Milwaukee City Tour
Kill two birds with one stone is the exact phrase to describe our trip to Milwaukee. We received an invitation to a wedding reception months ago by Ayu's friend. We felt it would be great opportunity to expand our visit to poke around Milwaukee since none of us has ever been there before.
The trip began on Friday afternoon because we had to shop for matching reception clothes, and yeah we were too busy with work so we didn't really have time to go shopping. We booked a cheap motel at Oak Creek, which is 15 mins from Milwaukee. We don't like spending too much for our hotels during trips as we make an effort to spend more time exploring and less time laying in bed. This is the first trip that we did without preparing an itinerary so it's more like "pack your bag and just go" kinda trip. We arrived at the hotel around 11 PM and we went straight to bed.
The wedding reception is at 5 pm so we had time to go somewhere and explore the city. We had Taco Bell for breakfast since the cheap motel doesn't provide it. We went to first destination, Milwauke Art Museum. We read that if you want to watch the museum open/close its wings, you should come by at 10 AM or 5 PM and so we did that. The first good thing we noticed about Milwaukee is, it is very easy to find a place to park. We parked right outside Discovery World because we saw people parked there.
At exactly 10 AM, the wings finally slowly opened. The unique architecture of the building was art in itself, spreading its wings to show its first and arguably most famous artistic exhibition. People all around us seemingly stood in awe as the sails slowly lifted from its resting point and ended in splendor.
After few minutes of admiring the museum, we went ahead to our second destination. But we set our eyes on these interesting things in front of Discovery World.
 |
| Wind Leaves by Ned Khan |
A series of 7, 30’ tall, aluminum and stainless structures that turn in the wind and serve as a symbolic hinge between the Milwaukee Art Museum and the new Discovery World / Pier Wisconsin complex. The surfaces of the sculptures are covered by thousands of small stainless steel disks that ripple in the wind. Ball bearings in the support columns allow the sculptures to rotate and reveal the direction of the wind. Hand wheels on the support columns also let viewers turn the the sculptures and interact with the artwork. The columns are surrounded by a series of benches that can be played like a xylophone and a musical instrument that is played by dropping pebbles through a matrix of stainless steel nails. (Source: Ned Kahn)
The next destination was the Pabst Mansion. General admission is $12 for adults so we skipped this again and just admire it from outside. We just moved to a new apartment a few days before so we were pretty broke, but that didn't stop us from enjoying Milwaukee.
Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory or famously known as the Mitchell Park Domes was our next destination. And again, it's really easy to park and it's free, gotta love Milwaukee for that. For the love of plants and science, we decided to go inside and pay $7 each for the admission fee.
The Conservatory is composed of three beehive-shaped glass domes that span 140 feet (43 m) in diameter and are 85 feet (26 m) high. They cover 45,000 square feet (4,200 m2) of display area and were constructed in stages from 1959 to 1967. Each of the three domes maintains a distinct climate and setting for the exposition of its contents. (Source: Wikipedia)
Tropical Dome
The Tropical Dome was hot and sticky. It reminded us a little of the Indonesian rain forests we had hiked through. We walked past and admired exotic plants filled with many colors. Of course, there were plants native to Indonesia as well so Ayu wasn't as impressed with those particular plants.
|
|
|
Desert Dome
The next dome we visited was the Desert Dome. It contained plants taken from the American Southwest, Australia, and parts of Africa.
 |  |
Show Dome
Apparently, there's a Ultra Violet Show that started from June 10 to September 10, 2017. Everything in the Show Dome transforms into an all-purple display.
 |  |
 |  |
And as the closure for our one day city tour, we visited Basilica of St. Josaphat. Ayu is a big fan of Dan Brown and is kinda obsessed with his books. She even has the list of all the places from the book that she wants to visit someday. This basilica reminded her of the book. We were amazed by the architecture and the interior of this church. It is magnificent, like a true art. We read that this church is one of the 30 most beautiful church interiors in the world.
 |  |  |
There are more places to visit or things to do on a budget in Milwaukee, but we had a limited time. We went to Mr. Churro to get some snacks and head back to motel to prepare for the wedding party. Here's us taking a selfie as a proof.
We sure can't wait to go on another trip!
Comments
Post a Comment