On Valentine’s Day, a bunch of my high school girlfriends and I drove up to Philadelphia for a day trip to visit our dear friend Debbie! (Dan was a great sport about watching the girls while I got to spend time with my friends, and we had already had our own Valentine’s celebrations in the days prior.) Jen, Mimi, and I headed out in the morning, and got to Philly in time to enjoy soup dumplings for lunch with Debbie! Juli flew in to join us afterwards for post-lunch dessert at Audabon Bakeshop!
Audabon Bakeshop with the ladies
Mimi and I at lunch right before.
Neat signage at Audabon Bakeshop
Delicious macarons from Audabon Bakeshop
Strawberry brick toast at Audabon Bakeshop
It was so amazing that it necessitates posting another angle of it.
Walking to The Barnes Foundation museum as the flurries fell around us.
Lovely Mimi!
Us at the Barnes Foundation
The snow made everything look so romantic!
Cool crystals hanging from the ceiling of the museum.
Juli, Debbie, and Jen at dinner
We enjoyed dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant called Kanella. We didn’t realize that we’d be dining off of their Valentine’s menu, so it ended up being quite a meal!
shepherd’s pie
lamb chops
Lobster from Kanella
Chocolate cake with lavender ice cream. My favorite dessert there!
This was also delicious.
Our day trip to Philly was quite eventful! It was a fun and memorable day, and it was so enjoyable getting to spend Valentine’s Day with these amazing ladies!
We got caught in a bit of a blizzard on the way so it took us a while to get home, but thankfully we made it back in one piece around 2 in the morning. Can’t wait until we are all reunited again!
Saturday was our last full day at Outer Banks, so we drove around Cape Hatteras to explore the little attractions in the area. It was a nice way to end our weeklong stay in Hatteras.
We found this abandoned UFO-shaped building on the side of the road and had to stop and take some photos. Here is our family looking like we landed from space.
Dan and Mio by the flying saucer.
There were aliens painted in the windows…
“Mio, it’s time for you to go back where you came from…”
Next stop was the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum.
There was a lot on the history of the Outer Banks in the museum, including information on the USS Monitor and other Civil War maritime casualties.
The original lighthouse lens of the Hatteras Lighthouse is on display in the museum.
Mio as a pirate. “Arghhh matey!”
Outside the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum
Some cute colorful cabins on Eagle Pass Road.
Love the colors!
Dan and Mirei at Capt’n Rolos Raw Bar and Grill, where we went for lunch.
Dan got oysters, and Mirei really wanted to dig in too!
A crabcake sandwich for moi!
After lunch, we explored some gift stores in the area, and then Dan and Mio hit the beach again one last time while Mirei and I rested at the beach house. In the evening, we drove out to see our last sunset at Outer Banks.
Waiting for the sun to set.
The sun setting on our last evening at Cape Hatteras.
One of the greatest things about the Washington, DC area is the wealth of museums and exhibits it offers to the public — not only for adults, but for children, too! Mio is a little too young to appreciate the Smithsonian museums, but there are some children’s museums that we’d been wanting to take her to for a while! The new National Children’s Museum opened in National Harbor last December, so we decided to spend our Sunday afternoon there with Mio! She had so much fun — here are some pictures!
A part of the museum featured displays representing a few countries around the world. When you enter, there’s a mini luggage claim carousel as if you were arriving at an airport.
A Tanzanian marketplace display
A Tuk Tuk taxi (rickshaw) from Thailand.
Mio loved being at the steering wheel!
There was a dress-up area where kids could try on Japanese yukata and happi.
The yukatas were way too large, so I put Mio in a happi. She loved running around in it!
Curiously taking everything in.
We discovered Big Bird, and of course, Mio had to give him a hug.
Seeing how we measure up against Big Bird. Even Dan looks short next to Big Bird!
A pizzeria play kitchen
She loved putting various toppings on the play pizza.
The Under 3 Zone of the National Children’s Museum featured a lot of fun play areas for toddlers, with lots of Sesame Street characters. (I believe the museum has a partnership with Sesame Street.)
So many fun areas to play!
Mio going through the fun house.
So much room to move and tumble around!
Mio inside Cookie Monster’s Food Truck.
She picked up various play food and was naming each off for us. She picked this roll up and exclaimed, “sushi!”
Drawing on the chalkboard.
We got to see a show in the theater of the museum about paleontology and dinosaurs! We weren’t allowed to take any photos during the show due to it being copyrighted, but Mio LOVED it, as she’s obsessed with dinosaurs right now. We had to “shhh” her a few times because she’d very loudly shout out “Dinosaur! Wow!!!” whenever one would appear on stage.
Back in the play area, playing with toy instruments.
In the baby care area, holding a baby doll. Practicing to be a big sister?
She looks a bit uncertain about the idea…
There were some craft tables in the museum, too! Mio got to make a butterfly out of tissue paper, clothespin, and a pipecleaner.
Saying goodbye to Cookie Monster on the way out of the museum.
And of course, she had to give Elmo a goodbye hug…
…along with a goodbye kiss. So sweet!
