A tearful departure from CP. Checked out of housing, returned all the sheets and linens and boarded our chartered taxi from Sandusky to Cleveland. this journey was a difficult one for i'm leaving behind many beautiful memories and a place that i called my home for months...







Sept 6, 2005. 6am


A domestic plane of Independence Air took off in Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, Ohio and landed in Washington DC Dulles International Airport (in case u're wondering what the heck DC means, well, fyi, in this case, its District of Columbia, not DisConnect.......... haha) before noon.




Day 1


From the airport, we tried to take a public bus to get to the city. but man! there were so many ppl waiting a a really small bus, which worse, comes in long intervals. the 4 of us looked at your 8 huge luggages (excluding carry-ons for some) and sigh..... think we can never manage to squeeze up the bus with our stuff..... so we resigned to our fates and heavy baggage and turned to a very much more expensive option of airport shuttle..... which costs like 45-50 usd (exc tips) compared to the bus that only costs like a few dollars....





there were 2 options actually, airport taxis or shuttle bus/van. we first thought that taxi would be cheaper, negotiated and hopped onto it, with the taxi-driver, figuring out how to squeeze in all our luggage, carried our luggage to the boot. however, after the taxi travelled a few metres, he quoted us another fare, which made us so angry that we demanded him to stop the car and got out of the car, carry out our luggage and left him fuming haha....



we headed back to the shuttle section and soon got onto our vehicle and got moving.... (*a note to take note of: if u're travelling alone or with 1 or 2 other persons, the shuttle is a good choice cos it'll be cheaper since they charge by per head. of course, when u have more ppl, u might wanna find out which is more worth while, taxi or shuttles.... of course, when u're travelling in shuttles, u are travelling with other ppl and u might have to drop them off at their respective hotels before the bus reaches yours!)




the first thing that greeted my eyes when i entered the city..... protests! this lone-person is protesting against the govt of meddling with other countries' affairs instead of minding its own.... u all know what i mean huh.....



(i'll try to name as many of the pix of the buildings i've posted... fact is, i do not know the name of most of them! but i'm trying hard to, i'm looking up the net to find them out!!!)

First meal outside Ohio!

oh if i remember, this fast food restaurant is called Ollies and its below the hotel where we stayed.... we stayed in old-fashioned Hotel Harrington btw.... the name sounds so english huh.... we used ISIC card for this hotel and we saved a freaking lot of money on accommodation. the black guy at the reception was really nice, we had 4 ppl and supposedly staying in double room. but he charged us single room price.... which is like 30 usd cheaper.... for 2 nights, we saved 60 bucks! the stay would have been a whole lot better if my laptop had managed to hook up with the wireless internet in the lobby. but it DIDN'T!



Back to FOOD! This Ollies has a little hispanic influence. i dun really know, juz guess from the deliciously-spiced fires. we mostly went in cos the name of the restaurant sounds interesting.... the burgers comes in lotsa variety and they're yummy.... think a set of burger, fries with spices and drink costs btw 6 usd to 8 usd. expensive in singaporean terms but normal/cheap in a place like DC....

then we passed by this hotdog stand..... the pretzel, polish hotdogs and many diff varieties of ice cream look damn good!

I hope i'm right about this. below should be the War and Navy Building..... i took a photograph of it cos the building looks really gorgeous.... the lilac roof and the intricacity of the architecture and it looks pretty massive too.....

alright, there are so many government buildings and museums here that i'm totally confused with their names (or maybe, couldn't really be bothered to find out the names of all of those i've been to and saw....) that when we go to places, we almost often leave without knowing what it is.... sometimes, our maps didn't tell us.... hehe). alright alright, i'd have made things easier for myself if i had bucked up and take down their names..... ok, to make it sound better, we're totally overwhelmed by the number of nice buildings around ok.

Washington DC treasury (below)

trying real hard to strike a post....

i dunno what's the name of this place..... could be a library... juz a wild guess..... its a big building with lotsa inscriptions on the top part of it. there's also this rosette statue in front which, again, i have no idea what it means.....

this is probably one really important place in the world...haha.... government of the district of columbia.... for those who dunno, washington dc is like the capital of the states where the federal govt operates and have offices in..... and here lies the govt of DC!

Ronald Reagan Building

know what? let's juz forget about knowing the names of these buildings and juz admire the architecture.... ah hemmmm...

went to chinatown on the first night..... tell ya something... washington dc chinatown is pretty hip! in fact, its the most happening chinatown amongst those we've visited in the US! hip as in there're nice restaurants, upmarket shops, boutiques and layouts there, unlike that in NY which parts of it looked like ghettos, dirty, shady, with lotsa graffitti.... (waah, they rhyme!)

we missed chinese food so much that we headed straight to look for some familiar stuff to feed our hungry stomachs (something we always do when we get to the chinatown of anywhere, 'cept for san fran cos we know we'll be eating lots soon in taiwan...

skimmed through the sign boards and menu of many many restaurants and ended up having noodles and steamed meat dumplings in this restaurant!! kinda got attracted by the outlook of the restaurant, the lotsa newspaper cutting outside and the man making ramen at the window.....(food is so-so only..... but heck....).

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