There were of course other parts of Washington that we also visited, but i'll leave it to later.
For many visitors to the capital of USA, the museums and monuments are the must-go. We figured that since there are operating hours for the museums and not the monuments, we should visit the museums first. So our first stop was the Smithsonian museums.
The Smithsonian has 19 museums in total in Washington DC, NYC and Virginia. Out of the 19, 11 are located on the area of the National Mall. If you may recall, there was a film called "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian". Uh huh, it was said that the film was inspired by the Smithsonian.
It was quite a distance to walk from the Metro Center station to the museums. So i took a few pictures of the downtown along the way. The buildings in Washington DC have very unique style. My subordinate who had never been to any western countries before was very much amazed by it, while the UK lady felt nothing, as Europe boasts even more beautiful architectures.
As we saw the Capitol from afar, we knew that we were near.
As we only had a few hours, it was of course not possible to visit each of them. The UK lady wanted to see arts, which both my subordinate and i had no interest of. So we decided to split up. She will visit the the National Gallery of Art, while we went to the National Museum of Natural History. We would meet up again at 4.30pm.
At the compound outside the Colossal Head National Museum of Natural History, there was this big Colossal Head lying on the grass.
The entrance to the museums are free. There were lots of visitors lining up to enter the museum, and it was crowded inside. And it is huge!
Once we were in the museum, it was of course snap snap snapping away on our camera! (And the quality of the pictures came out not too good since the light was dim in the building. Flashes may result in light reflection while no flash means blurry picture because of my shaky hands. Of course, not to forget that i'm using compact camera now. Hmm, i think this kinda justify for me to get a full gear of DSLR, huh?!)
First, we entered the Sant Ocean Hall, and was greeted by a huge model of a whale and some huge bones.
Then there was this aquarium with beautiful fishes and corals.
We walked around and there was a wealth of knowledge here on everything about the ocean. For instance, we learnt the evolution of whale -- that its ancestor actually had "legs" and looked so ugly!
Next, we came to the rontunda where there was a figure of a actual-size elephant.
To the side was the entrance to the Hall of Mammals, which was one of my favourites.
If you are like me, who couldn't recall what we had learnt from our biology lessons at all, here's a refresher...
How do you define mammals? Mammal = Hair + Milk + Special Earbones
And it was said that all mammal actually originated from one same ancestor! *gasp!*
And it was from this little creature here! *gasp again!*
Well well well, i guess that explained the irrational behaviours of human beings sometimes. We are, after all, once beasts too.
Then we did a quick tour around this area, which again was full of knowledge on everything about mammals.
There was our closest relative, the primates.
Then there was ungulates, mammals with grinding teeth and hoofed feet.
Next, not to forget the carnivores, or simply, the meat eaters!
We then skipped the other sections on the first floor and proceeded to the second floor. First, we went to see the bones collections.
Next was the Western cultures, where there were (fake) mummies on display.
There were drawing of the actual heights of the the ancient Egyptians on the wall. My subordinate is a petite lady and her height is equivalent the the ladies back in the 1400s, while mine is equivalent to the men of that century.
After this, we decided that we weren't interested in the rooms on the second floor, and went back down to first floor again to see the dinosaurs.
There was a vertical pillar in the room that showed how young human beings are to this earth compared to all these ancient and extinct creatures.
By the time we finished touring this area, we thought it was time to shop for some souvenirs. We went to the shops and didn't see anything of interest, or the stuff was too expensive. In the end, i got myself another one-cent moulded souvenir, like the one i got when i visited the Pagoda at Reading.
By this time, it was about 4pm+ only. Since we still had some time before re-gather with the UK lady, we went up to the second floor again and visited the gems and minerals section.
We went in through the door that led us to the Hope Diamond, the diamond that has existed for more than a billion years.
We didn't know what the fuss was about at first until we saw a very big crowd gathered around something. We squeezed ourselves in and saw this enclosed display case with a huge diamond inside. It was placed on a rotating pedestal that would turn itself 90 degree every few seconds.
My camera has definitely done this diamond injustice. It is gigantic (the biggest i've ever seen for a diamond) and glistening under the lights. It was supposed to be a deep-blue diamond but i couldn't tell the color and thought it was clear.
This diamond was said to be cursed, according to Wikipedia. Well, i guess no single mortal is supposed to own something as precious as this, huh!
As everyone was pushing each other to have a glimpse of this diamond, the security shouted at everyone out of a sudden, warning us that this area had become a hazard due to the exceeding capacity of people. He asked everyone to have a quick look at the diamond and then leave the area, instead of waiting for the diamond to be rotated for photography. That was what i did actually -- looked at where it would turn to next, squeezed in front of the crowd, snaped a quick photo and then got out.
Beside this diamond, there were also a lot more other precious stones on display as well, some of which had been worn by famous people such as the Queen of England.
Do not be fooled by the poor quality of my photos. These diamonds were really beautiful. No wonder this was the room that was most packed with people. Whoever said that "diamonds are a girl's best friend" was definitely wrong. Diamonds are everyone's best friend, male and female alike.
And guess what, all the gemsstones on display were gifts from Tiffany & Co.! No wonder the jewelry sold there were of exorbitant prices.
When we left the room, we walked through the gems and minerals section where various of stones and crystals were on display. The audience there were few, and frankly, even when we walked past this section, we didn't really stop either. I mean, after seeing all the diamonds, who wants to see stones! I guess we should have started from this section and then onto the diamond section instead.
After spending a few good minutes gazing at those expensive gemsstones that we could not have, it was 4.30pm already and time to meet up with our UK colleague.
Basically, the museum was too big and has so much information that we could only do a quick tour around without really taking time to read the text. It's such a pity. We could have easily spent the whole day here visiting every sections and absorbing the knowledge that are presented to us for free.
Just to show how big the museum is, here's the floor map of the museum and where we visited:
Labels: travel
