I would say today is an actual day one to me, so May 28, 2016, we left the hotel on time at exactly 10 a.m. and head out to the metro station to get our metro card. The metro station we went to is really interesting. So in order to go down to the station we have the taken a long and slow escalator, meanwhile, when we get closer to the station it get darker, which it feels like we are slowly going down into the dungeon, kind of feel a little creepy. However, after we all got our metro card we got out from that dungeon (metro station) and we walk to the bus station and head out to our first location. Our first location is Georgetown University. When we arrived to Georgetown University, is an eye opening to me. My first impression for Georgetown is a really pretty campus and their environment are very nice too. So we walk around the campus for a while, and gather our whole group for the campus tour. Georgetown is actually the oldest catholic University in United State, also low acceptance rate is about 13 percent. Their undergraduate is about 6,400 students, which you can imagine how small their class can be about least than 20 students each class. Students who go to Georgetown University have to live on campus for at least three years, whereas in California’s colleges have to live on campus for at least one year. Fun fact about this college is before student graduate from Georgetown University, first, student must take a selfie with John Carrol's (statue located in the front of the college). Secondly, they have to dance in the fountain. Lastly, students have to steal the one clock hand that is location at one of the building tower. I think that is really interesting. After Georgetown University, we went to grab some lunch for nearby.
After lunch, we all when to National Archives Museum. Something nice about Washington DC is all museum is free admission. It was kind of a lot of people, the first that we went to is to see the Bill of Right and etc. people hand writing in the old days is super nice and talented. Since the museum close at 5p.m., we did have much time to look over everything, so we left the National Archives Museum at 5 p.m. After we left the museum, we all just sat to one side to figure our next tour, because the tour guide might have mistaken our tour date. Meanwhile, I got myself an ice-cream in such a hot and humid weather. Once we got confirmed from our next tour, we all walk to DC Chinatown and got dinner there. We went to eat at one of the famous handmade noodle, is really tasty. Before we get to the restaurant, we have walk pass by the Chinatown gate. The Chinatown gate is actually the biggest gate in the world, and some interesting thing when you know you are in Chinatown is all the restaurant have Chinese directed translate. Now I know what Dunkin Donuts in Chinese is. After dinner, we all walk back to National Mall for our night tour, by the way is actually a long walk. I learn that it took quite a long time to finish build the national monument, also the design for the memorial World War II. The tour and the tour guide was absolutely interesting and fun, but at the same time my feet was hurting so bad from all the walking. I have the hardest time walking back to the hotel because is just so painful, and is only day one. Although, we were out from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. (mostly walking), yet able to go to so many places in one day, I think is worth for the pain. -Elsa Iao
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Our journey of exploration officially began! First thing was that we actually left the hotel on time (which is something we should be proud of, if you ever followed the blog posts of our previous trips you will understand), despite the fact that we began our agenda at 10 AM for today. However, before we travel to anywhere else, we had to go to the nearest metro station to input some money into our SmarTrip cards. As you may or may not know, D.C. actually has quite expensive metro fees and therefore the group who was in charge of planning for D.C. (which includes me) originally planned to have everyone walk to almost everywhere. However, after yesterday’s experience with the humid weather here, we of course changed our minds. We got on the bus to the first place planned - Georgetown University. My first impression of the Metro buses in D.C. was that it is actually quite similar to the Hybrid MUNI buses we have here in San Francisco, except one thing that SF buses don’t need most of the time - air conditioning. Later, we had to get out of the heaven of coldness and back to the desert. We stepped foot into Georgetown University and were astonished by the beautiful buildings on campus. After a while of exploration around the campus, we were able to find a campus tour and it was a fun experience, despite the burning heat. We learned more about the campus and the programs of the university, including its politics and law department as well as its pre-med program for graduate school. After the tour, we went to explore about the campus bookstore and took a break in a common area inside the building.
