My, oh my, have I been a slacker when it comes to blog posting. It seems I haven't updated since last week! My apologies, everyone. I hope you didn't miss me too much ;)
Many thing have happened in the past week! Here's the short version (I stole this idea from Mahika ;) ) of what Upshire Girl and I have been up to from June 23-29:
- Smithsonian museums! American history + natural history
- Korean foodings <3
- More Target -_-;
- Smithsonian Folklife Festival
- Friday Happy Hour!
And now for the long version :D
6/23 - I must say, Washington DC is a history nerd HEAVEN. There are so many museums to go to that I'm not even sure that I'll be able to finish all the ones I want to see within these next two months. We decided to start on our museum journey by starting off with the Smithsonian museums on Saturday, June 23 so we made plans to wake up early, run some errands, then go have fun. But that didn't quite work the way we wanted it to...
After failing to wake up early in the morning to go to Target and Best Buy to run some morning errands, we rose from our slumber around 10AM and got dressed for an exciting day at the Smithsonian museums. As an American history major, I insisted we visit the American History Museum first. After all, it's the closest one to the Metro! Turns out, the plan worked out perfectly because Upshire Girl really wanted to see the Natural History Museum which was right next door. Once we were all ready, we headed out the door and boarded the S2 Metro bus towards the Federal Triangle, which would drop us off right by the Smithsonian museums.
Of course, as always, adventures in DC never happen the way we plan them to happen. Something always sends us on a detour like in Adventure 1 where we missed Target by 7 stops. When we left the apartment, little did we know, the National Mall was hosting a giant BBQ cookoff competition. Unable to take the bus all the way to the Federal Triangle, we ended up getting off at a random stop. The bus driver dropped us off at this random location (random, but not shady, thank goodness) and told us to walk down 10th St. NW to be able to reach the Smithsonian museums. Not letting that setback phase us, we trekked down 10th St. NW and on the way, we ran into some spiffy places.
The swanky Forever 21 amazed us--everything just looks fancier in DC! Then we passed by a old gothic-looking church.
As we continued walking down the block, we ran into Ford's Theatre! Unfortunately, the line was too long for us to go check it out since we were supposed to get tickets ahead of time. We made a note to obtain tickets at a later date.
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| Look at that crazy line! To get in, we have to either get tickets from Ticketmaster or just go earlier in the morning and wait in line for physical tickets. |
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| The house across the street where Lincoln died. I will now refrain from making any comments about vampire hunting and the new Abe Lincoln movie... |
We made our way onto Constitution Ave. NW and found ourselves fenced out from the giant festival that was blocking us from getting to our beloved museums.
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| Oh nooo, fences! |
Unsure about how to get around the festival, we then spotted a couple walking through a gap in the fence. Without another thought, we followed them, hoping to find a way to get to where we wanted to go. Apparently, after our sneakiness, other people followed suit and tried to slip through the fence as well. Turns out, we weren't supposed to go through that fence (big surprise there, huh? XD). All the people that followed us ended up getting turned around and received a scolding from the security guard. Good thing we snuck through when we did! After a few samples (because when there's free food, I'm there), we continued our journey to the Smithsonian museums. On our way there, we ran into the Environmental Protection Agency, fondly known by Grandpa Simpson as EPA (as in ee-pah).
We also passed by the IRS, but I can't say that really deserves a picture on the blog... A 5-minute walk later, we found ourselves at the entrance of the magnificent Smithsonian Museum of American History.
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| Lauren, me, Gigi, and Cristina. That cement was blazing hot and my butt was burning from the hours of absorbed heat into that cement block, but I took that picture for YOU, blog readers. Just for you. |
The American History Museum is another amazing museum full of great, informative exhibits. We spent about 4 hours there, but even that wasn't enough time to read through and see everything. The front entrance on the ground floor had a timeline depicted various inventions and the evolution of different things. I was still taking in all the sights, so I'm not entirely sure what the specific exhibit was called. There was a Warner Bros. section though, and we got to see Daniel Radcliffe's Harry Potter robe :D
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| This section was dedicated to advances in medicine, I believe. I think that device was one of the first defibrillators..? |
On the ground floor, we looked at different things like trains and transportation and an exhibit about Thomas Edison and his inventions (as well as various inventors that contributed to the discovery and development of harnessing electricity like Michael Faraday). On our Highlights Tour through the entire museum, the guide showed us the very first Washington Monument. Bet you didn't know that the obelisk that towers over the Reflecting Pool wasn't the first Washington Monument! It was actually this guy here:
That's right. The first Washington Monument was of George in the nudie-pants (or just about). Apparently, when the statue was first presented, people were so appalled by George's exposure and lack of proper clothing that they rejected this magnificent statue. I, for one, think this statue of George is great. It's nice to know one of our Founding Fathers was so fit! Alas, we honor George today with the pristine white obelisk. I suppose the more snazzy monument is more fitting in the very image-conscious District of Columbia.
Here's some other stuff we saw:
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| The Star Spangled Banner exhibit. No, Wendy, I did not tear up. |
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| The original counter at Woolsworth where black students protested peacefully with sit-ins. |
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| Draft wheel used to pick out names of young men during the Civil War. |
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| Dumbo from that one ride in Disneyland :) |
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| I found the Jewish immigrants drawing I used to design Letty's "Teaching with Primary Sources, Level 2" flier at The History Project! |
Then it was lunchtime!
