And now for my next trick - São Paulo

 

Museu Ipiranga

BH sent on to me this article that shows that São Paulo state (not city only) museums had 33 million visitors in 2013. That's a bunch considering there are 41 million people in São Paulo state, and I'm guessing most of these folks have never entered a museum.
After a recent trip around São Paulo's downtown region, one that I don't know well, I started to realize how few of São Paulo city's museums I have actually visited. There are museums everywhere--house museums, culture, arts, history. So, as I know myself and that I will only do something if there is a challenge in it (hence me running a half marathon two years ago to make myself actually train), I have begun my museum challenge.

It goes like this. I am going to hunt down and visit every museum in São Paulo city I have never visited (nope, no Alphaville Cultural Museum or Santos whatever, thank you. City only) by August 2014. Of course, they need to not be under renovation and closed for months--I plan to stay within the law (yeah, my brother's best friend once jumped the Acropolis wall in Athens to get that checked off--turns out there ARE guard dogs at midnight and they do like the taste of Americans). Also the museums have to be public, not private. 

Now, I'm going to need some help from any of you out there who know any obscure museums that I might not know of. Here is my list of targets (House of Roses was added yesterday--who knew??) with a note beside any already visited.

Museums in São Paulo city: (if I blogged it, the link is there)

Catavento (visited, blogged)
Estação Ciencias (visited, and a good thing as it seems to be closed semi-permanently)
Estação Pinacoteca (visited)
Fundação Maria e Oscar Americano (private, but visited)
Instituto Butantan (visited and blogged. Frankly I pretty much own it)
Jardim Botanico (arguable. But I have visited)
Museu Afro Brasil (visited)
Museu de Anatomia Veterinaria at USP (visited, and blogged, and that place is WEIRD)
Museu de Arte São Paulo - MASP (visited)
Museu de Arte Moderna - MAM (visited)
Museu de Casa Brasileira (visited)
Museu de Futebol (visited. Kid almost thrown out for saying Messi best player ever)
Museu de Lingua Portuguesa  (visited)
Museum Oceanográfico USP (visited and blogged, same as the Vet museum)

Now the up and comers:

Acervo Palacio das Bandeirantes (temporarily closed...let's see...)
Casa Guilherme de Almeida
Casa das Rosas
Fundação Ema Klabin (private, but I'm dying to go anyway)
Instituto Moreira Salles (private, but like what's going on. Think I'll go)
Memorial da America Latina (hmmm, let's see if it recovers from the fire in November)
Museu Anchieta (private, but looks fun)
Museu da Imagem e do Som - MIS
Museu de Imigração do Estado de São Paulo (temporarily closed for renovation. Let's see)
Museu Brasileiro de Escultura (MuBE) - (private, still going)
Museu da Policia Civil do Estado de São Paulo - did you even THINK I could resist?
Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia da USP 
Museu de Arte Contemporanea da USP - MAC/SP
Museu de Arte Sacre de São Paulo 
Museu de Geociencias de USP (IGC-USP)
Museu de Policia Militar do Estado de São Paulo - yep, I need to go.
Museu de Zoologia de USP - Closed for renovation. Theoretically opens in 2014
Museu Geologico Valdemar Lefevre - Mugeo
Museu Historico de Imigração Japonesa (private but I'm going)
Museu Ipiranga (closed for renovation, no end in sight)


I missed the following (closed for renovation past August 2014):

Museu Lasar Segall

Which ones am I missing?

All this and it's free? - São Paulo

Photo credit: http://www.museuafrobrasil.org.br/

Yesterday, my parents, my twin boys and I drove through the almost-deserted São Paulo streets to visit the Museu Afro-Brasil in Parque Ibirapuera. A trip that would take me 35-45 minutes in regular traffic took 15 minutes. Please, paulistanos, do not come back from vacation. Stay where you are.

Not an official museum photo. Twin hands.

Okay, so that's not my point. We took advantage of quiet São Paulo to visit one of the museums I have never visited. The Museu Afro-Brasil was inaugurated in 2004 and has more than 5000 pieces. There is a mix of old items from the 15th century as well as contemporary "crafts" from the north of Brazil. The lower two floors house temporary exhibitions (10 were there yesterday) and the upper floor which is ENORMOUS houses the permanent collection. I would recommend that you start with the upper floor so as not to get overwhelmed -- especially if you are visiting with children who will love the Saci, Carnaval and figurine exhibits.

They do not allow photography of any kind in any part of the museum except for one small area where artifacts from slavery are exhibited (hence all photos here are official museum photos). I am glad they don't allow it; it gave us a chance to really look and appreciate and absorb. We all spend so much time getting the great photo that we forget to read and appreciate. 

Photo credit: http://www.museuafrobrasil.org.br/

Photo credit: http://www.museuafrobrasil.org.br/

It is, in a word, breathtaking. An airy beautiful space with just an amazing variety of art--painting, ceramics, characters from Carnaval, slavery shackles, puppets and statues. The kids were entertained by all of the animal art--alligators and lions and all kinds of stuff. In the end, though, the place is just so huge that it is overwhelming. We left after an hour when the kids started to get hungry, but I will definitely be back to explore.

 More visit info:

To my great surprise, entry is absolutely free to everyone. They do accept donations which I encourage everyone to make. You cannot take in bags or backpacks but they do provide a place to store them. By the way, English translations are not available but according to the helpful guards (who kept close when the 7 year old twins were near the ceramics especially) you can arrange for a group tour with an English-speaking guide. Go at a cooler time of year--there is no airconditioning in the building and with temperatures topping 90F, we suffered more than a little bit.

Website (in Portuguese) of the museum is here: http://www.museuafrobrasil.org.br/home

Photo credit: http://www.museuafrobrasil.org.br/

Creepy Crawlies - São Paulo

On Thursday the kids had no school because of parent-teacher conferences. I asked them what they wanted to do with their free day and the answers came back, simultaneously: Butantan! Then one amended and said "can we get seaweed and then go to Butantan?" Yes, seaweed. Apparently this is the snack of choice among second graders.

I forgot my camera for the Asian store so I'm going to hold off on my comments on that until I can show some photos to go along. I love it there. I have no idea what half of the stuff is because I don't read Japanese/Chinese/Korean, and the Brazilian translations don't help. We did find the seaweed. My kid started munching it on the street. 

Off to Instituto Butantan. Yes, it is my favorite museum in São Paulo (see prior blog post here). Not because it's chic but because it is the opposite. It is dark, empty, seemingly abandoned and for real fun,  the translations are atrocious (if they exist at all). And they also have the most beautiful collection of snake, spider, scorpion and lizard that they can think of.  Yeah okay truthfully spiders give me the creeps and scorpions are not my favorite, but the colorful venomous and non-venomous snakes are truly amazing. I have been there maybe 20 times and I seem to always see a new snake. 

 

After naming all the snakes for the 20th time and choosing our favorite, the kids and I went off to visit the monkeys. The monkeys are used to research viruses, and were critical in developing a yellow fever vaccine. Honestly, you don't want to think about these test animals. Or where they live. It's not pretty. 

Monkey cages

Then a look at the mosaics and a race down the avenue to the lanchonete where we can eat salty snacks and the kids can run around the park (actually the helicopter landing area for critical bite cases). After lunch we go to the microbiology museum where we watch the screen of a microscope showing a drop of water from the local river. Looooooootttts of paramecium and amoeba in there. Again probably don't want to think about that too much. 

My favorite way to spend two hours with my kids. Instituto Butantan. If you live here, you must go for a visit!