We made our way out the campus and were on our way to hunt for lunch. After quite a while of walking around the area near Georgetown, we finally settled down in a sandwich shop and had a late lunch. Followed by that, our next stop was the National Archive Museum. There, we saw a lot of historical records and documents, which brought back some memories and materials that I learned from my history classes in high school back then. I also saw some information about the discrimination and segregation for the Asian ethnic group back then, which triggered some of my thoughts from what I learned not only in history classes but also from what I learned through CATs (Chinatown Alleyway Tours) in CCDC. The museum closes at 5:30pm, and so we were somewhat forced out to leave the place. However, I believe that most of us did explore quite a lot inside around the building. As we exited the museum and stayed in the surrounded outdoor area, we were trying to figure out what we should do next since there seems to be a problem with our scheduled 7pm National Mall tour tonight. After a while of discussion and rest, we finally decided to head to Chinatown, which is quite close to where we were. My first impression of D.C.’s Chinatown -- a very...”international” feeling. It was fairly easy to tell that the place that we stepped foot into was Chinatown because of its Chinese characters on almost every single store or restaurant that we encountered there. In Chinatown, we saw many international chains that include the English name, with their Chinese names underneath it from direct translation. Examples include McDonald’s, Chipotle, Dunkin’ Donuts, Haagen-Dazs, Hertz, and Verizon Center. Now this, this is when you know that a neighborhood is gentrified. We walked about in Chinatown and later settled at a Chinese restaurant noodle shop named Chinatown Express for dinner. I ordered a roasted duck handmade noodle soup and was somewhat disappointed, with its rating of the best in the shop by a poster posted on the wall. It actually felt weird to me when I hear waiters of a Chinese restaurant taking orders in English when speaking to Chinese customers. After dinner, we headed towards the Chinatown gate and took some photos. Then we had to head back to the Washington monument, which is the starting point of our National Mall tour. We made our way there at around 8:30pm, only a couple minutes late, but luckily the group was still there. With a close (somewhat) look at the Washington monument was when I realized how big, or how tall I should say, it is. On the tour, I also learned that the monument actually has two different shades of gray, when the workers continued the painting process after a while. We moved along to many places along the night tour, including the White House (from a very far away glance), World War II Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial, where we ended our tour. Overall, I enjoyed the tour and thought that the tour guide had a great sense of humor. I appreciated the energy he had while informing us, especially when this was his fourth tour of the day. This tour gave me a great chance to see the city’s famous and historical landmarks in night view. To me, it was a new experience. As tiring and sleepy as we all were, we made our way back home by a half hourwalk (yes, by walking), instead of taking the bus. This was actually because it would also take around half an hour for the next bus to come. This was also when I discovered that singing while walking at night can keep you awake and make you less tired. We finally made it back home, and the first cup of lemon flavored water I had at the entrance felt like heaven to me. This was a 12/10 moment in my opinion. We explored quite a lot in D.C. today, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow for more exploration, which will also be our last day in Washington D.C. -Shirley Tsang Today, we had the most athletic journey yet. Waking up at ten in the morning, we head for the private school, Georgetown University. There, we received a tour by a Georgetown college student and we learned all about the buildings and the culture. While the weather was scorching hot up in the 90s F, every time we walked inside a building, the blast of the cool air from the AC always refreshed me and made me feel guilty that I took San Francisco’s cool weather for granted. Regardless, I learned some pretty cool traditions that the students had. For example, before one graduates, they must first sit on the lap of the huge John Carroll statue, steal the hands of the clock and send it to someone, and dance on top of the water fountain. Also, there was a square on the floor that one cannot step on because it is bad luck. Everything they had was very interesting and cool.
Next, we head to DC’s Chinatown. At first, I thought it would look very similar to SF’s Chinatown, but I was very wrong. The gate was beautiful carved but had the vibe of San Francisco’s but it didn’t feel like Chinatown. Instead, I felt as though I was on the streets of Hong Kong and my home city, Macau, China. It was very modern with shops named both in English and Chinese. Some of them were even quite hilarious. Then, I noticed that the racial demographics here were not mainly Chinese, but a more diverse community of African-Americans and less Chinese people. However, the food in Chinatown do serve many Chinese and Asian cuisines so I was happy to a have a meal more close to home. In our last place, we went on a night tour to the National Mall. Our tour guide was amazing. He told us that this was his fourth tour of the day but he still managed to be very loud and clear. He was also quite funny, telling us jokes and being sarcastic at times. The night view of the monuments are insanely beautiful. My personal favorite was the World War II memorial. The fountains were lit with color and each of the columns were bright. Today’s journey was exhausting with the long hours of walking but what we got out from it was way more valuable and memorable. -Angela Iao The day started off with a bus ride to Georgetown. For me, exploring a new place is the best when you do it alone, but even though we were supposed to having the buddy rule. I didn’t do it on purpose to leave the group. It just seems to happen that way a lot. All I can say about Georgetown is that I really do appreciate the architecture but not the summer weather. The way the building are designed like an old time castle makes me weirdly finds some inner peace.
