Of Ancient History and Southern Cookin'
This past weekend, my family and I went down to Atlanta to see two exhibits that happened to be in town at the same time: one on King Tut and the excavation of his tomb, the other on Shi-Huang Qi and his terracotta army.
First off, we went to Asheville. Dad had some kind of Farm Bureau dinner thing to go to where they handed out plaques and told the agents how all the great stuff they did last year no longer mattered, so get to sellin'. We decided to continue on from there to Atlanta instead of going another weekend since Asheville is closer to Atlanta than Statesville is, so I got a hotel room for my sister and I, and up we went. Through Hotwire, I managed to snag a double room at the Holiday Inn on Tunnel Rd. (right up by the tunnel, actually) for fifty bucks. Fifty bucks for a two-bed room in a brand new hotel with a gym, an indoor/outdoor pool, a restaurant, and flat-screen TVs in every room. I had zero complaints, obviously, and left a very good review.
While Mom & Dad were at their shindig, my sister and I got dinner at the Brew 'n View and saw "Slumdog Millionaire" at the Fine Arts Theater downtown. I didn't know this, but apparently they serve beer & wine at the Fine Arts Theater. It's somehow really funny to me to see people drinking wine out of those little plastic cups they serve you punch in at receptions. The movie was very good, though. Apparently it won some Golden Globes, too, which is well-deserved. I don't know a lot about India's history, so I had to ask my sister once what was going on, but it doesn't exactly matter. There's a riot after Indira Ghandi is killed and a bunch of Hindu Indians bum-rush the slums where Muslim Indians live. It's tangential to the plot, to a degree, but it was nice to know. The basic premise is that the main character gets onto the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" and every question relates back to his life in some way, so you see his entire life told through flashbacks as he answers the questions. Definitely worth renting.
Saturday morning, we got up (early) and set off down to Atlanta on a back route through the mountains of South Carolina (all three of them) that I learned a few years ago while living up in Asheville. It saves time versus following I-26 to Spartanburg and you get to drive through the country off the interstate for a ways. I prefer doing that, but it's not always an option when you have a deadline.
The King Tut exhibit was absolutely fascinating. It went through the different dynasties and kingdoms of ancient Egypt, the statuary, the funerary practices, their religion, the "heresy" of Akhenaten, Tutankhamun's return to the traditional religion, and all of that. Then, it got to how Tut's name and legacy were almost obliterated and that the hasty relocation of his tomb to the unusual spot in the Valley of the Kings kept it basically undisturbed for more than 2000 years. And finally, it went into Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb back in the 20s. A fantastic exhibit, all told. The audio tour was even narrated by Harrison Ford and Dr. Zahi Hawass. My sister and I geeked out a little at that.
The exhibit is going to be at the Atlanta Civic Center until May 25, and is definitely worth seeing.
After that, we checked into our hotel (a Red Roof Inn, not as fancy-pants as the hotel from the previous night) and walked across downtown to the Georgia Aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola. We democratically decided to see the World of Coca-Cola instead of the aquarium; it was OK. It's really exactly what you'd expect from a museum of soft drink memorabilia run by the company that makes said soft drink. Several of the employees were just a little too enthusiastic, if you ask me, but there were some interesting bits in there. The highlight, of course, is getting to taste Coke products from all over the world. It's not different formulations of Coke, but different products they make, flavors of Fanta, specialty regional soft drinks, stuff like that. They all tell you to try "the Beverly from Italy" like it's some kind of rare delicacy, but it's really more of a love-it-or-hate-it drink that I wasn't impressed with. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. And Inca Kola is nasty, even though I love the name.
For dinner that night, after all that soda, we ate at a place called Mary Mac's Tea Room. If you like food, go here. It's all sorts of Southern food, made fresh, and it is all fantastic. They shuck the corn every morning, so the creamed corn is all corn and no milk. The collard greens have almost no stems in them. I don't even like okra, and their fried okra wasn't bad. The Gulf shrimp were plump and succulent. I'm telling you, everything here is delicious. Don't eat lunch, just go about 4:30 or so and get an enormous dinner. And carry a cooler with you to take dessert home in.
