Live Large, Think Big: Drizzle in Dallas

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May 28th 2007

Published: August 6th 2007

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Pioneer Plaza, Dallas

Bronze longhorn sculptures, celebrating Texas' rich heritage. A reminiscent of our Savannah Studio 2001 trip, six years ago.

Friday, May 25th, 2007 - Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas

Gas prices are expected to reach its peak during this Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial starting date for 2007 summer traveling season for millions of Americans. According to today’s edition of USA Today, 1 out of 8 Americans are traveling more than 50 miles from their home this weekend; a staggering number of 38 millions travelers, of which 32 millions are driving with their gas-devouring motorized vehicles. I found myself being caught among the rest 6 millions American travelers who opted for air transportation this weekend.

Either way, gasoline demand is at its highest, and I witnessed the average gasoline price in Atlanta to be $3.11/gallon, compared to $3.24/gallon nationally.

Waiting for my 5:10pm flight departure from Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to Dallas/Fort Worth, I was executing my newest routine at my home base airport: after passing through the arduous security checkpoint line, I rode the circulation train to Concourse E International terminal, grabbed a cup of Starbucks (surprisingly, this is where the only Starbucks sighting I’ve seen in this huge airport), and walked around among international travelers to catch some buzz of excitement from recent abroad trips from returning

Dallas Farmers Market

Fresh produce market to support local farmers.

U.S. residences and visiting foreigners alike.

I spotted a smiling Delta pilot, waiting for his cup of Starbucks. After some quick friendly greetings, we started to talk while waiting for our orders to be completed. ‘So, where are you flying off to today?’ I finally burst out my itching question. Surely this is an International Concourse, so it was a good chance for hearing an interesting, exotic, adventurous destination somewhere in the globe. ‘Athens’ he grunted. Ah, that was boring, I thought. Having lived in Georgia for a couple of years at this point, my initial thought was the college town of Athens, Georgia, the home of University of Georgia, only a couple hours of driving east from Atlanta. Unless, a quick thought came across my mind, he meant was … ‘Greece?’ My eyes wide open. He grinned and nodded. I mumbled a familiar envious remark ‘I always wanted to go to Greece’, I paused, ‘but I am going to Dallas this time’. He shrugged and sighed ‘I wish I was traveling to Dallas instead. But enjoy Dallas anyway!’ I looked at him and wishing that we could trade places, I’d give anything for it. By that time, our

Memorial Day

Celebrating our past, present and future struggles as a country. Pioneer Cemetery, Dallas.

coffee orders were completed and we said our ‘Bon Voyages’ and went our own ways to respective gates (mine was the glamorous Gate C2).

Every seat on my Airtran 114 nonstop service from ATL to DFW was sold out.

My buddy Ryan didn’t change for a hair since last time we had seen each other. Red haired, broad shoulder, vivid green shirt - even the dull Dallas/Ft Worth Airport became a brighter place, contrary the drizzling weather of Dallas that had been continuously pouring its fat drops to the earth.

After a quick hug and catching up some recent updates, we opted to have dinner at Ft. Worth’s Sundance Square; Ryan’s quick internet research brought us to Piranha: Killer Sushi, and a closure of Tiramisu dessert from Cheesecake Factory.

If I never visited Dallas before, I would have guessed that this city must be a monsoon hot spot, rainforest region of the world. It had been raining since my flight landed in DFW airport, through the night and although it hadn’t been a constant rain, but some drizzles, cloudy and a minute of sunshine seemed to hinder us to do more outdoor activities.

And the

Japanese style dinner

A bowl of appetizer noodle at Piranha: Killer Sushi restaurant, Ft. Worth.

weather had been in a similar fashion in the past three weeks, and showed no sign of improving anytime soon.

But, I thought to myself, after all, the main reason I visited Dallas this time was to relax instead of sightseeing, and this marked the second year of my ‘visiting Dallas for Memorial Day weekend’ tradition, which was established last year in 2006 by helping out Ryan’s relocation to the Lone Star State for graduate school.