Since we are a Chinatown organization, we had to go to Chinatown, but there was no Chinatown in my eyes. DC’s Chinatown has been gentrified like it was no one’s business. Like seriously, who serves a soup dumpling without soup? Like, come on. I didn’t even knew Chipotle had a Chinese name. How sad. They try to show happy Chinese seniors on this big monitor on the Verizon Center, but that is really just facade was it probably used to be. DC Chinatown is probably a representation of what our federal government like, a facade. Well pushing the political views aside, I’m seeing more of what DC is really about today. Hope tomorrow won’t be a roller coaster. -David Trang Our East Coast trip began the day after the last day of school. School has imposed a rather unpleasant sleeping schedule upon me, where I held high grace and blessed the spirits if I managed to get any more than five hours of sleep. For this reason, my East Coast experience was vastly different from everyone else. While five to six hours is a blessing for me, it’s a curse for others. During last year’s trip to Seattle and Vancouver, I longed for sleep hours. With the same amount of sleep hours this year, I feel strangely
energetic. I’m aware that people who boast about sleep in any shape or form are rather unappealing, so let me make this clear. I’m not boasting about the amount of sleep hours that I don’t need, I’m shrouding my unhealthy sleep habits in a layer of optimism. Our day began with a visit to the Georgetown University campus. The complex, archaic architecture of the campus buildings is nothing short of fascinating. Fortunate for us, a majority of the classrooms and offices were left open for public access. The university school cycle is definitely over, so either Georgetown U leaves its facilities open the entire year, or we were unbelievably lucky (highly unlikely based on past occurrences with the group). While I love Georgetown U’s architecture, the fact remains that it is one of the most expensive colleges in terms of tuition. Its range of majors is also relatively shallow, being political science and literature heavy, with little engineering programs. For those with interests within these fields, I highly recommend making, at the very least a visit to the Georgetown campus. Personally, this school is out of my reach. For now, I’m okay with that. Next stop, D.C.’s Chinatown. I’m proud to say that I recognized the Chinatown neighborhood as soon as I saw Chipotle and McDonald’s—wait, what? It didn’t take me too long to realize that D.C’s Chinatown, much like many other historic Chinatowns faced massive gentrification over the years. Ironically, D.C’s Chinatown holds the record for the “largest single-span archway in the world,” when the only thing Chinese about is two Chinese restaurants with one that barely qualifies as a Chinese restaurant, and Chinese words labeled under the English among store plaques. When we asked local residents about D.C’s Chinatown, their response was very much similar to ours: “It’s barely a Chinatown anymore.” To end our day, we headed towards the National Mall for a tour by Free Tours by Foot. As soon as our tour guide began to speak, I began to profusely thank my AP United States history teacher. Without an adequate base of knowledge of both United States and World history, I truly believe that it is almost impossible to appreciate historic tours and museums. Perhaps you’d enjoy the artistic presentation of the speaker in his own right, but not the actual content itself. The tour guide was, in fact amazing in his own right. His tour was a near imitation of John Green’s Crash Course videos, with the loud and fast speech, deadpan sarcasm, and undying enthusiasm. I won’t go too in-depth about the tour itself, since much of the content can probably be found online anyway. The World War II memorial though, that one left me in awe. -David Yi We started the morning at 10am and made our way to Georgetown University. The moment we walked in, everyone started taking pictures with the buildings and scenery. We wandered into the school chapel. Since we were wandering around, we missed the initial information session, but was still able to join their campus tour. The tour was very interesting and informative. It is very inspiring to hear that no matter what, anyone who wants to go to Georgetown and is accepted has the ability to go, even if they cannot financially afford it. One student was connected to an alumni and had their entire tuition paid for.
