12 hours on foot in DC

woke up to a nightmare but it was nice and warm in the bed so it was quite alright. our host, claire is so nice, she gave us bread and yoghurt for breakfast! we dilly-dallied a lot before finally leaving the house at about 9.30. eugene walked us to the metro station, we're indebted to them man... the sun was out but it was quite cold in the morning, and we started to get worried about only having a thin jacket...

at the metro station, which was a lot less complicated and newer than the NY subway. a man was giving out the express on the way, something like our 'today' newspaper. its a subsidiary of the washington post.

met the guys at the smithsonian station. smithson is a scientist from england who had never set foot on america all his life, but he donated a lot of money to build up an institute of learning and knowledge in washington DC, which turned into the national mall. a massive stretch of monuments, memorials, and museums, all free! the one u see above is the washington monument, which stands at 170m tall. no building in DC is allowed to be taller than that. we havent really gone to that side of the mall yet. will do so tomm...

the first museum we visited was the museum of natural history. of all sections, the guys wanted to see the section on mammals. *sigh.* there were lots of life-sized animals (i dunno if they're stuffed or just fake) and the guys were even busy watching the video on evolution, telling them the 3 factors that distinguished mammals from other animals. 1) they have hair 2) they have a middle ear 3) the mothers can produce milk. it was totally like primary 3 science. sigh! and then, guess what, there was a gallery on dinosaurs, and as you can imagine, they went crazy. hahaha. ok maybe im exaggerating (sp?) a little. it was quite sad how there was so much focus on evolution tho, and all that crap about millions of years ago...

what was quite cool was that they had a section on the sikhs, and i thought ot manveen immediately... wonder how he's doing in canada! that section was placed together with the mammals section tho, after all the stuffed animals. *shrug*

the really interesting gallery we loved was the one on diamonds. have you ever heard of the cursed hope diamond? it is worth a lot a lot of money cos of its rich history. it was found in india, sold to the french royalty and placed on the crown, then stolen during the revolution and reappeared in london, and finally sold to some rich guy who donated it to the natural history museum in DC.

then there was a display of some of the famous diamonds worn by famous people, like the diadem below given by napolean to his wife during the birth of their child.

below is a pair of earrings worn by French Queen Marie Antionette, who according to Debbie is a bimbo. haha.

the november birthstone is topaz (or so i found out). was rather disappointed cos it looked quite ugly, but maybe that's cos the one they showed was uncut and not refined. but apparently thats one of the biggest, almost piece of topaz around.

what i really really loved was sapphire, ruby wasnt too bad either...! (:

hmmm.... after this, i think i change my mind about diamond rings... (:

ok i should move on. met juline (finally!!) for lunch! was so happy to see her cos the last time we met was before she left for this foreign land... we had lunch at macdonald's, which was quite ex, but was apparently the cheapest food around... after that the guys wanted to watch imax about some moon thing (guys!) cos we were in the national space museum, so deb, juline and i went to the Kirshhorn museum and the national gallery of art sculpture gardern. it was quite nice...

it's basically like a museum of contempory art and photography. the above picture is an example of an exhibit, how bizzare...! the sculpture garden was rather interesting tho, we took a picture in front of a giant typewriter eraser, haha, it's hilarious i tell u! the house was funky too, it could move as u walk past it, but of cos u cant see if from just a pic...

we didnt have much time so we headed for the steps of the Capitol Building, where congress sits. the view was magnificent. decided to stop using my camera cos it was gonna die (i think nick took many stupid pics of animals and raw crystals! haha) the shots we had in front of the capitol are in julz's camera, it was a super super good shot... we wanted to ascend the steps where martin luther king made his famous 'i have a dream' speech, but they weren't giving out any more passes for the day, maybe we'll try again on fri...

walked to union station next, another famous train station but again i dun have pics. poor juline had to go back to school for lessons. the rest of us walked what seemed like forever to get to the FBI headquarters. and when we got there, it was closed anyway.. no more tours till 2007. sigh. saw a few cars with tinted windows come out tho, one of them was paul white (dunno who, but must be quite impt i think). took some pics and went to hard rock cafe nearby for dinner. deb and i had the legendary 10oz burger; and a mac and cheese. we were so full after that. quite ex tho, cost us $21.51, but at least we're sharing all the meals so its not so bad i guess.

started to walk to the white house after dinner, it started to get quite cold cos the wind was blowing quite strongly, and Pennslyvania Avenue seemed to go on forever before we reached number 1600. and when we got there, there was all the secutiry thingies, and all we saw was.... THIS.

right. and we saw all that through a fence. pathetic, but well. we were so tired by then, we didn't really care anymore... heh. and it was getting really cold so we just wanted to get home quickly, which we did. we walked so much today. probably like twice the length of the mall, which is 1 mile from the washington monument (the tall pencil like thingy) to the capitol building, plus the insides of the museums and the walk to union station.

tomorrow we'll go to the holocaust museum, and the US mint. long day ahead, and a lot more walking to do. we'll be so fit by the time we get to ohio. dun need to train la, jiamin. *oh ya, we saw people playing frisbee on the grass patched in the mall, they looked good. man. i wanna play too...!*

hope everyone's having fun in singapore as well! (: