I am hella tired. We walked for more than ten hours, it was exhausting. In the morning, we went to George Washington University. The college has a very residential feeling. I could not recognized what’s on campus and what’s outside the campus and which buildings are considered for housing.
After our self-tour around the campus, we took the bus to the Captain White Seafood Market. But because of some parade, the bus got rerouted so we have to walk for an hour to get there. When I closed to there, I smelled the seafood from a mile away. The smells are so strong that I do not want to stay there. The market looks very gross. I cannot eat shellfish so I didn’t get to eat their seafood. On the other hand, I went to buy a box of fried chicken for a pretty cheap price about $10. The strawberry lemonade are the highlight of the day, it is refreshing and good tasting. Afterward, we walked to Holocaust Museum and then we walked passed the Smithsonian Castle. After we toured in The Museum of National History, I am tired after I went to see the the diamonds and gems so I fell asleep in the food court. The night turns dark because clouds gathered and rain. We didn’t have any umbrellas so we bought some expensive ponchos, it was gross to wear that because the rain still got into my shirt, shoe, socks, and my hair is wet. But the weather is still humid and wind are warm which makes it more disgusting walking in the rain and walked to our dinner place. P.s. for myself: Great Job again X1! You didn't eat fast food. -Meifeng Deng
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Another sunny day and we began the day by visiting George Washington University. Unfortunately we were unable to tour the University fully because it was not opened for touring that day. However, we were able to walk around outside of the campus. George Washington University is different from Georgetown University because George Washington University looks more modern and it is integrated in the city. If I had to decide which school I would go to I would prefer Georgetown because of the community, environment, and the architectural style of the buildings. In addition, I really liked their mascot, a bulldog. But to be fair we had a guided tour of Georgetown University whereas, we were unable to for George Washington University. Later that day we bussed down to the fish/ seafood market. We ate our lunch there and I had potato wedges and clam chowder. The potato wedges reminded me of home because I would usually buy them from Safeway near my school. And the fish market reminds me of the Fisherman wharf back in San Francisco. Afterwards we headed back to the national mall to go to the museums. We walked over to the Holocaust museum and later to the museum of natural history. I personally love museums so I was very excited and energetic. We were able to see many different exhibits inside the museum of natural history since the museum is huge. When we left the museum of natural history building it was pouring rain. We bought ponchos from the museum and we looked like a mob of blue riding hoods or blue people. So even if someone gets lost they can pinpoint the group easily. We went to a ramen shop, Oki Bowl, for dinner and the most important part of the shop is the restroom. If you didn’t go to the restroom it means you were never in that shop. Why? Because the restroom is just amazing and breathtaking, it reminds me of a mechanical grave yard. If you are curious you must go see the restroom yourself.
-Lisa Yu The Holocaust Museum visit is definitely one of my most enlightening experiences as a museum visitor. I really like the variety of exhibits that the museum offers. There are so many history and story to learn about. I secretly wish that I can live next to the museum so that I can see those meaningful exhibits every day! One thing I really like about the Holocaust Museum is the video clips throughout different exhibits. It was a very powerful movement when I saw a Holocaust survivor who spoke up in court to identify the Nazi murder. The lady said she lives for justice. Even though it is traumatic for the survivor to recall painful stories from the Holocaust, the lady always and will forever remember the haunted past so one day she will obtain justice. National Museum of Natural History is also an extraordinary site to visit. As soon as one walks into the building, a huge diversity of natural and scientific topics are there for visitors to explore. I really like the section about the ocean. The three-dimensional display of the earth and the vivid explanation of climate change really contribute to my learning experience. When we are exiting the museum, the rain starts to sprinkle. In blue rain ponchos, we look like The Smurfs walking out from TV screens. But I like the rain because it is so much more enjoyable to have ramen hearing the sound of raindrops!
