Vegas trip

So this weekend, Tamiko, Kiyong and myself went to Las Vegas for a quick get away and gambling trip. I noticed this time around Vegas was definitely less crowded and money was not flying around. The tables in the Casinos were set at a cheaper dollar amount too.
We gambled, lost some money, ate at some different places, and had a grand ol' time.

DC day 4

We are flying on our way back home now as I write this. Shrek 4 is the movie of choice funny enough. Luckily the airport was not crowded at all and we got through security and everything pretty quick. The day started out with us realizing that the continental breakfast wasn’t what we hoped it to be (we missed it earlier due to late wake ups). So we quickly packed up all our stuff, booked the super shuttle for our return, and check out/left bags for pick up. We realized our day was shorter than we thought. We ate one of our best breakfasts at the Corner Bakery. The weather got increasingly hot so we took the metro to the Smithsonian. We started off at the Castle building (original building for Smithsonian). Here we saw the tomb of it’s benefactor/creator. On display was Albright’s pin collection. We quickly glossed over this. Headed back out to the Air and Space museum portion. Here we quickly realized we did not have adequate time to see all that we wanted. This place rocked though. We saw Lindberg’s “Spirit of St. Louis”, Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed, Wright Bros. original Wright-Flyer, Apollo 11 landing capsule, and many other amazing aviation sites. This museum is densely packed with tons of great items. Our time was unfortunately limited. We headed out after buying some random soveigners. We went walking for a good place to eat lunch but after each step the sun and heavy humidity beat us down. We luckily found a very good pub that someone recommended as we read it’s menu outside. It was one of the better places we ate. After that we had only enough time to catch a metro back up to our hotel and find the Super Shuttle already waiting for us. A quick pick up of luggage and hop into the van brought us to our flight home, where we are happily relaxing our tired feet as we reflect on a great first vacation away together.

DC 3

Today we went down to the Norman Rockwell exhibit at the National American Art Museum which is part of the many Smithsonian museums. This show did not disappoint at all, and was actually the highlight of our trip. This was George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg's private Rockwell collection. It comprised about 45 paintings/drawing of Rockwell. They show was laid out very well and had a great short 15 min interview with Spielberg/Lucas on Rockwell. We quickly went through the rest of the museum and saw some nice Thayer paintings along the way. The Portrait Gallery Museum is also part of this museum. Tamiko really enjoyed the Rockwell which was a nice bonus. We went over to a pizza place across the street. Here we had a very good meal. Afterwards Tamiko wanted to go back and see the Rockwell show again (it was free) which really made me happy because I never tire seeing Rockwell's work. We headed down to the National Archive. Here we saw the original Declaration of Independance, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. This was very awe inspiring. Sadly both the Declaration and Bill of Rights had been handled so much over the years that most of them were illegible. Still to see these magnificent documents of American history was breathtaking. We walked around the rest of the Archive and enjoyed numerous sites. Surprisingly this ended up taking most of the day with little much open still we decided to take in a movie, "The Switch" with Anniston and Bateman. It was a bad little comedy. I liked Bateman and the child in it. We found Chinatown around the corner and ate at a promising place. It turned out to be some of the worst Chinese food either of us had, and by this time on a Sunday most places were sadly closed. Must say that the food in DC that we discovered has only been so-so. One day left so we hope to fix that.

DC part deux

So 2nd day in DC. We walked down for breakfast at a nearby coffee shop, Carribou. The temperature was quickly getting warmer. We tried the famous DC metro today ease up on all our walking and it was great. We rode it to the South Congress stop and we were only 2 blocks away. We had a tour through the new Capitol Visitors Center. This place is great. A large basement structure below the Capitol to house visitors and give tours of Congress. Security here is tight. Actually all over DC you can see the change in how you can access the city. All major sites have battling ram guards blocking any vehicle from colliding onto the premises. We were shown a 15 minute movie on history of the Capitol. Afterwards we had an awesome Guide who took us all through various portions of the Capitol building. We all got headsets and she spoke to us through them. The rotunda is just spectacular. This tour is over a half hour and was all free. We walked over to the Supreme court across the street, and then to the Jeffersonian Library of Congress next door. We headed back into the heart of the Mall, by the many buildings of the Smithsonian. Here we went to the Natural History Museum. This place is awesome and totally free. We saw some great dinosaurs bones, mammals, and other setups. Afterwards we tried to find a good seafood place but ended up eating at Elephant & Castle pub, which I believe is a famous pub/chain in London. Food was good. Afterwards Tamiko indulged me to a stop over at Barnes & Noble across the street. I powered up on a mocha and we split a Chocolate puff. Another day down. It’s going by so fast.

Arrived in DC

Well, Tamiko and I had a glorious first day in our Nation's Capitol yesterday. We took a red-eye on Thursday night to arrive at Dulles at 7-ish am. We had a little of a hard time finding the super shuttle but once we were on the shuttle it was smooth sailing. We arrived at our hotel, Helix Hotel, a Kimpton hotel like when Nick and I stayed in Chicago. Super excited that the early check-in did work (usual check for DC is 3pm). We decided on a quick nap to get our breath back which turned into a 2 1/2 hr nap but boy did it feel good.
From then on we were exploring all of DC for our first day. We walked everywhere. Surprisingly it was not complicated to get around. We are only about 8 blocks from the White House, which we hit first. We walked the National Mall some. The best icon is the Washington Monument, if you can see it then you can quickly figure out where you are going. We then headed towards the Lincoln Memorial, but saw a WW2 monument at the head of the reflecting pool. People were wading their feet in it's cool waters. We noticed a concert setup at the Lincoln memorial,called Restoring Honor. The Lincoln Memorial did not disappoint. It was just inspiring to see Mr. Lincoln there, imposing watching over us all. His words of wisdom echoing off the marbled walls. We walked over to the Jefferson Memorial, which on our first guess looked a lot closer. On our way we stumbled upon a Korean war memorial. It had a platoon of soldiers walking through the grass and a wall monument of various faces of the troops. We continued over to the ever far Jefferson monument. By now the sun was setting and our day was coming to a close. We reached Jefferson and saw his gradiose bronze statue basking in the setting sun casting him in a golden light. By now we were totally tired walking back to the heart of DC. We were now in search of a restaurant which ended up not being as easy at it seems. We ended up cashing our chips in at a Hard Rock Cafe, which I had not been to in at least 15 years. Afterwards we walked around till we reached our hotel room at 10:30pm...what a full day here in Washington DC.

Chicago visit Day2

Well, I'm in Chicago with my Cousin, Nick.
We went to the Field Museum (Natural History place) and Shedd Aquarium on Saturday. It was great. We saw Sue the T-rex and lots of dolphins, whales, otters, and all sorts of fish. A really cool coffee shop when we went exploring out of the city, I found the Back to the Future time machine...maybe Marty never destroyed it!