Stopping by Starbucks for coffee.
It was still early, thus streets were still empty.
Some memorial outside not too far from the White House. To commemorate the Second Division.
First stop for the day: World War II Memorial, just opposite the Washington Monument.
Not everyone agrees with it...
Aiya didn't know the photo came out slanted and off centre. Nevertheless, its the memorial, with the Lincoln Memorial far in the background.
The centre area of the Memorial. Supposed to have water during other seasons. Now its winter so its just concrete.
The Price of Freedom. Each star represented one hundred American soldiers killed or remaining missing in World War II, and there were 4,048 of them on the wall behind.
Within walking distance: the Korean Memorial.
"We remember you forever."
"Freedom is not free."
Structures of U.S and Korean soldiers during the war.
If readers notice, they were in raincoats. I think the Korean War was fought during winter, which presented particularly harsh conditions for the soldiers.
The Vietnam War Memorial was nearby too actually, but it was a little out of the way, so we skipped it.
The Lincoln Memorial. Built to honour Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the U.S.
Front view.
A structure of him sitting inside. And someone taking photos of it using an iPad.
This particular position where I was standing to take this photo, was where Martin Luther King, Jr. stood and gave his famous 'I have a dream' speech.
Next stop just down the road: Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.
Front view. Well sort of.
"I was a drum major for peace, justice and righteousness."
"Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope."
After visiting the various memorials the entire morning, we were on the road again.
Next destination: the National Zoo!
The Asia Trail.
The Black Bear. Was sleeping I think.
The Clouded Leopard. Very elusive and we had a difficult time taking photos of it.
Asian Small Clawed Otter playfully running around.
What was the zookeeper doing?
Putting honey on the crate to get the pandas out!
The other panda.
Profiles of the two pandas.
Happily licking away.
Elephant. Didn't take note which species though.
Red Panda. Same species as Master Shi Fu in Kung Fu Panda.
Surprise of the day: the cheetah and zebra were kept next to each other!
As it turns out, the zebra was too big for the cheetah.
I was too busy taking photos of it standing that I forgot to check its name.
Giant turtles.
Underwater tank.
There was a small butterfly garden too, but I could only see this one butterfly.
At the lions' enclosure, the lions were lazing around when all of a sudden, they became interested in the door and moved towards it. We were guessing it was going to be feeding time soon, but after waiting a while no food appeared. The lions lost interest later too.
There was no time for us to finish walking the entire zoo, and we had to leave in the late afternoon.
Our last destination was supposed to be a drive through of Arlington National Cemetery, but it was closing by the time we reached, so we had to forgo it.
We began to make our way home, and along the way, it started to snow.
The snowstorm was quite bad; snow and ice formed along the sides of highways; cars were running at a fraction of the usual speed limits in single file on the centre of the highways, and many of them had their hazard lights on. We had a couple of close encounters where the vehicles in front of us skidded, and we ourselves almost lost control of our own car at least once. Luckily we made it back to Chapel Hill alive.
Chapel Hill snowed for the first time that night too, and will probably be the only time it will snow this winter.
Overall, Washington D.C was a nice trip; it was very eye opening for me, and I enjoyed myself there. I had planned to go there after my semester ends; but now I'm not sure anymore.
Spring Break is here! And I will be flying off tomorrow to Orlando for a week! See everyone soon!
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| Washington D.C. |
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