Art-a-Whirl 2014

Living inside the city allows us to participate in so many more activities - one of our new favorites happens each spring in Northeast Minneapolis - only a few blocks from Yinghua - Art-a-Whirl is the kickoff summertime festival & lasts 3 days. Hundreds of galleries in NE Mpls participate; there are several stages with live bands, pub crawls, food trucks - it gets really crowded despite taking place over several square miles!

There are several large buildings in NE Mpls that have been converted into studio space - the Northrup King Building is from the seed company of course - 4 stories tall and fully occupied. Awesome place to explore...

Cherry Blossom Season at Yinghua

No cherry trees here in Minneapolis - all the celebrating was done inside at Yinghua:

Triptychs in the hallway outside the 2nd-grade classrooms

For English class, introduction to haiku

All the flower petals are actually thumbprints

Wynn with her poem

More cherry blossoms inside Wynn's classroom

With Chinese poetry hanging from the ceiling

National Train Day

The renovated Union Depot in St. Paul was abuzz today for National Train Day. It's convenient to us (we park there when we go to the Farmers' Market) and it fit into our "take a vacation in the city" plan for the day ... lunch at Obento-Ya, ice cream in St. Anthony, and then take in the sights in St. Paul.

A beautiful day for everything too:

Equipment from the nearby Minnesota Transportation Museum was brought over to Union Depot

Checking out the legroom on this 1950s-era coach...

No air-conditioning on this hot day - I can't imagine it would have been all that warm in winter either. But the colors and metal trim were SO mid-century...

Amtrak had just started service to the Depot - they dropped off some Superliner coaches for people to walk through

More comfortable than the old Great Northern seats!

Checking out the sights from the dining car...