-Sandy Jiang Just a precaution—my blogging quality probably won’t be the best today due to the heavy amount of walking that we did. Much like the previous day, our day began with a university campus visit. Our
second designated university was George Washington University, which had a totally different feel than Georgetown U. For one, it was an open campus. Personally, I find much greater interest in exploring closed campuses as walking the streets of open campuses doesn’t differ too much from walking the streets of the average urban intersection. Also, nearly all facilities were closed so we ended up having a field day in one of the school gardens. It was astoundingly beautiful—I’ll give it that. Similar to Georgetown U, George Washington University also lacks in the engineering department, which seems to be a common trend among schools in D.C. That makes sense—it is the political center of the United States after all. Another quick disclaimer—these blogs do not cover the entirety of our trip. I will often exclude certain parts of our trip that I do not find as fascinating. Sometime after our visit to the George Washington U campus, we made our way to two of the most famous museums in Washington D.C: the Holocaust museum and the Museum of Natural History. The highlight of the Holocaust museum is a physical, interactive exhibit that portrays the life of a Jewish child named Daniel in the Holocaust. I’ve learned plenty of the Holocaust in school, and I’ve done extensive readings of narratives of Holocaust survivors so the interest isn’t necessarily one of discovery. You never quite understand the realism, the actuality of traumatizing events like the Holocaust until you see it for yourself. Daniel’s exhibit was, for me the gateway to that sight. Unfortunately, the main exhibit of the Holocaust museum was closed, so our visit was short-served. After a bit of urging (by me) to go to the Museum of Natural History, we did. Honestly, the only reason I wanted to go so badly is because the museum is featured in Night of the Museum (no regrets). For some reason, I find great excitement in seeing famous sites used to film movies—perhaps it’s one of those things that allows your brain to hold movies with a bit of realism. I went expecting bones and fossils, but the agenda played out a bit differently. First, I headed over to the Hope Diamond which has an unbelievable amount of historic significance. However, I do believe that it is highly overrated. Competing with 50 surrounding tourists to snap a picture of a diamond the size of a tennis ball is not a pleasant experience. Right in the next room is an aquamarine much larger and much more lustrous than the Hope Diamond, yet it has much less foot traffic for some reason. I ended up staying a disproportionate amount of time at the photography section, which is peculiar because I have little interest or experience with photography. It also turned out to be my favorite exhibit in the entire museum. What do you know—perhaps I do have an interest in photography. I’m going to avoid talking about food as much as I can, but we stopped by a place named Okibowl Ramen for dinner and I have to talk about it. The ramen here is probably the best I’ve ever had, but that’s not the important part. They have a poor excuse of a bathroom that one audacious yelp reviewer dubs as a “psychedelic technology junkyard,” which I can’t help but agree with. It is definitely the most dynamic bathroom I’ve ever been in, but is also a strong candidate for one of the most inefficient bathrooms. This may not be strikingly obvious, but it is a bit difficult to go when blue disco lights shine in your face. However, I would return to that bathroom in a heartbeat. Overall, a 10/10 experience and I would highly recommend if you’re a ramen fanatic like I am and stop by D.C. -David Yi Today our first location is to visit George Washington University, their school site doesn’t feel I have walk into their campus because there was no front gate. Since it's a Sunday, there was not campus tour, however one of the former student told us that all the colleges in DC students must live on campus for at least three years, but of course each year student get better dorms. Although they don't have tour on Sunday, we still take the chances to walk around the campus, we also walk into one of their park, and took some group picture. After George Washington University, we when to Captain White Seafood Market and got some seafood. Before we get there, we have a super long walk, and my feet did not recover yet. At the seafood market, we got a fresh raw oysters, also clam chowder. Everything tasted super fresh and yummy. After the yummy lunch, we walk to Smithsonian Castle, which is a beautiful place to visit. I took so many picture there. After I that we walk to the Museum of Natural History. This museum was super big, and people everywhere. Me and Angela quickly walk through the museum because our feet is really painful, but at the same time we don't want to miss anything, basically everywhere we see sitting we speed walk to that area. Before we get leave the museum, the weather chances, it started to rain, so we all ended up wearing the blue poncho. Imagine seeing a group of youth walking down the street with their blue poncho on, don't they look like little blue chicks to you? It was lovely experience. After we got out of the museum, we when to Okibowl ramen and had our dinner there, and ended our day there.
