Hello! I'm so excited, spring is here and the little blooms are starting to burst out onto the branches above *-* My neighborhood is starting to look like this at the moment...



The sakura aren't anywhere near in bloom yet but I'm eagerly awaiting their arrival, I had a great time photographing them last year. ^^ I walked to the Whole Foods grocery store and on my way there I witnessed a film crew filming a scene. It must have been a big deal because there were all these lights, cameras, craft services table, production crew, trailers and everything! It was interesting how all the locals walked by as if nothing ahha, I stopped for a moment to see what was going on and they filmed a brief like 5 second scene ahha. I didn't recognize any of the actors, but the actress in the scene looked like Lauren Graham from that show Gilmore Girls.
Last spring there was another thing being filmed here too and there was this big production crew up by Spruce street, this time they were filming on South Street. I think Philadelphia is trying to get more movies to come and film here, I mean the city has some gorgeous filming locations, a big movie that filmed here was Shooter with Mark Wahlberg, its always surreal to see the places you walk by daily in a major motion picture ahaha. Also National Treasure with Nicholas Cage was filmed in Philadelphia's historic district.
Its nice to have these big things happening in my neighborhood because its way cutie and quaint XD that's why I always wanted to live in this particular part of the city XD

Anyway back to the subject of Whole Foods, I've become one of those people, you know the canvas grocery bag carrying-health food shopping kind ahah. I have the time now to walk the like 15 blocks to Whole Foods and not have to settle for lame produce. The only thing I buy there really are fruits and a certain brand of whole wheat bread I can't get at the regular grocery stores. The store is planning to stop using plastic bags entirely by April 1st and they encourage everyone to buy a canvas to reuse to shop with because plastic is so hazardous for the environment. I like the idea but sometimes you need plastic bags for certain things like trash and what not if you live in the city, and for like picking up dog poo if you own one ahaha. But I think there is a certain waste of plastic bags when we do everyday shopping and trying to cut back is a good idea. Plus I hate all those plastic bags accumulating in my apartment D:
In some grocery stores they sell these tiny ass canvas bags and you'd need to buy like 10 of those to fit groceries for an entire family, I hate those because it just looks like a money making scheme D: At least the Whole Foods' bags are BIG and practical D:

I had a great weekend with my family, we all went to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit currently showing at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Let me tell you...it was AMAZING! Its open until May 18th, I highly recommend checking it out if you're in the area. The show costs $20 but I think its worth it because Frida was such amazing talent, I have to say that I felt a bit voyeuristic going through the exhibit because her work is so personal and it documents a lot of the pain in her life. So you really feel as if you're looking at someone's secrets and innermost pain, it was a bit strange but I was really happy to see her famous paintings in person. A lot of them were on the small side, so it was funny having like 20 ppl crowd around a tiny painting to get a closer look while following the audio tour.

If you can't make it to the exhibit I recommend watching the movie Frida with Salma Hayek, it is one of the most gorgeous films that I've ever seen, they stay true to her life and bring her paintings to life to really show the pain she was going through. A lot of tragic things happened in her life, she suffered from polio as a kid, got into an accident as a teenager and broke her spine in 3 places and basically lived in pain her whole life. A lot of emotional pain was dealt to her by her husband Diego Rivera because he was a serial cheater.
It was hard to select which prints of her work I wanted to buy in the gift shop because you're not getting a pretty picture to hang on your wall, you're getting some pretty deep and painful artwork but I ended up buying a print of ( this one )

They brought that painting to life in the Frida movie, with Salma dressed in that outfit and her boobies are glorious haahaha, I like it because she looks a little bit a like warrior too, the corset/back brace looks like some kind of armor to me and she's standing up despite all the pain being inflicted on her by the nails.
I might go back up to the art museum area tomorrow, I hate the location of that place, there is no public transportation close to it! Its the stupiest city planning ever! No major metro stops near it D: UGHHHH dohfiodh D: You can take a bus up there but I don't know where to catch the bus, its a nice walk up there though so I don't mind.