The two of us woke up at around 6.30am and got ourselves ready for another trip to downtown Washington DC. As the accommodation did not include breakfast, we bought a piece of pastry each from the hotel restaurant and the free coffee at the lobby for breakfast.
The earliest shuttle bus left at 8am, and we arrived at the Smithsonian station at around 9am. We walked towards the Washington Monument to get to the other memorials. As we stood across the street to the monument, waiting the traffic light to turn green for us to cross the road, we heard a woman's voice from the opposite street. It came from the long queue at the ticketing kiosk of the Washington Monument. That woman was speaking in China-accent Mandarin at the top of her voice, complaining to her friend that she had been waiting in line for more than 2 hours already and still hadn't gotten the free tickets yet.
I frowned at hearing her ridiculously loud voice even across the street. Well, i guess these China people are just the same no matter where they go. They are just loud and inconsiderate. For that moment, it made me felt ashamed to be in the same color of skin as her, for people would be mistaken me as China Chinese too.
[Yes, i am stereotyping on ALL China people, for the obvious reason. I don't really f*cking care. I just detest people of that nationality. Period.]
As we passed by the monument, we took some more pictures there.
As i was about to take a picture for my subordinate, an American was passing by on his kick scooter and i gave way for him. He greeted me and i smiled back. He then asked if we needed help to take a picture of my subordinate and i together, and i declined. Now came to think about it, i realised the two of us didn't take a single picture together at all for our entire trip to the USA.
We then walked to the National WWII Memorial.
This is a rather new monument in the city, opened in year 2004.
At the entrance to the compound of the memorial, there are two flagpoles flying the American flag. At the base of the flagpost, the inscriptions read:
AMERICANS CAME TO LIBERATE, NOT TO CONQUER, TO RESTORE FREEDOM AND TO END TYRANNY"
The announcement stone at the center of the entrance reads:
HERE IN THE PRESENCE OF WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN, ONE THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FATHER AND THE OTHER THE NINETEENTH CENTURY PRESERVER OF OUR NATION, WE HONOR THOSE TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICANS WHO TOOK UP THE STRUGGLE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND MADE THE SACRIFICES TO PERPETUATE THE GIFT OUR FOREFATHERS ENTRUSTED TO US: A NATION CONCEIVED IN LIBERTY AND JUSTICE.
There are 56 granite pillars surrounding the monument, each inscribed with the name of each state and territory of that period.
There are two pavilions on the north and south ends of the monument, with the inscriptions Atlantic and Pacific.
In the pavilions, there are sculptures of four American eagles holding a suspended victory laurel.
In the center of the monument is the Rainbow Pool, a circular fountain with seating along the pool circumference for visitors.
At the inner walls, there are more inscriptions of the words of the famous American leaders of that time, such as General Marshall, General Eisenhower, and the ex-Presidents of USA (Roosevelt and Truman).
From where we stood, we could see the Washington Monument from afar.
And on the other side, there was also the Lincoln Memorial in a distance.
At the earlier half-an-hour when we were there, we saw a huge group of young people in blue t-shirts. They were everywhere and were in the background of almost all the pictures i took. We gotta wait for them to walk away before we could take any pictures without any of them in our pictures.
Just as i was very much engrossed in photo-taking and reading the inscriptions, one of the guys from the group approached me. He was very young looking, like a teenager, but was very tall, as i was only at the height of his shoulder. A few friends of his were standing by the side smiling sheepishly, while he asked me something which i didn't hear clearly at first and only got the part about "take a photo".
I thought he was asking me to help to take a picture of them, but i didn't see him holding a camera. So i looked puzzling at him, and he said again, "can i take a photo together with you?"
I was stunned and the first thing came into my mind was to ask "why". But then i held back my tongue and just nodded. He then signalled one of his friends to get ready, while we posed for the picture, with his arm on my shoulder!
I was again dumbfounded, as i really didn't know how to react. After the snap, he thanked me and i just smiled back without saying a word. He then walked away with his friends who were laughing at him.
Seriously, i can't make out what this was all about. It was peculiar that anyone would wanna take a picture with a stranger. I hope the kids don't do something funny with my picture.
And frankly, if he had wanted to take a picture with me because he found me attractive, then i also don't know if i should be happy or sad about it. I mean, happy that a young American boy found me attractive, but sad that i actually attracted teenagers!!!! You know, if it was in the older days when people got married at very young age, i could have been the same age as his mother!
Labels: travel