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| Originally, I intended to forgo lunch but my stomach growled angrily at me so we stopped for a quick burger and fries at the Stars and Stripes Cafe on the basement floor. |
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| Nom nom, cheeseburger! |
After lunch, we went to see the incredibly popular First Ladies exhibit, which was full of the gorgeous dresses worn at inaugurations over the years. Upshire Girl and I were awe-struck at the gorgeous Jason Wu creation for Michelle Obama's inaugural gown. Speaking of the Obamas, we ran into them again; we're practically bffs now. In fact, I'm on my way to becoming a US president myself. Awww yeeeeah ;)
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| The Jason Wu dress. See all those sparkles? They're Swarovski crystal sewn into the dress o_o |
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| My DC bffs :) |
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| My epic speech pose as future President of the United States |
After going through a couple more exhibits on the upper floors, we headed over to the gift shop to meet the other girls. I will take this moment to tell you now, I LOVE gift shops. There will probably be many gift shop photos in future blogs. Gift shops may have the most useless crap in the world, but I find them fun and exciting. Why? Because I get to do ridiculous things like this:
I ended up just buying postcards since I found them to be the most practical souvenir. If you'd like me to send you one, email your address to dcdiaries2012@gmail.com and I will try to promptly write you a ridiculous note and send it your way :)
By this time, it was 4:30PM and we were getting tired. Instead of spending the rest of the museum day at just the American History Museum(they close at 7:30PM), we strolled over to the Natural History Museum next door. On the way, we came across a man playing the "drums" with pails, trash cans, and a shopping cart. I don't have a pic to show you, but I assure you, it was quite an entertaining impromptu music show.
The Natural History Museum definitely is the best place to go after a long day at the American History Museum. Instead of paragraphs describing a painting/sculpture/object, you just have a short label to identify the piece. Excellent because my brain started rejecting the absorption of any kind of information longer than 2 sentences. The marine life exhibit caught our eye the first moment we stepped into the museum. Full of cool facts about marine life, including a display of a young female GIANT SQUID :D No pics of that yet though, sorry :(
The coolest part of our museum visit here was our visit to the Butterfly Room. I hate bugs but those gorgeous colors just kinda get to you and you want to see them up close, even if their body segments freak me out. We paid 6 bucks to get in, and it was definitely worth the money for the unique experience. Butterflies of various colors, sizes, and species filled the room. A couple of butterflies felt rather friendly and landed on people's hands, shoulders, and even foreheads! Upshire Girl had one on her shoulder for a couple seconds, but I made the mistake of calling our her name because the sudden movement of her head startled the butterfly away. Still, pretty cool experience.
Once we had our fair share of butterfly exposure, we continued to meander around the museum to view various exhibits, including the Korea exhibit, the evolution exhibit, the insect exhibit, and a few others. We decided to stop and take a picture before heading out...
...but then were sucked into the gems and rocks exhibit because they had the Hope Diamond on display. After all, diamonds are a girl's best friend, right?
We spent quite some time looking at those sparkly jewels in the gems exhibit, but once we reached the rock formation section, our feet reminded us how tired we really were and that it was time to go home. At this point, we had spent 7 hours at the museums. Talk about dedication to the pursuit of knowledge :)
Tired and famished, we were in no shape to make any kind of dinner at home. I was at the point where gnawing off my hand sounded like a good idea. I mean, the skin was salted from the ridiculous amount of sweat from being outside earlier--delicious. Anywho, as per suggestion from my coworker, we decided on Korean food for dinner at a restaurant called Mandu/만두. Funny thing about the part of town Mandu was in: while one side of the street looks immaculate and high-end, the other side is populated with shady-looking liquor stores, angry shouting people, and various construction projects.
The inside of Mandu was, like the rest of DC, very swanky and fancy-looking. I can't imagine any Korean restaurant back home looking like this. The menu looked promising though and we were starving, so we gave it a shot. We ordered a seafood pancake (해물 파전) to share and I got a soft tofu stew (순두부) for an entree.
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| The crispy and immensely flavorful seafood pancake |
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| Side dishes~ The kimchi was extra sour! |
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| I'm aware I look terrifying. Sorry, I was tired! |
Quick review of Mandu: excellent service and delicious food. Downside: $14 for a soft tofu stew, so quite the pricey meal for someone who's used to $8 soft tofu stews... Everything is more expensive in DC though, and I supposed you're paying for the atmosphere as well (which was quite nice).
The long 7-hour museum visit definitely took a toll on us. We wiped every bowl clean of every grain of rice and every drop of soap. Satisfied and now slightly sleepy, we took the bus home because Upshire Girl's confusing GPS led us in circles, striking out walking home as an option. On the way back, we ran into Chinatown, which really isn't that Chinese. Chinatown in DC consists of regular fancy DC stores with their store names written in Chinese. There really is no other difference.
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| This is the most Chinese thing in Chinatown. Don't expect much else! |
With no energy and no will left to go to Target like we originally planned, we resigned for the day and for sure had a sound night of sleep. What an eventful day.
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Whew! What a long blog. I think I'll save the rest of the stuff for the next entry (I'll update again tomorrow). I know you don't think Target is relevant, but we made an exciting purchase, so stay tuned for that because I know you'll laugh at our ridiculousness. Also, the Folklife Festival happened this past week, so that will be up soon with this weekend's adventures. Sorry for the lack of postings lately! We end up more tired at the end of the day than we really think :(
One last thing! While there are a lot of pictures in this blog, they're only a small fraction of all the pictures we really take. If you're interested, I'll be posting up a link to an album that will be public so you can see all the cool things we've seen as we've gone through various museums/historical sites. There was a problem with shipping my camera, so I personally won't be posting up my own pics any time in the next week.
As always, any suggestions, comments, and questions are welcome--please send them to dcdiaries2012@gmail.com. Hope you enjoyed this last adventure, and stay tuned for the next entry!
Over and out,
Agent 024