-Elsa Iao To begin our last day in D.C., again the first place we visited in the morning is a college. We went to George Washington University and explored the campus ourselves this time, since no campus tours were offered (due to the fact that it is now summer and less people are on campus). After the campus exploration, we headed to the Captain White Seafood City. We took the bus but got off at a certain point, due to the bus re-route because of the Memorial Day schedule. After a long half hour walk, we finally arrived at the seafood market. The smell of all types of seafood was flowing to our noses as we went about the market to buy our lunch. There were many food booths selling shrimps, little crabs, fresh oysters, and many more. For me, I bought a large box of calamari worth $10 (that you probably can’t get in SF). Now off our way back, another half hour walk to the next place on our agenda. Originally, we were planning to visit the Library of Congress, but unfortunately it was closed today. As this may bring disappointment to some people, we had no other choice but to visit more museums that were nearby. We first visited the Holocaust Museum. Information and boards placed inside the museum were facts, details, and pictures of events that happened during the Holocaust, and most of them were probably what I learned during my high school years (and probably forgot most of the materials now). My experience at the Holocaust Museum recalled bits and pieces of information that I learned a couple years ago. One exhibition that struck me in the museum was the wall of numerous small tiles of drawings, in which I believe that seems to be done by children, which displays the wishes and thoughts to end war and have peace. Not only that it was a very colorful and pretty exhibition, but it also has a lot of meaning behind every piece of artwork displayed. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” This, is more than one picture, and it is surely worth more than a thousand words. One other quote that also struck me was “To the very last moment and with your last breath you tried to exist, you tried to outlive them. Morally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, you resisted all the time,” written by a Holocaust survivor. The Holocaust Museum was an experience for me to commemorate all those who have sacrificed for peace, those who survived the time period of war, and to appreciate what we have.
After visiting the Holocaust Museum, we walked through the Smithsonian Castle and into the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. There were many exhibitions in this museum, most of which is science related. The first exhibition I entered displayed many different types of gems and stones. With the crowdedness in the room, it was quite hard to walk around and take pictures of each exhibition, but I still managed to see many beautiful gem pieces. I exited the gem pieces exhibition and entered the astronomy exhibition room. I was somewhat excited as astronomy became one of my favorite topics after I took an astronomy class two semesters ago. Most of what I see and read in that exhibition was what I learned a year ago and still remember today. Later, I also visited the exhibition room which showcased some of the butterfly specimen, and also another exhibition of the bones of animals and human species. There was also a store that sells minerals and stone pieces for a very expensive price. As beautiful as those pieces may seem, I do not have the energy nor luggage space nor money to buy them and bring it back home to SF. Before we left the Smithsonian Museum, we shopped around the gift shop there and this was when I added on to my collection of magnets of places I’ve travelled to, when I bought a magnet of Washington D.C. Now here comes to the best part of this trip. Due to the fact that most of us did not had our umbrellas with us, we bought a bunch of blue ponchos from the Smithsonian Museum gift shop. And now off our way we were evicted, or forced out, of the museum and pushed into the rain, while trying to figure out how to put on our ponchos. From my perspective, it was as if we were a group of twelve blue ducklings making our way back home. We quickly made our way to the metro station, with our sticky blue thin plastic bag covers on us. Then later we had to put our ponchos back on after we got off the metro and walked to the dinner place. After we had dinner at Okibowl Ramen, we quickly made our way back home with our lovely ponchos of the day. What a great day to end our trip in D.C., with a moderately heavy rain and my first experience wearing ponchos. Now is the time where we need to get some rest and be ready to wake up early tomorrow to take the BoltBus at 6:30AM to New York! Farewell to Washington D.C. and greetings to New York! -Shirley Tsang George Washington University (GWU) was very close to our hotel, so we were just able to walk there. The campus itself felt very integrated into the surrounding community. I was used to college campuses being enclosed and somewhat isolated from the rest of the city that it was in. GWU didn’t feel too much like the typical college campuses that I was used to. A trend we noticed with the DC colleges was that their students were guaranteed housing for 3-4 years. We then headed next to the Captain White Seafood Market to check out the fresh, live fish market. I ate gumbo and shared ceviche and raw oysters. The food was very fresh and delicious. Afterwards, we headed towards the Smithsonian museums. Our first stop was the Smithsonian Castle. Afterwards, we spent most of the time at the Museum of Natural History. By the time we left, it was actually pouring outside. We ended buying blue ponchos from the gift shop since many of us were not prepared with umbrellas. Although the ponchos did not cover us too well, it kept us sort of dry. For dinner, we ate at a ramen shop called Oki Bowl. It was my first time having curry ramen.
