red eyes!!)

There were also lots of massive trees:

and leafy bridges with feral students in the background:

MinkeyMo had a look at the Campanile - officially called Sather Tower - supposedly modelled on St. Mark's in Venice:

D likes the tower because they play a 15 minute carillon concert at noon every day (go look it up!)

MinkeyMo also posed for a photo outside D's chemistry department at Lewis Hall. Yes, that Lewis, of Lewis structure fame! Cool!

San Francisco walkabout

So on Saturday MinkeyMo did a bit of a hard slog up and down the streets of San Francisco. He started off in Chinatown (click to view fullsize):

Then he headed off to the House of Nanking for lunch, which was awesome.

In the quest for the elusive SFMOMA, MinkeyMo took a turn past the Palace of the Fine Arts. But first, MinkeyMo had to wear some flowers in his hair:

Finally he got to the PotFA and checked out the ridiculous architecture, said "Howzit" to some chick (you have to squint):

Chilled out on a park bench with D:

After deciding he wasn't going to be bothered looking for the SFMOMA and that G was an idiot for not checking where it was in the first place, MinkeyMo went on a long, very uphill walk back to the BART station to go home.

On his way, he passed the top of Lombard Street which you may recognise from many films, but not from this crappy photo:

Then it was time to go back to Berkeley, where he stopped for a beer and an update on the NFL scores. Which was as boring as you can imagine, although the beer was very necessary after a total distance of 16km walked that day!