Photojournal Blog: Mascara's Washington DC 2011 Journey

I've enclosed here some pictures depicting some places I've visited during the DC trip. Enjoy!




At the Lincoln Memorial

 


The White House



Jefferson Memorial & other historical places in view from the Newseum



The Vietnam Memorial...kinda creepy here, I would say



At the Newseum



In front of the Newseum building



View from Newseum rooftop



The historical line of media development in the country





Snapshots of press cuts & newsreels

 


The remnants of the news satellite from the fallen World Trade Center

  


Dinner with friends at a Thai Restaurant

 

Anecdote - Mascara's Journey to The Planned District, Washington DC

As I am obviously still in the mood to reminisce about some of my unforgettable trips, I thought of sharing a lil bit about my recent 2-week trip to the US, covering 3 major cities - Washington DC, New York City, and the ever magnificent Chicago, yay! The trip was in May 2011, and I will first start with my DC trip, and share with you some of the places I visit & what I enjoyed most during my stay.

I am very thankful & fortunate that my job allows me opportunities to visit lands and places which I never thought I would be able to visit until I am probably old & wrinkled :) This was actually my 3rd visit to the US, and my second time to DC and NYC. I will not dwell so much on details of what I do for my work, suffice to say that i was extremely pleased with the hotel where we stayed - the Omni Shoreham Hotel (http://www.omnihotels.com/findahotel/washingtondcshoreham). The Omni was a mere walking distance from the Marriot Wardman, where the conference is held. Omni was fantastic! I got a 'corner' room, which surprisingly included a treadmill - solving all my anxiety about not having the time to visit the gym. And i actually DID manage to visit the gym later on, was really impressed with the equipments, and spent some time doing some lightweights and cardio on the EFX.

check it out! i actually ran on this for the whole week i stayed here!

And if there's one thing I’m really happy about being in the US, is the fact that STARBUCKS is everywhere! There's a little cafe near the lobby which serves Starbucks lattes, and I was a happy person every morning as made my way to Marriot as i sipped hot my caramel latte.

A week in DC gave me some time to do some shopping at the premium factory outlets  - the Potomack Mills Woodbridge (http://www.simon.com/mall) & Leesburg Corner (http://www.premiumoutlets.com/outlets/outlet) - and nearly broke my arms lugging the many shopping bags. Got myself a pair of super beautiful UGGs! – am absolutely ecstatic! I absolutely have no idea where or when i will actually wear the UGGs, but hey it doesn't matter, what's important is that I got myself a pair and that has made my life partially complete (fashion-wise!).

During the stay I also managed to visit some interesting historical monuments in DC, including the World War 2 Memorial, US Capitol Building, Washington Monument, Vietnam Memorial, The Lincoln Memorial, The Thomas Jefferson Memorial, and managed to find a spot to grab a picture with The White House in the background – thanks to a tour arranged by one of our business partners.

And oh, I must share with you this really great restaurant called The Kinkead’s, located at the Pennsylvania Avenue, NW (http://www.kinkead.com/). The house specialty – a super delicious crabcake dish – was absolutely heavenly! If any of you ever happened to stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue & and feeling famished  - do stop by The Kinkead’s  and order the dish, and savor the delectable taste of yummy seafood (I am literally salivating now!).

Best of all I also managed to made a quick lightning visit to the Newseum  (http://www.newseum.org/) - and it was absolutely fantastic! There were floors of newsreels and press shots, press articles going back all the way to the 19th century! There were original press cuts on the sinking of the Titanic (1912), the fall of the Berlin Wall that used to separate the Germans (1989), the assassination of JFK (1963), the death of Princess Diana (1997), the 9-11 tragedy (2001), and of course the latest was on the death news of Osama bin Laden (2011). There were also some remnants of the news satellite that used to be on top of the World Trade Center building which was destroyed during the 9-11 tragedy - on display; and also 4 original blocks taken from the fallen Berlin Wall which the Newseum obtained the rights to keep, also on display.  All in all I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to the Newseum – and I bought this really cool book, a collection of Pulitzer Prize photographs (produced by the Newseum itself) ; before I skipped my way out to continue strolling down the streets and people-watching.



am gonna add this to my endless book collections!