Overall, we really enjoyed the National Children’s Museum. It’s apparently a little small compared to the old National Children’s Museum that used to be on H Street in DC, but it’s very clean and modern, well-staffed with friendly and helpful people, and is well-maintained and a fun place for kids of various ages. We did think admission was a bit pricey — $10 per person, with no discounts for the children (only kids under 12 months are free), so we had to pay $30 — but that’s probably because we’ve been spoiled by the Smithsonian museum’s free admission. I think that the ticket price should be more worth it once the Outdoor Experience opens next spring: it’s supposed to be a year-round museum without a roof that will have a lot of additional great exhibits. Right now only the Indoor half of the museum is open, so perhaps it might feel a little lacking for the price of admission. We’ll definitely be back to check it out again once the museum is complete! At the end of the day, Mio had a really enjoyable time, and that’s what matters! π
The weather has been amazing for the last week here, and this past weekend was no exception. It’s regularly been sunny and 70 degrees, and it really feels like spring has finally arrived. I am not a huge fan of rain, so I couldn’t wait for the rainy season to be over. (The weather in the Bay Area is pretty nice all year round, with the exception of about eleven straight weeks of rain, during which I am miserable.)
Dan and I decided to spend Saturday in San Francisco, since we had tickets to go see the Tutankhamun exhibit at de Young museum in the evening. I’d been wanting to see the exhibit since it came to San Francisco in June of last year, and it happens to be ending next weekend. (Talk about waiting until the last minute, huh?) We spent the afternoon walking around Baker Beach, which sparkled under the California sunshine. The beach also has a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
After the beach, we drove through Golden Gate Park and headed over to dinner, past the rolling hills of San Francisco…
…and arrived at San Tung! The dry-fried chicken wings here are out of this world! I’m usually not that crazy about wings because they are so messy to eat, but these are the best I have ever had. Ever!
The shrimp and leek dumplings are pretty yummy, too…
Plus the seafood noodle soup! Yes, we ate all of this between the two of us.
Full and content, we headed over to de Young Museum to see the exhibit “Tutankhamun and The Golden Age of The Pharoahs.”
I realize that my blog post title is a little misleading, because we didn’t actually see any mummies. King Tut’s mummy and his three nested coffins and stone sarcophagus have actually never left Egypt, and he continues to rest in the Valley of the Kings. I wanted to see the gold mask of King Tut (which apparently travelled around the world for different exhibits back in the ’70s), but the Egyptian government no longer lets it travel outside of Egypt, as it has been declared a national treasure (and rightly so). Still, theΓΒ exhibition at de Young was very impressive, showcasing over 130 outstanding works from King Tut’s tomb, as well as those of his royal predecessors, family, and court officials. It’s incredible how intricately and artfully crafted those pieces were, when they were created over 3,200 years ago. During my four years of taking art history courses in college, I remember studying some of those works in my archaeology course with Profess or Knoblauch so it was sort of surreal to see them in person. I feel really fortunate to have been able to catch the exhibit in its last week. Although Tutankhamun is leaving San Francisco at the end of the month, it’ll be making its way over to New York, Toronto and Denver in the coming months, so I definitely recommend it for anyone who is interested and lives near one of those cities!
Dan, my sister and I spent a good part of the day yesterday in Washington, DC. They had never been to the Holocaust Memorial Museum before, and I hadn’t been there since going there for a field trip in fifth grade, so we decided to brave the freezing cold to pay a visit to the museum. It’s definitely one of those places that everyone should visit at least once in a lifetime. The permanent exhibition there is one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive repositories of Holocaust-related records. After going through floor after floor of photographs,ΓΒ models, videos, and preserved items from the era, you are confronted with the horrors of this atrocity. It serves as a reminder of how awful and inhumane genocide is and encourages us to work towards a world in which such injustices will be eradicated.
Clear skies in Washington, DC!
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
the line into the museum
The Next Time You Witness Hatred... The Next Time You See Injustice... The Next Time You Hear About Genocide... Think About What You Saw
Miwa and I in front of the Holocaust memorial museum.
There was no photography allowed in the exhibition areas, but we were allowed to take some pictures on the first floor of the four-story museum.
Quote by Bill Clinton at the entrance of the museum.
enscription on the wall
"For the dead and the living we must bear witness" - Elie Wiesel
memorial area
From Memory to Action
Smithsonian Metro station... waiting for the train to go back home.
I’ve really missed DC and the richness of history, culture, and education that is characteristic of our nation’s capital. In the Smithsonian area alone, there are so many art, history, and science exhibits and archives that you can enjoy free of admission. Because I was so used to museums where everyone and anyone had equal opportunities to visit and enjoy exhibits, museum admission fees are such a foreign concept to me and I didn’t really realize that most museums around the country charge until I traveled to other cities. The Kennedy Center, where I interned one summer, boasts the nation’s busiest performing facility and as the national center of the performing arts, it is a public-private partnership in which ticket proceeds and gifts from individuals, corporations and private foundations go towards educational and outreach initiatives. There are endless resources to educate and open your horizons in DC, and it had been such a privilege to live only fifteen minutes away from it all. It’s one of those things that I couldn’t truly appreciate the value of until I was away from it.