Cracker Barrel tries to taste like home-made and occasionally comes close. This, this is the real stuff. Even my vegetarian sister thought this place was great, and she and I rarely agree on what good food is. And when you go, ask for your free potlikker. It's the juice from cooking turnip greens, seasoned with ham, and served with cornbread. I couldn't have it (because of the ham), but my dad said it was great.
The exhibit on the terracotta army was astounding. It started with the kingdoms in the Warring States period and showed how Ying Zheng steamrolled his army right over all the neighboring kingdoms and united them under the banner of Qi. It went into how he unified every aspect of daily life across all the former kingdoms: money (with a coin design used until the 20th century), bureaucracy, legal code, military conscription, roads, even the width of chariot and cart axles. The man was driven to rule the world and he succeeded pretty well.
The ceramic army is not a military asset, though. It's part of his enormous, unbelievably-elaborate tomb. He had an entire artificial mountain built up over his burial chamber, which is rumored to have a ceiling studded with stars, gardens, palaces, and rivers & lakes made of liquid mercury that mimic the rivers & lakes of real China. They haven't excavated the burial chamber itself yet, for fear that they would irrevocably damage it. So, all the artifacts came from the area under the mountain outside the central chamber. There was an army of thousands of unique soldiers: archers, infantry, cavalry, charioteers, officers, generals, each one made and painted by hand. There was an entire circus of performers: jugglers, dancers, strong-men. There were musicians with instruments, set to play for bronze birds perched in an artificial stream made by diverting an existing river's course partially under the mountain. And why did he have this entire kingdom underground? Because he wanted to rule forever. Once he died, he would enter into the afterlife and rule over this model version of his empire with the rule of his bureaucrats (there were scribes and administrators made of terracotta, too) and the might of his army.
This was completely worth seeing, and I sort of regret not getting the audio tour so I could spend more time looking at the artifacts while listening to their description. It was all absolutely engrossing, and this exhibit (the largest collection of artifacts from this dig seen anywhere outside of China) will be at the High Museum of Art until April 19. It, too, is worth every single penny.
I wanted to stop at the Fry's on Pleasant Hill Rd. (I think) because it's the only one I know of on the eastern seaboard, but we didn't have time. We had to get my sister back home so she could pack up and leave for school. Oh, well. I guess I'll just have to make a special trip down there to eat at Mary Mac's and shop at Fry's.
First off, we went to Asheville. Dad had some kind of Farm Bureau dinner thing to go to where they handed out plaques and told the agents how all the great stuff they did last year no longer mattered, so get to sellin'. We decided to continue on from there to Atlanta instead of going another weekend since Asheville is closer to Atlanta than Statesville is, so I got a hotel room for my sister and I, and up we went. Through Hotwire, I managed to snag a double room at the Holiday Inn on Tunnel Rd. (right up by the tunnel, actually) for fifty bucks. Fifty bucks for a two-bed room in a brand new hotel with a gym, an indoor/outdoor pool, a restaurant, and flat-screen TVs in every room. I had zero complaints, obviously, and left a very good review.
While Mom & Dad were at their shindig, my sister and I got dinner at the Brew 'n View and saw "Slumdog Millionaire" at the Fine Arts Theater downtown. I didn't know this, but apparently they serve beer & wine at the Fine Arts Theater. It's somehow really funny to me to see people drinking wine out of those little plastic cups they serve you punch in at receptions. The movie was very good, though. Apparently it won some Golden Globes, too, which is well-deserved. I don't know a lot about India's history, so I had to ask my sister once what was going on, but it doesn't exactly matter. There's a riot after Indira Ghandi is killed and a bunch of Hindu Indians bum-rush the slums where Muslim Indians live. It's tangential to the plot, to a degree, but it was nice to know. The basic premise is that the main character gets onto the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" and every question relates back to his life in some way, so you see his entire life told through flashbacks as he answers the questions. Definitely worth renting.
Saturday morning, we got up (early) and set off down to Atlanta on a back route through the mountains of South Carolina (all three of them) that I learned a few years ago while living up in Asheville. It saves time versus following I-26 to Spartanburg and you get to drive through the country off the interstate for a ways. I prefer doing that, but it's not always an option when you have a deadline.
