Friday, May 29, 2015

Day 5: Washington, D.C.

Plans and schemes
Thoughts and dreams
Who cares what they mean
When they work, they're amazing things
Spiders and Flies - Mercury Rev

Day 5, I took a day trip to Washington, D.C.. It was a long day. Took around 4 hours to get to Washington, D.C. and that's like 8 hours on the drive alone both ways. As I was informed this, I wondered why I or anyone would choose to do this? I guess because we're just curious about the capital city of America? We had a stop halfway for breakfast and the stop was great and I tried Cinnabon and I love it! The place was combined together with Auntie Anne's and it made me wonder why there's no Cinnabon in Singapore.

First stop was the National Mall where we visited the Vietnam War Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and then the Korean War Memorial. The Vietnam War Memorial was quite simple, it's this black wall where there is a list of names of the people who died or went missing during the war. There's a symbol of a diamond next to those who died. Those who are missing have the cross symbols and when they're confirmed dead, a diamond symbol is added. Some people thought the wall was too simple that a statue was added. It's a statue of 3 soldiers, a white soldier, black soldier, and a latino soldier.

The Lincoln memorial had a lot of visitors. Well there's a lot of students on a field trip. Inside the temple, I didn't expect it to be somewhat dark considering the bright sun outside. The sunlight couldn't really penetrate through. On both sides of the wall to his left and right, there is his speeches inscribed.

Lincoln himself is of course overlooking the reflecting pool and the Washington Memorial obelisk. One of the thing I have really wanted to do was to be here during the cherry blossom blooming season, unfortunately they bloom in early April and I couldn't make it at that time so that day all the trees have turned green. DC itself was pretty hot that day.

After that, it was the Korean War Memorial where there are these statues of different soldiers in different poses like they're trekking through the jungle. They are life like and it really made you think about what the soldiers had to go through.

Next was the drive to go to the White House. We saw the National Mall more in the drive and I saw a glimpse of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. I would have liked to be able to stop and see it up close, unfortunately we couldn't. So the White House, it is not actually very big, hence it's called a house not a palace. There were a lot of tourists and I saw the snipers on the roof. The secret service have been in the news recently because of breaches and so I was very curious about how much security there are.

Our guide told us we would see the longest demonstrator in the world. She's very old and she has a little tent where she lives. It's crazy but it's also admirable to have that much level of conviction and commitment? It could also be because her mind is trapped? Like she doesn't know anything else to do other than this? Reading that wiki link, she has been doing this longer than I have been alive. It's crazy.

Then we went to Madame Tussauds Washington D.C. where they have a complete sets of all the US presidents. Thomas Jefferson was really tall. So are the Obamas. It's a good learning place for the Americans. After the presidential section, there's the celebrity section. J.Lo is not very tall. I actually don't have much interest on Madame Tussauds anymore. I guess after my visit in Hong Kong, I feel like I've seen it and it doesn't interest me much anymore.

After that it was off to the National Air and Space Museum. It's part of Smithsonian Institution and turns out all Smithsonian museums is free. There were a lot of people. My first order of business was lunch. I had chicken with mash potato and corn bread and I thought it was nice, I forget where it's from though. We didn't have much time, so I didn't really explore all. I was thinking that it's filling the missing pieces from the trip to Museum Angkut in East Java earlier this year because that museum didn't have aeronautical exhibits. There were a lot of planes. There's also the space mission exhibits and Amelia Earhart's plane.

Lastly before we called it a day, we went to Capitol building. Unfortunately the dome is under renovation so we couldn't get a good picture. Then it was the ride home. I started to take pictures of the houses around just because I wondered what kind of house Douglas Stamper lives in :P though it seems he lives in an apartment building in House of Cards.

We arrived pretty late in New York that day. For pictures of the trip to DC you can go here here. When I walked back to the hotel, I had to pass AMNH. The side which I had to walk pass is the Rose Center for Earth and Space and the round Hayden sphere was lighted up, beautiful blue. Felt a bit sad seeing that because I was thinking that my vacation was ending. Of course as my cousin reminded me, I still had some days to go, San Fransisco to go to. It's just still sad though, because it's just when I was getting used to New York, I had to go.

:) eKa @ 9:53:00 PM •