Washington, D.C. - Part I

Why is this post titled as Part I? Because we are definitely going back to D.C again! It is beautiful! Very arty farty :)

We woke up at 5.45am to prepare to go for the trip (I haven't woke up this early in donkey years). The bus ride is really very long - about 4 hours. But I muz say that the coach is quite comfy, much better than I had expected it to be. Some snapshots of the scenery along the way:

This is taken when the bus was travelling on a bridge across a river.

I like their houses. Kinda reminds me of the movie, Nottinghill.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

This is our first stop and we spent most of our time here too. The whole exhibition is very gloomy because its so cruel. A very solemn place. The Jews really very ke lian. Life's never fair.

A para by Clinton which me and qian like it alot.

This is found inside the Hall of Remembrance. The purpose of the hall is to allow people to reflect and think about the whole holocaust incident. Ya, let me reiterate that this is a very solemn place.

National Air and Space Museum

We are not fanatics of planes, space and engines so we went in and out quite fast. But the building itself is really very impressive. There are a lot of different halls which have a different theme. For instance, there is one which has all the planes that were used in wars and we saw the plane that they used in the Pearl Harbour incident.

Hall 209 (I can still remember the number. Hee) is dedicated to the Wrights brothers. That is the first plane ever to fly. Ya, just a combination of sticks and canvas. Heh. We took pictures with the brothers too.

We found this very interesting! Its actually freeze-dried ice-cream that the astronauts can eat in space.

Bureau of Engraving and Printing

BEP is a guided tour whereby we are taken to the printing room to see how the US money is actually printed! Very shiok right! We can't take any pictures inside though so only got the pictures of the building. Haha. All the money that they printed wrongly are actually shredded and sold in the souvenir shop. Ha. Oh, and qian bought a pack of that. The souvenir shop is also selling those limited edition money, such as those that the serial numbers begin with 168- or 888-. These lucky dollar notes are packed in a very cheena way too. Very funny. The stupid thing is that they don't have the Year of Rat. The height chart you see has a monetary value beside it. Yes, I am the shortest so I am the cheapest. Pui. Btw, I think we are carrying too much stuff on hand in the pictures and that makes us look abit sampat-ish.

US Capitol

Isn't this gorgeous? Especially with the clouds behind it. We had pictures that have us standing in front of the Capitol but they look damn fake, something like copy and paste. How come har. Too bad we are rushing for time that we can't spend too much time there to take a closer look.

Washington Monument

According to shi, this looks like a pencil from far. We can actually go up there but by the time we reached, all the tickets have been given out.

Smithsonian Castle

Super european feel. Even the garden is very shi qing hua yi. Shi's favourite building :D

Department of Agriculture

Shi is very amused by the magnificent building. It is sure huge. We seem to see this building everywhere we walked. Shi was commenting about the size of our very own department of agriculture (I forgot what is it called in SG). Hmm but if we compare the size of the country, I think its pretty much justifiable. Moreover, what do we really grow in SG???

On a general note, D.C cannot be covered in a day. And, some of the places that we went such as BEP and Holocaust museum have to obtain a free pass to see the exhibits. Oh ya, there is like no food there! We survived the whole day on bread and snacks that we brought along. So, we are going back again and, of course, have a proper plan and more food :)