The King Tut exhibit was absolutely fascinating. It went through the different dynasties and kingdoms of ancient Egypt, the statuary, the funerary practices, their religion, the "heresy" of Akhenaten, Tutankhamun's return to the traditional religion, and all of that. Then, it got to how Tut's name and legacy were almost obliterated and that the hasty relocation of his tomb to the unusual spot in the Valley of the Kings kept it basically undisturbed for more than 2000 years. And finally, it went into Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb back in the 20s. A fantastic exhibit, all told. The audio tour was even narrated by Harrison Ford and Dr. Zahi Hawass. My sister and I geeked out a little at that.
The exhibit is going to be at the Atlanta Civic Center until May 25, and is definitely worth seeing.
After that, we checked into our hotel (a Red Roof Inn, not as fancy-pants as the hotel from the previous night) and walked across downtown to the Georgia Aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola. We democratically decided to see the World of Coca-Cola instead of the aquarium; it was OK. It's really exactly what you'd expect from a museum of soft drink memorabilia run by the company that makes said soft drink. Several of the employees were just a little too enthusiastic, if you ask me, but there were some interesting bits in there. The highlight, of course, is getting to taste Coke products from all over the world. It's not different formulations of Coke, but different products they make, flavors of Fanta, specialty regional soft drinks, stuff like that. They all tell you to try "the Beverly from Italy" like it's some kind of rare delicacy, but it's really more of a love-it-or-hate-it drink that I wasn't impressed with. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. And Inca Kola is nasty, even though I love the name.
For dinner that night, after all that soda, we ate at a place called Mary Mac's Tea Room. If you like food, go here. It's all sorts of Southern food, made fresh, and it is all fantastic. They shuck the corn every morning, so the creamed corn is all corn and no milk. The collard greens have almost no stems in them. I don't even like okra, and their fried okra wasn't bad. The Gulf shrimp were plump and succulent. I'm telling you, everything here is delicious. Don't eat lunch, just go about 4:30 or so and get an enormous dinner. And carry a cooler with you to take dessert home in.
Cracker Barrel tries to taste like home-made and occasionally comes close. This, this is the real stuff. Even my vegetarian sister thought this place was great, and she and I rarely agree on what good food is. And when you go, ask for your free potlikker. It's the juice from cooking turnip greens, seasoned with ham, and served with cornbread. I couldn't have it (because of the ham), but my dad said it was great.
The exhibit on the terracotta army was astounding. It started with the kingdoms in the Warring States period and showed how Ying Zheng steamrolled his army right over all the neighboring kingdoms and united them under the banner of Qi. It went into how he unified every aspect of daily life across all the former kingdoms: money (with a coin design used until the 20th century), bureaucracy, legal code, military conscription, roads, even the width of chariot and cart axles. The man was driven to rule the world and he succeeded pretty well.
The ceramic army is not a military asset, though. It's part of his enormous, unbelievably-elaborate tomb. He had an entire artificial mountain built up over his burial chamber, which is rumored to have a ceiling studded with stars, gardens, palaces, and rivers & lakes made of liquid mercury that mimic the rivers & lakes of real China. They haven't excavated the burial chamber itself yet, for fear that they would irrevocably damage it. So, all the artifacts came from the area under the mountain outside the central chamber. There was an army of thousands of unique soldiers: archers, infantry, cavalry, charioteers, officers, generals, each one made and painted by hand. There was an entire circus of performers: jugglers, dancers, strong-men. There were musicians with instruments, set to play for bronze birds perched in an artificial stream made by diverting an existing river's course partially under the mountain. And why did he have this entire kingdom underground? Because he wanted to rule forever. Once he died, he would enter into the afterlife and rule over this model version of his empire with the rule of his bureaucrats (there were scribes and administrators made of terracotta, too) and the might of his army.
This was completely worth seeing, and I sort of regret not getting the audio tour so I could spend more time looking at the artifacts while listening to their description. It was all absolutely engrossing, and this exhibit (the largest collection of artifacts from this dig seen anywhere outside of China) will be at the High Museum of Art until April 19. It, too, is worth every single penny.
I wanted to stop at the Fry's on Pleasant Hill Rd. (I think) because it's the only one I know of on the eastern seaboard, but we didn't have time. We had to get my sister back home so she could pack up and leave for school. Oh, well. I guess I'll just have to make a special trip down there to eat at Mary Mac's and shop at Fry's.