After the tour, we went down to M street to get lunch. We ate at a Mediterranean restaurant. I ended up getting a chicken salad. Afterwards, while passing time for waiting for the bus to go to the National Archives, we walked around to check out the stores and boutiques nearby. After a 30-40 minute bus ride, we finally arrived at the National Archives. We split into groups to make it easier when walking around. My group went to the Declaration of Independence and Constitution viewing. Afterwards, we headed to the gift shop to buy postcards and other souvenirs. We had to leave around 5:30pm because the museum was closing then. We went by to Chinatown to eat dinner at Chinatown Express. It was very interesting seeing American businesses, such as McDonald’s, Chipotle, and Urban Outfitters, have their names displayed in Chinese as well. The place we ate at was small, but the food was pretty okay. Afterwards, we rushed towards National Mall to try and make it to our night tour by DC by Foot. The tour guide was very interactive and excited throughout the entire tour despite having done four tours that day already. He made learning about all the history very fun and memorable. We visited the Washington Monument, World War II Memorial, Vietnam War Veteran’s Memorial, Korean War Memorial, and Lincoln Memorial. After a long day, we finally went back to our hotel to rest and prepare for the next day. -Diana Lin On the second day the first place we went to in Washington DC was a college campus. We went to Georgetown University where we walked around with our group for a while until the student tour started. On this tour we learned a lot more about the facts of the university in which we would not have known without participating in this tour. The most interesting fact that I learned about is that one of the traditions of this university before anyone graduate, is that first they have to take a selfie while sitting on the statue of John Carl's lap, which can be pretty difficult because of the heat which makes it hard to climb up. (Tried this first hand) Second they have to dance on the fountain and third they have to steal the clock hand. After taking the tour, everyone was tired and hungry and we went to eat brunch at the Georgetown neighborhood, I ate spicy chicken wings from Wingo. The next place that we went to was the national archive where we walked around and learned about history. (This is preparing me for AP US History this fall) After going to the national archive we went to Chinatown which I would call Downtown (A Downtown that wants to be a Chinatown) because it looks completely gentrified with only a few more Chinese restaurants and the rest of the shops such as McDonald's and
Chipotle trying to be Asian, by having Chinese characters on the sign which I found to be pretty funny. This was also a pretty sad sight for me to see a Chinatown which is completely gentrified and all the Chinese culture and heritage pushed out because gentrification is also currently happening in the Chinatown in San Francisco. Seeing this makes me wonder if that is what Chinatown in San Francisco would become if gentrification does happen in the future. After walking around, we settled down and ate at Chinatown express, one of the few Chinese restaurants left around the area. We went to look at the Chinatown gates after eating and then went to the national mall tour where we had an amazing tour lead by a really enthusiastic person. In this tour we learned a lot about the important landmarks of Washington DC and the history such as the Lincoln memorial, Korean War memorial, and etc... The tour ended pretty late at around 11pm, everyone was tired as we all headed back to the hotel. -Danny Yu The weather was happy so the sun was beaming brightly but I was tired and sleepy. Our first stop was the train station to pay the tickets and our first destination was Georgetown University. My favorite part of this trip was going into buildings with air conditioning since it was humid. However, I have to say that the buildings at Georgetown University were beautiful. My first impression of the campus was that it looked very peaceful and calming, it has a vintage feeling and the campus has a lot of greenery. We started off by exploring the university on our own and later joined in on a tour to learn more about the campus, led by a current university student. Georgetown is a private school and was founded in 1789. My favorite part of the tour was learning about the 3 traditions to graduate. The first was to sit on John C. statue’s lap and take a selfie. The second tradition is to steal the clock’s hand from the tower and the students usually give it to someone who they want to invite to give a speech at the campus. The final tradition is to dance on the water fountain.
