Today we went to The Cartoon Art Museum (www.cartoonart.org) as we wanted to see the Totoro Forest Project exhibition which was a display of artwork by many different animators, artists and illustrators that was inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's animated film My Neighbor Totoro. The artwork was previously auctioned off at a fund raising event at Pixar which is just across the Oakland Bay Bridge.

The museum is quite small, it only took us around an hour to walk around, but for $6 each it is good value for money. At the front desk Steve had to hand in his rucksack but I was allowed to keep my small bag - I guess they were afraid someone would try to steal a picture!

The Totoro exhibition was the most interesting part of the museum because the work was recent (I do realise we were in a museum and that the art would be predominantly old!) and on a subject matter that we were familiar with as we have seen the film a few times.

What made it even better was we saw a picture by someone we knew! His name is Pascal Campion and he works in the same building as Steve. However the weird thing is, Pascal does work for CHASE, the company that Steve used to work for back in London. It was Steve's old boss who put them in touch before we flew out to San Francisco so that Pascal could give us some advice on where to stay etc. Just goes to show that it is indeed a small world!

I actually didn't know that Pascal had some art on display at this exhibition. I've seen his work online (www.pascalcampion.com and http://pascalcampion.blogspot.com) and he has quite a unique and recognisable style, so when I saw his picture at the museum I said to Steve "Wow that looks just like Pascal's work" and then I noticed his name tag next to the picture and was mightily impressed! Steve took a photograph before he noticed the sign forbidding photography - oops!

This is the high res version: http://pascalcampion.com/2008/1007.jpg
All the other pieces are on this website: http://totoroforestproject.org/

There was another exhibition called Richie Rich to Wendy the Witch: The Art of Harvey Comics, who published Casper and the animated version was being shown on a TV screen in another room. There was also a detailed history on animation so there were original cels from Disney and Hanna-Barbera (they did Yogi Bear). We also saw Gertie The Dinosaur by Winsor McCay, which is believed to be the first ever animated film but apparently it's not. However, it's the one that made the public stand up and take notice of the fact that animation was a brand-new art form, with vast potential.

Unless you're a real cartoon/comic book aficionado then you might not find the museum that interesting - the only other work I was familiar with was Calvin & Hobbes and Peanuts! So if the Totoro exhibition hadn't been there then it probably wouldn't have been worth going, so luckily we were here just as it had started!

When it comes to museums Steve and I usually have the attention span of gnats! We start off very enthuastically but then our attention starts to wane very quickly. This is why we're not sure if it's worth paying $12 each to go to the Asian Art Museum - we should really go as it's practically next door to our apartment! Anyway, we couldn't appreciate the cartoons anymore because our stomachs were growling and our feet hurt (we'd already been to the Farmers Market that morning and walked all the way to the Cartoon museum). So we went off in search of sustenance and rest as we still had to trek up to Chinatown to shop!

After rejecting the extorniate Italian deli nearby and the franchise mediocrity of Subway and Quiznos we headed up Kearny St and were enticed into entering California Golden Cookies after seeing their sign for gyros and an unoccupied table and chairs! There was only one guy running the place and he was ready and waiting to take our order. We quickly scanned the short menu (falafel wrap, chicken breast wrap) and both opted for the lamb gyros. The last time we had gyros was in Rhodes, Greece in 2006 and we were hoping it would be just as good. Well when the guy brought the food to our table we were amazed at the size of it - imagine a housebrick and you're on the right track! As we unwrapped the foil that encased our greek feast we could see why it was so heavy - huge hunks of meat drizzled with tahini and enough salad to feed an army of rabbits! Unfortunately the meat wasn't what we expected, because in Greece the lamb was sliced from an actual piece of meat, whereas here it was made from minced lamb so it was more like sausage. However, it was pretty tasty and definitely made our hunger flee, so much so that I could only eat half and I took the rest home and ate it cold for lunch the next day!

With our hunger abated we managed to hike (with all those hills that's what it feels like!) to and from Chinatown back to our flat. On the way we saw loads of people on their way to the Folsom Street Fair (http://folsomstreetfair.org) all dressed up/undressed to celebrate Leather Pride Week. My favourite outfits were the guy with the full-on gimp mask and the guy with leather trousers which had the bum cheeks cut out!