Day 8: Washington DC

The day started off with us having breakfast at Mc Donald's again, and by the time we were done, it was already 9am and we walked to the place where we boarded our tour bus yesterday. While waiting for the tour bus to arrive, it happened that we spotted the house where Lincoln died which was opened to the public and of course, we entered the house and got some pictures.


The house where Abraham Lincoln died


The room of the house

After our visit to the house which was already half an hour past 9, we decided not to wait for the bus anymore and went on foot to the National Archives instead. It wasn't a long walk before we arrive at the Archives which hasn't open it's doors to visitors yet (the archives opens at 10am and we were like 5 minutes early). Once the doors were opened, we just can't contain our excitement to view the Important Documents of the US (sad to say but we had not even seen the Malaysian ones), we were being put through a security check and soon we were in the walkways of the vault. The vault contains 3 documents, which are the Declaration of Independence, Constitution of USA and the Bill of Rights (unfortunately, all documents were pretty faded and no flash photography is allowed in the vault).


The Vault


The Declaration of Independence


The Constitution of USA


The Bill of Rights

After being awed by the documents in the archive, next up was the US Holocaust Memorial. The memorial is dedicated to the Jews (most of them) which are killed by the Germans during the World War II (which was the Holocaust). We learned much about how much the Jews were being discriminated around the world and I just wonder what they did to deserve such punishments. The exhibit that we went through was indeed an eye opener, and has led us to not discriminate any races no matter what skin color or status they hold.


The US Holocaust Memorial


The remembrance room of the memorial


A picture that I took after our experience at the Memorial

After we were done with the memorial, we crossed the street and paid the Smithsonian castle a visit. There wasn't anything interesting in the castle besides that it was the place where the Smithson guy (which sponsors most of the Museums in Washington DC) was buried.


The Smithsonian Castle

Right outside the Smithsonian Castle were 2 museums, one which was the The National Museum of African Arts and the other is the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery which exhibits Asian arts.


The National Museum of African Arts


The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

We entered the African Arts Museum for a short while but it didn't really caught our attention and so and we went on to the next available museum (we skipped the Asian Arts Gallery too). We actually had the National Air and Space Museum in our minds at first, but while on the way there, we entered the Hirshhorn Musuem and Sculpture Garden but the museum of contemporary arts didn't interest us at all too.


The Hirshhorn Musuem and Sculpture Garden

We then proceeded to the National Air and Space Museums and that too was a dissapointment, because we expected to see some real models of aeroplanes, but what we got were just replicas. Nevertheless, it has many exhibits and we learned quite some stuff about telescopes, Universe etc..


The National Air and Space Museum


The exhibits in the Museums


An exhibition of an aeroplane's cockpit.

It was already 5 plus hours since we took our breakfast and so that meant that we need food and so we stopped by a stall for a munch (as for me, I had the leftover apple pies from the Mc Donald's we had in the morning). After our break, we continued onto the Washington Monument but this time to take the tour up the Monument itself. And for this time, we got our tickets and didn't waited long before our turn came.


Me & the Monument :)


The elevator up the Monument.

Once we were up at the observation deck of the monument, we started taking pictures of the city of Washington DC (for your information, the Monument is also the tallest building in Washington DC). Below are pictures taken from the Monument.


The East view (spotted the Capitol?)


The North view (spotted the White House?)


The White House close up


The West view (spotted the Lincoln's Memorial?)


The South view (spotted the Jefferson's Memorial?)

During the east view at the observation deck, we've learned of the location of the Library of Congress and that we chose as our next destination. It looked like as if it was close to the monument, but it was a very long walk before we arrived at the Library. But all I could say was it was worth every single feet of the walk, because we are talking about the largest library in the world here, and the decorations inside the library was just magnificent (anyone of you remembered the movie National Treasure? And yes, we are at the very Library which was also shown in the movie).


The majestic Library of Congress


A view from the stairs on our way up to the viewing deck


Another view from the stairs up


The all-famous reading area (which we are not allowed to enter but observe from the observation deck)

It was already close to 6pm when we were done with the Library and we decided to call it a day since all museums would have been closed at that time. And so, we took a long walk back to our hotel, and of course we took some pictures along the way.


This is one group picture that would really depict our Work and Travel USA experience :)

While we were nearing our hotel, we happened to pass by a street market and it's the first of it's kind that we've seen since we arrived in the US.


The street market in the heart of Washington DC

And as usual, once back in our hotel, we took our bath and headed out for dinner. For today's dinner, we had a Chinese meal in a Chinese restaurant (named Szechuan house) in Chinatown (sorry, no picture of the food I ate since i didn't have my camera with me at that time). Right after our dinner, me and Dickson headed back to our apartment while Damien and Winson decided to stop by the book shop to do some reading. So this sums up our 3rd day and also the last (before we leave for New York tommorow) in historical Washington.