Day 2 in DC
On the morning of our 2nd day in DC, I figured out what else I forgot to bring - my eye lash curler. I guess I'll just have straight eye lashes during this trip. That's alright, since I haven't quite figured out how to make my eye lashes look good when I'm using my new eyeliner gel anyways (which I brought).
Day 2 in DC - wow, what a day! After workout and shower on our first night in DC, we got to bed around 1 am. We had a bright and early 8 am tour appointment at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving so we opted for a 6:45 am alarm. It was so hard to wake up! Bureau of Printing and Engraving is where money gets printed. Did you know that designs on paper bills $5 and up change every 7-10 years? This is to battle counterfeit. Also, did you know that paper bills aren't made of paper? It's 25% linen and 75% cotton! These "fabric" bills are made in sheets of 32 to start. The latest designs has red & blue ink as a base, green ink on one side, and black on the other. The latest design pushed out was the $5 from this past June.
After the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, we hopped on the red line towards the Woodley park area to visit the National Washington Cathedral and the National Zoo. From the metro station, we walked about a block onto Calvert, and hopped on the 96 bus towards McLean Garden. After a 5-10 minute ride, we arrived at the Wisconsin stop, where the Cathedral entrance is. After seeing all the grand cathedrals in Europe, I didn't have high expectations for the National Washington Cathedral. But I was wrong! This gothic cathedral (with flying buttresses, pointed arches, tall vaults and spires) was quite a treat. I guess if I have to 
name three things I liked most about it, it'd have to be the stained glass, the wrought iron gates, and the gargoyles. There was a rail in one of the sanctuary that I found quite interesting - the rail contains sculptures of Jesus' disciplines. Judas is also on the rail, except due to his traitor status, he's a "blank". So there's a space for him, only his image isn't on there. I guess that might be worse than not being there at all?! It's like saying "you could've been there!" The cathedral often frequent free tours, but also paid specialty tours. It was too bad that the gargoyles and the wrought iron gate tours weren't offered during the time we're in DC. This is the cathedral that the President uses during big events. Also interesting is this catehdral welcomes all faith - buddhist and others are welcome to worship here. This seems quite unusual. The construction for the cathedral started in 1903, and only completed in 1990 due to various wars and finance issues; in 2003, they celebrated 100-year anniversary for this then-3 year-old cathedral. In any case, it's neat place to visit. I recommend it!
After the cathedral, we hopped back on the bus to return to the area around the metro stop. There, we ate at Open City. It's a casual environment with good brunch food. From there, we walked about 5-6 blocks along Connecticut Avenue and arrived at the National Zoo. Like many DC attractions, there was no admission fee for the zoo. We came here mainly to see the giant pandas. The zoo was pretty empty when we went, since it's a week day. There were some children and families about, and that was it. This panda we saw was pretty funny. I think it was the female, Mei Xiang, that we saw. She was standing kept trying to open the door to the inside herself (and failing). When she got frustrated with opening the door, she stood up on her hind legs, and held onto the bars (next to the door) and swung back and forth...kinda like a kid, throwing a temper tantrum. And when she got tired of that, she moped and paced around. Later on, we found the panda habitat and went inside. We saw her contently sitting in front of the glass, eating bamboo leaves. It was the cutest thing to watch. We also saw a lot of birds, small mammals, the big, cool-looking (but stinky) elephants, hippos, and a few very kewl sloth bears. Sloth bears aren't sloths at all, and only got their names due to the likeliness of their claws to sloths. The big hippo put on a show for us, got into the water, swam around, spouted water at us, and even talked to us. We also saw a cute little ferret that came out to stare at us from behind the glass. Very cute! There was this part of the bird house where you can go inside, so we did. We were looking around at the birds when this medium sized blue bird charged at us. We got quite the scar! (But it was funny too....when we were running away.) We had a really fun time at the zoo and was sad that we had to leave early to move onto our next appointment.
So this most genius idea of a tour - DC by Foot, is pretty kewl. It's advertised as a free tour (and it is), and you may tip the tour guide at the end. It's a surprisingly well organized tour, with fun and interesting stories. The funny story told at the Washington Monument took place during the Revolutionary War. Turns out that George Washington, like us, was a dog lover. During the war, British General Howe's fox terrier wandered across enemy lines. George Washington not only saved this little pup's life, but negotiated a temporary seize-fire on both sides, so that he may return the terrier back to General Howe. Both sides stopped all firing and put up white flags, all for the sake of this little dog. After the Washington Monument, Brody took us to the WWII memorial. This memorial was only opened in 2004, but before its official opening, it already started accepting visitors, since more than 1K WWII aging veterans die each day, the government wanted to give them the earliest opportunity to visit the memorial. The memorial is a big round circle,with a rectangular section representing each state. The order of the states is in the order that they enter into the nation, alternating left and right around the circle. After the WWII memorial, we walked to the Vietnam War memorial. This memorial was designed by a 21-year-old architecture student Maya Lin from Yale University. Gifts were left at the memorial each day. The oddest gift that was left was a brand new Harley. They tracked this gift down to a group of Vietnam War veterans who ride (Harleys) together. They said they enjoying riding together, and they want to make sure that if a brother on the other side likes to ride also, that they have Harley to ride with them.
After Vietnam War memorial, we visited the Lincoln monument, and that was the end of our tour. Funny story told - someone in the press accused Lincoln of being two-faced. And Lincoln said, "If I had two faces, do you think I'd be wearing this one?" Funny guy...
Thank god we were in our tennis shoes that night. We walked some 2.5 miles from the Lincoln monument to our restaurant Rasika, and Indian-fusion restaurant. Looking back, we probably should've hailed a cab, but it seemed walkable at the time. We were happy to turn in after such a long day, after having walked probably a good 4-6 miles, totaling ~12 hours of walking in our first full day in DC.