Saturday, May 26th, 2007 - Dallas, Texas

Live Large. Think Big.

- City of Dallas, TX motto

We started off this morning at 8 with a five mile morning run along Dallas’ trendy Katy Trail, which conveniently accessible from Ryan’s apartment backyard. It was a foggy and humid morning, having rained on for the past three weeks or so, but miraculously the soft surface trail was dry when we dashed along the Trail - as the result, we managed to have a good workout in the busy trail system.

But Dallas weather this weekend was awful - it started to pour down again as soon as we stepped indoor.

As a pre-arranged itinerary for today, we drove to Dallas Museum

R2-D2 aka Artoo sighting

R2-D2 themed USPS mailbox in Sundance Square, Ft. Worth to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Star Wars.

of Nature & Science to see the controversial Gunther von Hagen’s morbid Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies. For those who are not familiar with the subject, it was the same ‘authentic’ exhibition as seen on recent Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007: Casino Royale Miami’s Body Worlds exhibition. There are many ‘fake’ exhibitions along the same theme, according to its official website, but the one we visited was the real one.

The tickets we had purchased online started off with an IMAX presentation, consisted of ’Dallas: A Unique Place in Time’ presentation which highlights the City of Dallas, Texas panoramic views, and the subsequent ’The Human Body’ with its science outlook on how certain human body system works such as respiratory, embryo development and congestion systems. It certainly was an interesting production, but the highlight of everybody’s visit to the Museum today was the Body Worlds itself.

Von Hagen, a Polish, invented Plastination method in 1977, a break-through method of specimen preservation by injecting active polymers inside individual cells that would be hardened like plastic. It was an extremely controversial matter, as many argued that human bodies should not be treated ‘disrespectfully’ - real human

Body Worlds exhibition

Unfortunately, the 'no photograph' rule is strictly enforced at the exhibition. This is the only picture I have from our handout brochure.

cadavers are preserved, dissected, and displayed for the name of science and art. It had been a controversial matter for centuries (i.e. church v.s. science), notably in Leonardo Da Vinci’s morbid habit of exhuming dead cadavers to study human anatomy. Interestingly, von Hagen even offered to preserve the body of Pope John Paul II, which all we know by now, was sneered on and rejected by the Holy See and Catholics around the world.

Unfortunately the exhibition’s no-photograph rule was strictly enforced, so I had to be satisfied just by walking through all five rooms full of human cadavers and specimens without taking any pictures. It definitely had some macabre displays, as cadavers were stripped from their skins and they were arranged as basketball player, gymnast, dancers, ice skaters, and even a horse and its rider holding out both his own brain and the horse’s. Vivid reddish color of human flesh, muscles, and ivory bones, skulls filled up our minds.

No pun intended, but from looking closely, they reminded me of rare steak and beef jerky, and I wasn’t sure I would eat the aforementioned food ingredients in the near future. Although there was no unpleasant smell from

You know you're in Texas

... when you start seeing this flag almost everywhere you lay your eyes on.

the cadavers, I thought I had enough seeing these preserved specimens towards the end of the exhibition, and was more than ready to carry on with the day.

In one corner, they dedicated a range display for smokers with their darken lungs, I had to rejoice that I am not a smoker - those of black lungs were not something you’d love to have inside you.

As I learned through the exhibition, these individuals free-willingly donated their bodies for Plastination, so no harm was done. They even had a booth for visitors to sign up to become a donor, if you’re interested in being preserved and displayed as these 400+ individuals.

Our next activity turned out to be a shopping mall visit, as I discovered a little too late, and I found myself pondering on America’s notorious consumerism at Dallas’ North Park Mall stores. It was a humongous shopping mall, with almost every brand name stores represented in the complex. People of all ages, mostly youngsters and teenagers, filled up the mall’s stores, holding up bags of their newly purchased treasures.

We spent the rest of the evening with hanging out with Ryan’s good friends in

Cacti

Indoor planting at the North Park Mall, Dallas. Who would have guessed that my first Cactus sighting in the Lone Star State is inside a shopping mall.

Dallas, including Eddie’s and Adam’s playful beagle Parker who greeted me since the front door. Oscar and Mario joined us for dinner at the Texas Land & Cattle Steak House before Eddie, Adam, Ryan and I went out bar hopping for the night.

Sunday, May 27th, 2007 - Dallas, Texas

Today was a declared slow day for us, as we were strolling lazily around the Victory Park and the W Hotels - Dallas Victory in Downtown area. Dallas’ murky and drizzling sky wasn’t improved much; fortunately Ryan retracted his umbrella from inside his car. We managed to confidently enter the exclusive W Hotel Pool level on the 16th floor; I guess all the hotel staff mistakenly mixed us as hotel guests. Reminiscent of chic Puerto Madero of Buenos Aires came into our senses, as the gray granite hardscape meets the metal and glass architecture jutting into the sky.

As expected, Kassi’s pool party turned out to be an indoor event, even though we were still utilizing her swimming pool grill to cook some traditional Memorial Day hotdogs. Rain was still drizzling down, and we had too much food - nobody even could finish Ryan’s famous Hawaiian

Indoor planting at the North Park Mall, Dallas

I'm more interested in the Godiva store at the background!

Dip.

We used the fugacious period of sunshine to sunbathe around the swimming pool as intended, and unfortunately the idea of having Ryan swimming in his clothes was unapproachable, albeit we already had his cell phone and wallet secured in a dry, safer location.

After getting back into Ryan’s apartment, a short nap became a four hour slumber, as we even missed out another session of going out. We decided to stay home instead and watched Tom Hank’s Cast Away, which I had not seen since its debut in mid 1990s.

Monday, May 28th, 2007 - Dallas, Texas (Memorial Day)

It wasn’t a big surprise to wake up and see Dallas’ gloomy sky, as it had been in the past three days.

Damn weather, of course I have to complain.

Due to lack of planning, which was was intentional, I opted to visit two places I had visited in the past: Dallas landmark of Reunion Tower (which had to halt; observation deck was closed for Memorial Day), and the Pioneer Plaza, where several dozens of bronze longhorn sculptures were ‘running’ across the vast park to a small creek, being hurdled by three oversized

Contemplating America's Consumerism 1

A visit to Men's Express Store at North Park Mall, Dallas.

bronze cowboys.

It brought back memories of the Savannah Studio 2001, when we had stopped by at this very Plaza and executed our tedious sketching assignments, and I had witnessed a older lady falling into the water from series of stepping stones. See What I like about Texas entry.

Amazingly, Dallas stopped rain for about an hour, allowing us to stroll around the Plaza and to the adjacent Pioneer Cemetery where Dallas founders' and citizens’ final resting places were established, and to the nearby Dallas City Hall. It also gave us enough time to drive to the Dallas Farmers Market and walk to one of the sheds, before finally giving it up and sky was wide opened - torrential rain was pouring down from up above, and we had to wait among the heaps of neatly arranged fresh produce all around us - tomatoes, bell peppers, eggs and fruits; and we tried several samples of mouthwatering cantaloupes, pineapples, and watermelons.

It finally receded and we were able to hop around from one dry spot to the next to get into our car. Puddles of water were everywhere.

We managed to meeting up again with Eddie and

Contemplating America's consumerism 2

A visit to Puma Store @ North Park Mall, Dallas.

Adam for a quick lunch at West Village’s Mi Cocina, and Paciugo - Italian Gelato Renaissance before finally being dropped off at the airport for flying off from wet, moody and gray Dallas.

I rested my case in Dallas and went home; I wish Atlanta had more rain like Dallas this weekend to fill up our 11 inches below average deficit in our ground water system.

Additional photos below

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