I stayed for a week in DC, had my fair share of halal food (which mostly includes kebabs, Japanese, seafood..and more seafood), enjoyed my room at the Omni and it’s huge, luscious bed, and did enough shopping to make me eat instant noodles for the next 5 years. But hey…the journey wasn’t over yet. Coz me & my friends were due to visit the ever hip & happening NYC!!

I’ll tell you more about it in my next post..stay tuned!

The Broken Glass

I have been feeling extremely down of late. It took me a while to actually be able to express all this down, after my first post almost a month ago. It's probably to do with me being so exhausted after a couple of business trips in May and June, and the fact that I am constantly overwhelmed with the need to make up lost time with my son, and worrying endlessly if I managed to make up the lost time at all. Even the effort to push away thoughts of guilt of having to leave him too often is already exhausting enough, leaving me restless all the time. 


But most of all it has to do with the emotional turmoil that rumbles within me recently, having to go through extreme disappointments with a couple of friends whom I considered dear in my life. This is quite an experience for me as I have never been the type who favours and deals well with conflicts amongst friends, but somehow the recent betrayal and horrible experience I went through really shook me & made me realize how fragile a friendship is. Seriously, the years of friendship and trust can easily be destroyed by a single act of thoughtless and reckless betrayal. I will not dwell on the facts of what actually happened here, but suffice to say that I have lost absolute trust in one of my dear friend (whom I still befriend until now, god knows why), and also the fact that I have ACTUALLY LOST another dear friend due to my own decision to end the friendship I had with her as I could not with my life accept her actions of late (which saddens me & breaks my heart & I have been mourning about it for months but I doubt she realizes that anyway).


Which brings me to this conclusion – friendship is made of glass. It is fragile, it is beautiful if you hold on to it with much care, mould it and shape it with love, sincerity, & tenderness. Over years, as people become too familiar with one another, we become careless and we forget to hold on to it as much cautiousness as we used to. And that is when slowly our grip to the fragile piece of glass becomes loose and our fingers slowly let go of it one after another. Until finally one day we forget who our real friends are, and we let go of the glass and it crashes. Leaving it fractured, shattered, and sometimes irreparable. And that’s when you realize it’s already too late and the glass remains a broken glass. Sigh.


But hey life goes on, I wish the two of them well, but what’s more important is that I must ensure that I go through this with spirits unbroken. Yes I’m deeply sad of what has happened, but there are others who needs me and consider me important in life. Most of all I have learnt that I only have a handful of friends left whom I can depend with my life, and those are the ones I must cherish & be grateful for.


And oh – I never realized I can be such a crybaby too over this. So much for being a gung-ho on the surface :P

There's always a first time for everything

Apparently it is my first time to try myself at blogging. Have always wanted to try it out..I mean, considering the fact that I used to have this sort of passion for writing and expressing myself better in written words, and had this sorta foolish dream that i wanted to be a writer someday when i was waaaaaay younger years ago. i remember how i used to spend endless hours pouring my thoughts into my stacks of diaries, and the pages of scribbles in a thick notebook with characters i virtually stole from my endless supplies of 'Sweet Valley Twins' & 'Sweet Valley High' (god how many trillion years ago was that again??). But somehow i pause at the thought of writing in a blog. I don't know why. Maybe because with a blog, your thoughts are instantly 'published'. And it's like exposing yourself to the world. And i AM a private person.


But hey - a nice dinner i had with an old girlfriend last night actually made me revisit the intention to write again. It's nice to have someone to tell you that it's ok to give it a try, and she'll be the first to follow the piece. A simple encouragement that actually nudged me to give it a try.


So we'll see how it goes. I don't specifically have any topic or theme or whatever it is you call it to focus on..i just thought that i'll make it simple, and have this as an avenue for me to share my thoughts, my dreams, and my experience - with everyone. Wish me luck!