-Diana Lin This was one of the hottest day that I had experienced in my entire life. After coming back from George Washington University, we took the bus and then walked for thirty minutes in the heat to get to Captain White Seafood Market. By that time, I was drenched in sweat with no cold air and seats to sit. Luckily, the world’s best coping mechanism, in my opinion, food, came along and I was instantly happy again. It lasted shortly only after I found out that there would be another thirty minutes’ walk back to the museums.
Speaking about museums, we went to the Holocaust museum which was my most anticipated event of all times. Honestly, all museums in DC are highly anticipated since it’s all free and who doesn’t like free things but it has a lot of historic events that many people should be educated about. The Holocaust is definitely something everyone in the world should learn about and what other great ways to do so than going to a museum all about it. The stories really inspire me to live happily and help as much people as I can. This is also a reason why I’ve decided to join Chinatown CDC’s youth programs and be as involved as I can to our community. We all share the same values and we all are trying to protect what is our home. Chinatown may not have been where I lived or where my “home” is, but it’s important to me because it is where I grew to be the person I am today through being involved. -Angela Iao On the third day, we went to George Washington University and walked around. There wasn’t any tours available and there really wasn’t much to do there. After walking around George Washington University, we went to the fish market which wasn’t a very pleasant experience because, one it smelled like fish, two the bathroom was horrible, and three there were no chairs to sit on while eating on a hot day.
After exploring the fish market we went to the Holocaust museum. At the museum we learned about the survivors of the Holocaust, their stories, and the living conditions that they had to live in. After this we went passed by the Smithsonian Castle where our next stop was the Museum of Natural History. Inside this museum we saw a lot of animals but the one archive in there that was the best was the photographs. Those photographs were absolutely beautiful and takes a lot of timing, patience, luck, and skill to take. By the end of the day, we ate dinner at Okibowl. At Okibowl, I ate ramen, and the best thing about this restaurant was the bathroom which looked very amazing with a lot of electronics as decoration. . This marks the end of our three days in Washington DC. One aspect that was surprising was that the crosswalk system at Washington DC, which gave us a lot more time in the shorter intersections and less time in the longer intersections and unlike San Francisco it shows the amount of time left at the beginning of the green light. -Danny Yu Today was our last day. We had to hit up one more school before we leave. It was George Washington University. From what I can see, it was pretty dead. I bet if it wasn’t the summer it would have been more alive. The school itself is built into the city landscape, so if you’re looking for that city lifestyle while balancing the college life, you should look into this school. Anyways, not much else to talk about here. The famous Smithsonian Museum. The place that I used to imagine after watching the Night at the Museum. I always thought it would have been emptier, but it was so crowded. I’m happy my little group and I were able to find a nice quiet and peaceful exhibit. The best part it was the Nature photography exhibit because I’m also really into photography. It was cool at seeing how people frame their landscapes and subjects. The way they edit it to make the thing pop out more. I hope I improve to get to that level.
When we left the museum, we had some nice summer rain. We had some nice plastic tear-able ponchos from the Smithsonian gift shop. We were on the front steps under cover, but this security guard had to push us out into the pouring rain saying “it won’t kill you.” Well sir, It won’t save you either. In the rush of putting on my ponchos, *Disclaimer I never wore a plastic poncho before* I tore it and I had big hole on my side which gave a big wet spot there. I mean like everything was sticky. The mix between sweat, plastic, and rain made it into disaster. Happy we had some nice ramen to warm ourselves up in the end. Well this it for DC and I had a moderate okay time here. Maybe I’ll come back, but it won’t be first choice. Sorry! -David Trang |
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March 2019
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