Day 2 in DC - wow, what a day! After workout and shower on our first night in DC, we got to bed around 1 am. We had a bright and early 8 am tour appointment at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving so we opted for a 6:45 am alarm. It was so hard to wake up! Bureau of Printing and Engraving is where money gets printed. Did you know that designs on paper bills $5 and up change every 7-10 years? This is to battle counterfeit. Also, did you know that paper bills aren't made of paper? It's 25% linen and 75% cotton! These "fabric" bills are made in sheets of 32 to start. The latest designs has red & blue ink as a base, green ink on one side, and black on the other. The latest design pushed out was the $5 from this past June.
After the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, we hopped on the red line towards the Woodley park area to visit the National Washington Cathedral and the National Zoo. From the metro station, we walked about a block onto Calvert, and hopped on the 96 bus towards McLean Garden. After a 5-10 minute ride, we arrived at the Wisconsin stop, where the Cathedral entrance is. After seeing all the grand cathedrals in Europe, I didn't have high expectations for the National Washington Cathedral. But I was wrong! This gothic cathedral (with flying buttresses, pointed arches, tall vaults and spires) was quite a treat. I guess if I have to 
name three things I liked most about it, it'd have to be the stained glass, the wrought iron gates, and the gargoyles. There was a rail in one of the sanctuary that I found quite interesting - the rail contains sculptures of Jesus' disciplines. Judas is also on the rail, except due to his traitor status, he's a "blank". So there's a space for him, only his image isn't on there. I guess that might be worse than not being there at all?! It's like saying "you could've been there!" The cathedral often frequent free tours, but also paid specialty tours. It was too bad that the gargoyles and the wrought iron gate tours weren't offered during the time we're in DC. This is the cathedral that the President uses during big events. Also interesting is this catehdral welcomes all faith - buddhist and others are welcome to worship here. This seems quite unusual. The construction for the cathedral started in 1903, and only completed in 1990 due to various wars and finance issues; in 2003, they celebrated 100-year anniversary for this then-3 year-old cathedral. In any case, it's neat place to visit. I recommend it!
After the cathedral, we hopped back on the bus to return to the area around the metro stop. There, we ate at Open City. It's a casual environment with good brunch food. From there, we walked about 5-6 blocks along Connecticut Avenue and arrived at the National Zoo. Like many DC attractions, there was no admission fee for the zoo. We came here mainly to see the giant pandas. The zoo was pretty empty when we went, since it's a week day. There were some children and families about, and that was it. This panda we saw was pretty funny. I think it was the female, Mei Xiang, that we saw. She was standing kept trying to open the door to the inside herself (and failing). When she got frustrated with opening the door, she stood up on her hind legs, and held onto the bars (next to the door) and swung back and forth...kinda like a kid, throwing a temper tantrum. And when she got tired of that, she moped and paced around. Later on, we found the panda habitat and went inside. We saw her contently sitting in front of the glass, eating bamboo leaves. It was the cutest thing to watch. We also saw a lot of birds, small mammals, the big, cool-looking (but stinky) elephants, hippos, and a few very kewl sloth bears. Sloth bears aren't sloths at all, and only got their names due to the likeliness of their claws to sloths. The big hippo put on a show for us, got into the water, swam around, spouted water at us, and even talked to us. We also saw a cute little ferret that came out to stare at us from behind the glass. Very cute! There was this part of the bird house where you can go inside, so we did. We were looking around at the birds when this medium sized blue bird charged at us. We got quite the scar! (But it was funny too....when we were running away.) We had a really fun time at the zoo and was sad that we had to leave early to move onto our next appointment.
So this most genius idea of a tour - DC by Foot, is pretty kewl. It's advertised as a free tour (and it is), and you may tip the tour guide at the end. It's a surprisingly well organized tour, with fun and interesting stories. The funny story told at the Washington Monument took place during the Revolutionary War. Turns out that George Washington, like us, was a dog lover. During the war, British General Howe's fox terrier wandered across enemy lines. George Washington not only saved this little pup's life, but negotiated a temporary seize-fire on both sides, so that he may return the terrier back to General Howe. Both sides stopped all firing and put up white flags, all for the sake of this little dog. After the Washington Monument, Brody took us to the WWII memorial. This memorial was only opened in 2004, but before its official opening, it already started accepting visitors, since more than 1K WWII aging veterans die each day, the government wanted to give them the earliest opportunity to visit the memorial. The memorial is a big round circle,with a rectangular section representing each state. The order of the states is in the order that they enter into the nation, alternating left and right around the circle. After the WWII memorial, we walked to the Vietnam War memorial. This memorial was designed by a 21-year-old architecture student Maya Lin from Yale University. Gifts were left at the memorial each day. The oddest gift that was left was a brand new Harley. They tracked this gift down to a group of Vietnam War veterans who ride (Harleys) together. They said they enjoying riding together, and they want to make sure that if a brother on the other side likes to ride also, that they have Harley to ride with them.After Vietnam War memorial, we visited the Lincoln monument, and that was the end of our tour. Funny story told - someone in the press accused Lincoln of being two-faced. And Lincoln said, "If I had two faces, do you think I'd be wearing this one?" Funny guy...
Thank god we were in our tennis shoes that night. We walked some 2.5 miles from the Lincoln monument to our restaurant Rasika, and Indian-fusion restaurant. Looking back, we probably should've hailed a cab, but it seemed walkable at the time. We were happy to turn in after such a long day, after having walked probably a good 4-6 miles, totaling ~12 hours of walking in our first full day in DC.
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