After visiting Georgetown we ate lunch around the area and then took the bus to the national archive museum. At the museum we were able to see the original constitution and other historical documents. I enjoyed history ever since I took AP United States history in my junior year of high school. We spent hours at the museum when finally we were kicked out, since it was closing time. Afterwards we didn’t know what to do next since there was a miscommunication between the tour and us. The miscommunication was later solved and we were still able to have a tour of the national mall but at a later time, so we decided to hang out at Chinatown and have dinner there. The Chinatown at Washington D.C. was rather shocking and disappointing. You can tell that the neighborhood was completely gentrified. Majority of the stores were American except that their names were in Chinese characters. After the break at Chinatown we realized how far away we were from the national mall so we ran for it. We made it to the tour in one piece. The tour started by learning about the Washington Monument. The construction process for the Washington Monument was delayed many times due to the reasons of not wanting to continue it and because it was too expensive. Later they used a fundraising technique of donating bricks but there were many controversy with it since during that time there were a lot of anti-immigrants and many people disliked Catholics. So when the Pope donated bricks to the project they destroyed it and the problem continues so the monument was not completed until the 1880s. We also learned that the white house used to be light yellow until it was burned during the war of 1812. The most emotional part of the tour was the memorials of WWII and the memorial of the Vietnam War. And our final stop of the tour was at the front of the steps of the Lincoln’s memorial. We were all very tired so we decided to not climb up the flight of stairs to see the memorial upfront. Overall, it was a really fun day and I can’t wait for the next day to come except that the weather forecast states that it will be raining. -Lisa Yu We went to Georgetown University in the morning. My first impression of the school was it was a very European feeling with red bricks and old, good looking buildings. Everywhere in the university has air conditioning which was cool. We went on a tour around the university. After we went to Georgetown for food but the food are not appealing so I went to 7-Eleven for lunch. Georgetown is a college town so there are many shopping stores such as H&M. Georgetown overall is pretty but not so much to do inside the university.
The transportation in the city is quite slow, bus come in every 15 - 20 minutes. That was the reason why we walked so much. After Georgetown, we went to National Archives. We went to see those historic documents such as the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Later, we went to Chinatown for food. The Chinatown is so different from what I expect. Everything considered in Chinatown are American shops translated into Chinese name such as Chipotle and McDonald’s, even some clothing stores has some interesting translation of their name. Afterward, we went to the National Mall Night Tour. The tour was interesting. The tour guide has great humor and the way he talked is like a crash course of history review again. We got to see the White House and all the monuments. We are all tired and we went back to hotel with swelling feet. P.s. for myself: Great Job again! You didn't eat fast food -Meifeng Deng Today we visited Georgetown University, a private college that was found by John Carroll. This university thus has an emphasis on religious tolerance and cultural diversity. After attending the info section about the university, I’ve learned much about its admission process, undergraduate major availability, university environment, and alumni networks. I am inspired by the university's spirit of volunteering. Georgetown University encourages its students to get involved with the local community and to engage with social justice issues abroad with the global community. I really like the cultural diversity that Georgetown University promotes. Georgetown University is definitely one of the most welcoming colleges for students from different backgrounds. I also attended a tour that explained stories behind major memorials and monuments in Washington DC. As I was walking along the wall of the Vietnam War Memorial, a wall that was purposely constructed with black polish granite to allow viewers to see the reflections of themselves, and major monuments in D.C. This site is to commemorate those soldiers who were part of the Vietnam War. I felt very sorrow seeing the names of soldiers who scarified their young lives. Since it was night time when we visited the memorial, we did not get to see the reflective quality of the black polish granite stone, which was supposed to allow us to see the reflections of ourselves, the Washington monument and the White House. However, I saw many pieces of memorial items that people left at the wall, which were there to commemorate those who died for the nation. I also got to see the World War II memorial. The panels that depicted the moments of soldiers in battles and efforts being made in the home front. These panels allow us to better remember the World War II. It is a site to commemorate the death and a lesson for the living to appreciate the peace we enjoy now. I really think that these memorials are what make D.C. special. The history and story behind each monument offer meaningful lessons for us to take away.
-Sandy Jiang |
AuthorYouth experience from their experiential learning trips. Archives
March 2019
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