DC travel tips

When you're having fun, time just flies. We have already been in NY for more than half a week. Before I forget, here're some tips for travel in DC...

Near and dear to our hearts is food. Here're a couple recommended restaurants:

• Brasserie Beck: Belgium cuisine with a big selection of Belgium brew. We loved the mussels (with Belgium frites) especially. Vuuve and Kasteel Rouge were both good beers on tap.
• Zaytinya: Very good shrimp (Garides Me Anitho) and octopus dishes (Octopus Santorini) but skip the ouzo.

Pick a hotel close to subway. Subway stations aren't that close together, so you can easily walk 6-8 blocks (sometimes long blocks) before hitting a station. Staying in downtown will also save you a lot of commute time too. We stayed at Donovan House, which is about 3 (long) blocks from the subway station. We really liked the hotel, it's a cute boutique hotel. Staff was pretty nice, though when we asked for a razor, we never got it. The gym was pretty empty when we went a couple times in the late evening; it is a pretty small space though. We saw that the Hilton Garden Inn was right across from the subway, so location-wise is ideal. But we haven't stayed there so can't comment on the interior.

Places to visit:

• National Zoo and National Washington Cathedral - you can go to Open City for brunch between the two attractions
• Library of Congress, Capitol, Senate Building - unless you're really into class interior designs, I'd skip Library of Congress. For the Senate Building, you have to schedule a tour through your senate. The sculpture inside the Hart Senate Building is pretty neat, and the other part that's cool to see is just the underground pathways and trolleys.
• Smithsonian and National Archives - you can easily spend days at the Smithsonian. I'd recommend selecting 2-3 museums to visit, and spread them over 2 days. National Archives is also right next door.
• Washington monument, WWII memorial, Vietnam memorial, and Lincoln memorial - It's a good 1-1.5 hour walk between these sites. A good way to see them is via the free DC by Foot tour. We took the 6 pm tour and it was an enchanting sight with the sun goes down. On the downside, it was a little difficult to get good photos due to poor lighting.
• We requested a White House tour months ago, and followed-up in the weeks leading to our trip, and again during our senate building tour. Our tour guide, a staff member at the senator's office, told us that he had never seen anyone got a White House tour since 9/11. So don't have your hopes high!
• International Spy Museum is probably a better venue for teenages or history buffs. The museum starts with gadgets used by spies, and after that, there's quite a bit about roles that spies play in history and famous spies.
  

Transportation-wise, you can pretty much get anywhere via subway. DC subway is pretty well maintained (looks pretty new!), and the main thing is to look for which line and which direction you're heading (much like subway in many cities). Stations carry metro map pocket guide that shows all lines/stops. Fares vary depending on how far you travel. If you're staying in downtown, you can pretty much get anywhere with the lowest fare ($1.65 during peak, $1.35 off-peak). On a weekday morning, if you get on the subway after 9:30 am, it's off-peak fare; weekends are off-peak. It goes back to peak fare around 3-7 pm. If you plan to hop on a bus after the metro, remember to get a transfer from metro so that you can get the discounted fare (~$0.35) for the bus ride. Transfers can be obtained via machines located right next to escalators.