Tag: Reviews

San Francisco Exploratorium

Lutin

We went for a visit to the San Francisco Exploratorium in the Embarcadero pier 15. The Exploatorium teach science, technology, art and math (STEAM) like no place else on earth. Most of the exhibits are one of a kind creations straight from their prototyping workshop designed to engage audiences of all ages. The Exploratorium has over 600 exhibits that visitors can interact with.

Situated in the middle of San Francisco’s piers, it is a perfect walking destinations with lots of sights, food and more to explore!

If you are not up for a walk, there is also a MUNI stop right outside the entrance.

There is a lot to see, if you are only going once make sure to prioritize which exhibits you must see.

Learn about human perception by taking a drink from this unique drinking fountain that is shaped like a toilet.

This is a cloud chamber, a machine that allows you to see particles. The cloud chamber was invented by a physicist named Charles Thomson Rees Wilson in 1911. The cloud chamber is filled with the supersaturated vapor of water or vinegar.

You can even look inside the prototyping workshop where engineers can build prototypes for complicated designs.

This device counts when you turn the first gear using more and more advanced technology. It goes from the ones place counted by a spinning gear, all the way to a computer.

This is a model of the mars rover Perseverance. Its jobs is to look for evidence of ancient life on mars and pick up rock and dirt samples that will be brought to earth in the future. It was launched in 2020 and landed on Jezero Crater in 2021, which used to be a crater lake.

In the far back you can see artifical geysers that go off several times an hour. One of our favorite ways to relax is to take a seat and watch as the pressure slowly rises.

The liquid Litmus display shows how electricity and water relax to create basic (blue) and acidic (yellow) solutions.

Ever dream you can visit Dune? See a desert world trapped under glass ever changing as winds rip across its surface.

Brave the cold and get a great View of San Francisco while eating lunch.

Learn how a heat pump work and burn off some energy in this exhibit. A lot of the exhibits require a bit of elbow grease to work the body as well as the mind.

This exhibit about DNA shows different models of human heads. Each head is modeled after the sane DNA, showing that DNA is not the only factor that decided people’s appearances.

And we finish our tour with vibrating rings showing how vibrational frequencies affect objects like steel rings.

We only showed you a few of the countless exhibits hidden in every corner of the San Francisco Exploratorium. If you plan a visit we strongly recommend staying all day.

Hope you find inspiration!

Sutter’s Fort

Lutin

Sutter’s Fort is around a two hour drive from the San Francisco Bay Area. Built in 1839, it is in the first permanent European colonial settlement in Central California. Sutter’s fort was the economic center of the settlement, it had bakeries, blacksmiths, and other businesses that most people would need. It lost its importance in 1849 when the gold rush caused many people to rush to California, who competed with Sutter’s businesses.

Here is where they made barrels. Barrels were an essential part of frontier life, holding everything from pickles to gunpowder.

And here is our favorite store, the apothecary store, where you could get herbal remedies and cures as well as coffee.

This is the general store, where the settlers would buy everyday objects such as silverware, food, and simple tools.

Here is the carpentry shop. This shop supplied many important things, such as barrels, furniture, and tools. You can see the tools in the background which the carpenters used for woodworking. Many are very similar to modern woodworking tools. We love seeing workshops to get new ideas on how to improve ours.

Hope you find inspiration!

 

Castello di Amorosa

Lutin

Ever wish a medieval castle was just a drive away? In you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can visit Castello di Amorosa. It is in Napa just two hours away.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga

We sometimes need to break from the workshop, and Castello di Amorosa is one of our favorite places to relax and refill our creative well.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga Court yard

The attention to detail is amazing, and they capture the feel of ancient castles in Europe.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga Hall way

Dark and spooky corridors can be found to given you inspiration and chills. Sometimes you can find hidden passageways.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga Knight

Beautiful murals and statues are found throughout the castle. There is so much detail to the murals, and everything is done in the same style as the ancient castles.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga Knight

Here is a suit of armor stand ready for action. In the background you can see a beautiful mural that shows the knights going into battle.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga Gift shop

Everything has the perfect patina to give it a timeless and well-worn look. The tiles in this image are skillfully decorated with intricate patterns.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga downstairs

Here are some more mysterious dimly lit corridors.

Castello di Amorosa: Napa Valley Castle Winery in Calistoga View from the front

The outside of the castle looks just as real. You can see the guard towers and the merlons, and you can even walk along the castle wall. There is also livestock outside the castle.

Hope you find inspiration!

Ku’ia Estate Chocolate in Maui

Lutin

When we visited Maui this year, we found an awesome chocolate plantation, Ku’ia Estate Chocolate. They grow delicious world-class cacao trees (where chocolate comes from) on land that was made useless due to sugar plantations. When the land was used to grow sugar it was stripped bare of trees, the crop was never rotated and tons of chemicals were dumped on it turning the once lush land into a desert. You are read more about Maui’s effort to restore the land here.

Kula Estate Chocolate in Maui

This is what the chocolate farm looks like from above. It is located in Maui on a plot of land that is reserved for agriculture. It looks like an oasis in the desert created by the sugar plantation. Ku’ia Estate Chocolate needed to replant the tropical forest that was once there to block the wind and the hot sun (cacao trees love the shade). They also had to do a lot of work to get nutrients back into the soil making sure to use organic farming methods.

The chocolate starts its life as a tiny flower. They are very delicate, so the wind blockers are extra important to ensure that the flower doesn’t get blown off the tree. Since they are so small, the only insect that can pollinate the cacao plant is the chocolate midge.

The flowers turn into cacao pods. They are ready to harvest when they turn a darker color and get a lot bigger. You harvest them all year round, but the biggest harvests are between May and July, and between October and March, after the rainy season.

These are the Cacao trees. The pods grow on the trunks and thicker branches of the trees because they are very heavy. The trees are currently pretty young because Ku’ia Estate Chocolate hasn’t been around for a very long time.

After the cacao beans are harvested and prepared, they are put through a series of machines to create all the different chocolate creations. Ku’ia Estate Chocolate grows their banana leaves to use for the preparation process, making them more self-sufficient. They also don’t take away any of the natural flavors of the cacao beans, so the chocolate is more nutritious and has a complex flavor. They do shipping so you don’t have to go all the way to Maui to get their chocolate, but going to their cacao farm is a cool experience.

Ku’ia Chocolate has created a whole bunch of unique flavors that they sell in their store, like orange mango guava, lemongrass, and calamansi lime, so you are sure to find a flavor that you love. They even grow the fruit that they use for their flavors on site and it is very fresh.

They also have dark chocolate, milk chocolate, and even dark milk chocolate. Dark milk chocolate is smooth and creamy like milk chocolate, but has a high cacao percentage, making it rich and flavorful like dark chocolate.

Ku’ia Estate Chocolate after only three years of selling has won the 2021 Cocoa of Excellence Gold Award for the Asia Pacific region and the 2022 Good Food Award. They give all of the profits that they make to local Hawaiian non-profits.

There are also tours of their plantation (which we highly recommend) that teach you about the process of making chocolate. The tours end with a chocolate sampling deep in the cacao forest.