Here is the second part of my two part series of posts about a recent visit to Boulder, Colorado. You can read the Part I of the adventure in this post – Playing Tourist in My State: A Couple Days in Boulder Colorado, Part I.
THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES
Oh I left out something from our visit to the Pearl Street shopping district thrift/vintage shop – Heady Bauer from the previous post. The shop had a really cool used instrument section where the staff encouraged you to pick up an instrument and play whether you knew how or not:
There was a father and son in the section enjoying the instruments.
John decided to pick up a used guitar and start strumming:
John used to play a lot of instruments when he was younger (the guitar, the piano, and even the saxophone) and at one point was even in a band. I encouraged him to think about getting a used guitar in the future and start playing again.
After an afternoon of wandering around the downtown Boulder shopping area Pearl Street, we headed over to the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse for dinner. This tea house was a gift from Boulder’s sister city in the Soviet Union, Dushanbe. Here is a snippet of the history from the teahouse’s website:
In 1987, during his first visit to Boulder, Mayor Maksud Ikramov announced that Dushanbe planned to present our city with a Teahouse to celebrate the establishment of sister city ties. From 1987 -1990, more than 40 artisans in several cities of Tajikistan created the decorative elements our Teahouse, including its hand-carved and hand-painted ceiling, tables, stools, columns, and exterior ceramic panels. Often these skills are handed down from generation to generation within families. Lado Shanidze served as chief architect. In Central Asia, teahouses serve as gathering places where friends meet to talk or play chess over a cup of tea. Many teahouses are traditionally decorated with Persian art, characterized by the use of motifs from nature – stellar, solar, and floral, by the repetition of patterns, by form over representation and pattern over detail, and by lavish decoration and color. Our Teahouse accurately reflects this artistic tradition that dates back nearly 2,000 years. The master woodcarvers, including Manon Khaidarov and Mirpulat Mirakhmatov who helped reassemble the Teahouse here, have carved their names in the ceiling. The artisans who have painted it have written their names on a green painted area above the entry to the kitchen. A message carved in the ceiling reads “artisans of ancient Khojand whose works are magical”.
Here are some photos I took while we visited the teahouse, but there are much better photos on the teahouse’s website.
They have an extensive tea menu, hundreds of teas are available. As an obsessive tea drinker, I enjoyed browsing their menu book of teas!
I ended up gong with one of the “teas of the day” which was a rose and lavender infusion. I had a lovely pot of tea along with our lovely meal. (And my pot of tea came with an little hourglass so that I would know when to put the infuser basket out of my tea pot!)
This teahouse reminded us of how many hidden gems (well at least hidden to us) there are in Colorado. We plan to spend the Spring and Summer exploring more of Colorado and finding more of those “hidden gems”.
After the teahouse we continued on our thrifting/thrift store adventures and stopped at the awesome Goodwill in Boulder. There John found an amazing deal – a metal craft beer sign to join his collection of craft beer signs in our basement bar area, for 75% off the retail price!
The sign was in pristine/brand new condition and still had a plastic protective sheet over it (which was removed for the photo above).
I found some amazing used books – several of which were recent publication hardbacks – for only $2 each!
This particular Goodwill was recommended to me by someone I’ve followed for a while on Instagram – @boulderthrifter. She was kind enough to give me thrift shop recommendations for our trip to Boulder.
BEFORE HEADING HOME
The next day we had another Independent Bookstore adventure, this time at The Bookworm – Boulder’s largest used books bookstore (after a delicious breakfast at The Buff, a Boulder breakfast top spot).
I knew The Bookworm was my kind of place because when you first walk in you are greeted by the bookstore dog!
After petting the dog for a while, I went on to browse their HUGE used book selection.
John and I had a wonderful browse in this bookstore.
Right before we headed back to the Denver Metro area, we stopped at a cool used art supply shop, Art Parts: Creative Reuse Center. I love art supply reuse centers! I’ve written about them in the past in posts such as Who Gives a Scrap?.
I had a fun browsing at this shop and left with some free art quilting magazines.
So that was our Boulder, Colorado adventure!
tierneycreates 
Sounds great! And thrifting is always a bonus!
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Thank you, and it was😀
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You are really making me want to visit Boulder! The tea house sounds amazing – I love tea too, and their menu looks just wonderful. And what great thrifting! Used bookstores are so fun, and one with an inhouse dog is even better.
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You should visit it! Colorado is a very cool state in general 🙂
Thanks for your comments!
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I keep thinking about it – your travel stories are real motivators 🙂
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Okay, so much to enjoy here! I really liked seeing the tearoom and glad they marked it as a landmark
but the top thing on my mind right now is the used art supplies store. I am going to check out your other post about it – the one you have linked.
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Thanks so much for your comments and I think recycle art supplies stores are such a brilliant idea. They have one in Portland Oregon to and I thought I had done a post on in the past, but I couldn’t find the post in order to link it. The tearoom was really cool 🙂
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It makes me wonder how many art supplies get tossed and wasted –
and I was teased a little for my recycling – like seriously – someone even said something about the reusing of zip lock bags – but it was not like it was for food! sigh
but I did not take it personal – people just “see” things different – and because of my frugal and reusing mindset – I usually have been a blessing to any budget !
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PS _ I enjoyed the post and the golden shoe art was so cool – and it reminded me of a “funky ship art piece”my son made for me that he partly spray painted gold. I dismantled it because it was so big (sniff) and also had no spot for it – but the GOLDEN shoe art that John was holding up reminded me so much of it
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That was quite the unusual piece! We wondered if someone would buy it someday 🙂
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I wonder too
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I have found so many great buys at Goodwill! A new Cuisinart ice cream maker, pasta cookbook and more. Before I retired I had started my own business as an Independent Provider (working with the mentally and physically disabled). Goodwill is one place some of my clients worked, which is so important, so I make sure I support it. Sounds like you had another great trip!
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Sounds like you did some good work in the world before you retired and now you’re doing good work inspiring us with wonderful recipes! 😀
Those are some awesome fines you found at Goodwill!
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Used books and a dog. Now that is my kind of place.
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Me too 🙂
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Wow! You find the most interesting places and restaurants. It’s like I’m right there with you. Thanks for the trip and the sites. Happy Tuesday!
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Thank you, thanks for reading 🙂
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Heady Bauer looks like my kind of place.
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It is super cool!
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Looks just like magic – we often forget the region we actually live in – I’m in the process of planning day trips around my city/region. Last week I picked up some timetables from the South Manukau Bus Station with the idea of bus hopping out there…but it’s a nearly 2 hour trip just to get there with 3 different buses or 4 if I do a loop through the airport…Yes I know it’s now Autumn and not really the best time, but somehow life in summer wasn’t all that crash hot..
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You are definitely one for brilliant day trips! You’ve done a lot of exploring! We want to in the summer get on the light rail (like you taking the bus) and go on random adventures. Like your bus we do get “interesting characters” on the light rail.
I forget you are in Autumn now! I am waiting to be in the Summer and become irritated with the heat, ha!
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