Gobos Lunch Bunch 2009: 2009 Sep 8 - King Tut (San Francisco)

2009 September 8 - King Tut Exhibit at the de Young Museum (San Francisco)

{Click on any photo to view the full size image}

Today just 5 of the 8 members of the Lunch Bunch are headed into San Francisco via BART and Muni to view the King Tut Exhibition at the newly rebuilt de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.

This is the Museum's description of the Exhibition:

More than 3,000 years after his reign, and 30 years after the original exhibition opened in San Francisco, Tutankhamun, ancient Egypt’s celebrated “boy king,” returns to the de Young Museum. In the summer of 2009 the de Young presents Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs, a glorious exhibition of over 130 outstanding works from the tomb of Tutankhamun, as well as those of his royal predecessors, his family, and court officials.

Elsa is picking up Gobo, his wife Sandraton {Sandra, but my younger brother gave her the Sandraton nick name since she has three siblings, all brothers whose names are Walton Creighton and Shelton} and me to head to Grandma's home. From Grandma's we will drive to the North Concord Bay Area Rapid Transit {BART} Station to take us into the City.

Grandma lives in one of those 55+ adult retirement communities.

The red light under the house number is turned on when an ambulance is called to aid the ambulance driver

Grandma showing off her new purchase to cousin Elsa

It is a long walk from the parking lot to the BART Platform still one level up and another walk

The BART route map on the wall

We are departing BART at the Glen Park Station and will get on the #44 O'Shaugnesy which will take us into Golden Gate Park. But first we will have a late lunch/early dinner about a block from the BART Station and Muni Bus Stop. After all this is the Lunch Bunch.

The Glen Park neighborhood of San Francisco has a neat little shopping district located adjacent to the BART Station.

This is a coffee house and on the corner is a bar/bistro

Diagonally across the street is Tyger's Coffee Shop and our lunch destination, Hong Sing Chinese Restaurant

{For any VROCer reading this, Hong Sing was the end point of my auto tour of San Francisco for Kudzu and his wife a few years ago. We had a really nice dinner there.}

The local hardware store

A more upscale dinner restaurant

An upscale pet food store and a cheese boutique

The obligatory neighborhood liquor store

I was a bit hungry and forgot to take photos until we had almost finished eating. The others stopped me from ordering another dish which it turns out was a good thing since we did not finish what we had ordered.

Starting clockwise from the bottom left was the chicken and salted fish fried rice, salted squid with jalapeno peppers, Hong Sing spareribs, snow pea leaves with garlic, steamed filet of sole with green onions and ginger. Each item we ordered had a huge serving.

This is just the daily specials board. The menu itself is pretty extensive.

Our tab is for $46.10 so we add a tip and come up with $11 per person. {plus Gobo chipped in a dime extra}

Then it is time to wander a bit before heading to the bus stop which is a block away.

We pay our $0.75 {Senior rates 65+ have gone up from $0.50 on July 1, 2009} as we board the #44 O'Shaugnesy. The lady driver just blasts along the winding and hilly road.

Since we are all retired folks on a fixed income we have the cheap tickets for the 5:00 PM Twilight Entrance to the Exhibition. We get to the Museum around 3:30 PM. We are really ahead of schedule today which is pretty unusual for us.

No photos are allowed of the Exhibition, so these photos are all of the exterior of the new de Young Museum.

Anyway the entrance to the Exhibition seems empty, so I ask the usher how soon we can go in with our cheap tickets. She tells me that it is so slow that you can go right in. I quickly gather up the others and we head in over an hour early.

After an hour plus viewing the exhibits I leave the others behind in the Gift Shop as I head out to have a smoke.

This is across the Music Concourse from the de Young. It is a photo of the new Academy of Science and Morrison Planetarium.

Back on the bus for our return trip to BART

While waiting for the bus we assist a young Parisian tourist with bus route information to get her back to where she is staying with friends in the Mission District.

Waiting for the BART train to North Concord

Only 3 more minutes to wait

Don't know what they are talking about, but it must be interesting

Heading to the parked car

We get back to Grandma's and she is hungry so reheats the lunch leftovers. But Grandma has baked a chocolate cake so the rest of us have cake and ice cream.