Together in Our National Capitol
I spent this last weekend with boyfriend Jing, in our national capitol (anyone see the Forrest Gump reference? =P). Washington DC is optimally located exactly halfway between New York City and Durham, NC (where he's at Duke Law), so it's the perfect for more inexpensive weekend meet-ups and short vacations. It's also actually a very romantic place! [photo from DCGiftShop.com] (P.S. pardon me if I spell "capitol" as "capital" throughout this post. My job has gotten me used to typing the latter.) The occasion (or excuse) was the National Cherry Blossom Festival that happens in late March through early April. We wanted to see the blooms, visit the Japanese Street Fair and grab some yummy takoyaki (octopus egg balls) and okonomiyaki (japanese seafood pancake) just like at the San Francisco Cherry Blossom Festival we went to a couple years ago, spend some quality time together and also visit our friend Sherry who went to Berkeley with us and moved out there for work after graduation.
Our first stop was the Japanese Street Festival. To be honest, we were quite disappointed. I guess we shouldn't have expected it to be as great as SF, but it was just kind of weird. A lot of people dressed up like gothy anime characters and even a guy dressed as Alice in Wonderland (or so it looked) twirling around on a stage with techno music... Anyway, even the food couldn't save the festival since most of the vendors were non-Japanese and not so great =X
We left after a bit and went a hunting for the cherry blossom trees around the Tidal Basin area. I got one of those tourist maps that marked where to find the trees and confidently led us to the exact area on the map. When we got there, we were so confused! There were no blossoms to be seen at all. Just these normal green trees. Turns out that the blossoms were at full bloom a few days before, and disappeared just like that! See the photos below of me in the cherry grove vs. Michelle in the cherry grove (just a few days earlier). UGH!
When Michelle and Kim visited vs. when me and Jing visited...
That night, we celebrated with some Korean food in Annandale, VA. Ye Chon is a super authentic 24 hour Korean BBQ / Japanese place that Sherry picked out. They've won a ton of awards too like I was surprised at how friendly the waitstaff was even though they were EXTREMELY busy (haha maybe I just got used to new york ktown and their rudeness =P). (I just found out from their website that they are actually Korean & Japanese... no wonder they had sushi on the menu!) The tofu in their tofu soup was sooo tender and the beef was nice quality stuff that was juicy and chunks (not like thin slices). Anyway it was great!
The next day, my boyfriend planned out everything for us, which was wonderful! We went to the Village at Shirlington in Arlington, which I think can be called "Brunch Row". The weather was great so everyone was eating brunch outside and it seemed like everyone had a dog! We saw Huskies, St. Bernards, French Bulldogs, Golden Retrievers and almost every kind of dog out there.
While waiting for our table, we grabbed a drink at Caribou Coffee, which was like a Lululemon of coffee! Their slogan is "Life is short. Stay awake for it." and their store signs and cup sleeves have wise maxims/proverbs like "Give your change to charity" and "Sing out loud". I looked through their website and they are actually a public company (Nasdaq: CBOU... pretty illiquid stock and not trading so well. ML and TWP did their IPO in 2005). Their core values are: Blaze new trails, be excellent, not average, enjoy what you do, respect diversity, teamwork builds divesrity, success and profit create opportunities and make a difference in your community. I like!! Of course the most important part is that the coffee is good, or at least the Chai soy latte we got was =) Sad they don't have any locations in New York and mostly in the Midwest and South. They have a few in North Carolina though (Jing, let's go!).We had brunch at Carlyle Grand Café, we enjoyed the best brunch I've had in a very very long time! Pretty impressive that it was in Arlington, VA instead of NYC (which some would consider brunch capitol of the US). Jing sure knows how to pick these restaurants =) We decided to order 2 apps and 1 main dish. The corn and crab chowder, tex mex eggrolls (I have a soft spot for these) and the lumped fresh corn over poached eggs. It was basically like an eggs benedict with crab instead of ham. MMM. So affordable too, total came out to be ~$30 with coffee (no alcoholic drinks though).
[photos below: beignets (mm), tex mex rolls and our crabs benedict type dish]
Afterwards we did the suburban thing and went shopping at The Fashion Centre at Pentagon City. Pretty good mall, I think on par with Valley Fair in San Jose. I bought some clothes and go to see the iPad!! (Going to wait for 2nd version before I contemplate buying it. not going to get fooled again after buying the iPhone the first day it came out...)
Before we knew it, it was time to eat again! I was getting on an early bus so Jing arranged for a sushi dinner in DC to make up for the disappointing Japanese street festival food we had. Kotobuki is located in the Palisades area near Georgetown (which is BEAUTIFUL btw!). It's a small restaurant with very fresh fish. We also ordered the eel kamameshi which is is rice with eel and veggies cooked in a "traditional iron kettle" (that's what they called it). Super yum! [photos of sashimi, eel kamameshi, a mochi star and a mochi dog!]
After this dinner, I had to head to the bus stop to return home =( It was a short trip, but had lots of fun. Can't wait to come back here again! Thanks for the great weekend Jing <3 and thanks to Sherry for being a great host too!!
Thought this was funny. I went back to work on Monday and these are the flowers in our lobby this week.
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Transportation: If you're closeby, just take a bus! Super affordable and relatively quick. Here are the difference bus companies I've taken and my thoughts on each:
- Megabus - ~45 both ways. double decker bus so tons of people on. was cheap for me, but i think it was slightly more uncomfortable than bolt bus. has WiFi and power outlets
- Bolt - these buses are pretty comfortable! i think my favorite, but tends to get more expensive the closer you get (~$60). has WiFi
- Vamoose - these were comfortable and they go into Maryland and Virginia so good if you're meeting ppl outside of DC (don't have to deal w/ all that TRAFFIC!). no WiFi though. Around same prices as megabus I believe.
We stayed at the Sheraton Crystal City. We chose this hotel in Arlington, VA because it's super close to our friend's apartment, but I think if I came again I would choose to stay in this area again! It's less crowded so you can drive around, it's across the street from the Metro and it's cheaper than staying in downtown D.C. The area is hotel central so many many more to choose from! I think if you wanted to go partying at night, it might be a little more inconvenient (we've attempted to hang out in Adam's Morgan or Dupont twice and failed both times, opting to just hang out at our friend's place).