Thanks to Aeroplan points, we got two free tickets to Washington DC. I was so excited that I planned our trip 1 month ahead of it. I listed all the places that we could visit in Washington DC. Thong, my husband was responsible for booking the hotels and car rental. Since we didn’t have any relatives in Washington DC, we just planned to stay there for 2 or 3 days, and then we will go to Richmond, VA where Thong’s cousin lives. Our trip was durning my birthday, so Thong wanted to do something special for me. That’s why our trip was so fancy this time (I know this is not a good experience to share with everyone, because when we go travelling, we want to save as much as possible).
We arrived in Washington DC at 7:30 pm. After picking up our luggages, we waited for the shuttle to drive us to the hotel (our hotel was Hyatt) which was close to the hotel. This is an advantage because we don’t have to pay for the taxi, but there was also an disadvantage since there was nothing interesting around the hotel.
After checking in the hotel, we wanted to have a walk and visit Washington DC at night. The first transportation was subway. Despite searching carefully the information about taking a subway at Washington on the internet, we still encountered difficulty at the subway. The machine at this station was broken, we asked for help and the subway attendant gave us a free ride and asked us to buy card at the next station. The card is 10 bucks/passenger (from my experience, I would really recommend that you should bring some cash with you, because the machine sometimes doesn’t like your credit card). We can add more money to the card. We have to scan the card every time we enter and exit the subway. The cost of the ride depends on how far we we travel.
The street in Washington at night was so quiet that it made me scared. I gradually got disappointed about the trip, but Thong kept motivating me. We stopped at a Taco restaurant and had dinner. Afterward, we went to The White House. Our first impression was there was a lot of people staying outside to take the pictures. No one is allowed to enter The White House except for getting the permission from a member of Congress.
We wish one day we could go inside The White House.
It is said that “Man proposes, God disposes”. We planned to visit many places, but due to the bad weather, our plan didn’t go as we wanted. Next morning, we rent the public bicycles (this is very convenient, we pay 7 bucks/person, and we can ride every 30 minutes, there are a lot of stations around the city) to go to Lincoln Monument. It rained heavily. Despite of it, a lot of people still came and visited it. The next destination of our trip was Chinatown. It is a busy area with a lot of Chinese stores and restaurants. There are also many famous stores with Chinese billboards like Mc Dolnald, Starbucks, Chipotle…
Lincoln Memorial Monument
Washington Monument
Chinatown in Washington DC
We went to the airport to pick up our rental car, and then came back to the hotel to check out and get the luggage. We went straight to Baltimore. The highway was very dark but luckily, there was a lot of cars on it. Baltimore welcomed us with a light rain. The first place that I wanted Thong to take me to was the sugar store It’sugar. OMG. It feels like I was lost in a paradise of candy here. There are a lot of candy with a variety of colours and shapes. I can spend a whole day here without getting bored. We walked around the city with the cameras and then there was a couple came and told us be careful walking around the city with the cameras. I was so scared at that time.
Sugar store It’sugar, one of my favourite store in Baltimore
Inner Harbour was the 2nd place that we can’t miss out on when we came to Baltimore. The harbour is a historic seaport, a tourist attraction and also a landmark of Baltimore. However, the harbour is very peaceful and quiet in the morning. Around the harbour are stores and restaurants.
Inner Harbour
Saying goodbye to Baltimore, we went to Delaware which is 2 hours by car away from Baltimore. We went to Christiana Mall which has the only Apple store in Delaware to get a new phone. The entire state of Delaware has no sales tax, because of this the Apple store in Christiana Mall sells the most iPhones world-wide. This is the perfect place for anyone who loves shopping.
We went back to Washington for a night and next morning we went straight to Richmond, VA where our cousin lives so we could save the accommodation fees. We went to Williamsburg mall which I thought that everything here would be cheap but actually it wasn’t. We didn’t go to any places special except for the last day, we went to downtown and came to the tourist center and there the lady gave us a map and showed us many places to visit at Richmond, VA but unfortunately we didn’t have time. ;-(
Richmond, VA
We went back to Washington DC again to take a flight back home and at there we visited Eden Center. This is the largest Vietnamese center on the East Coast. Here you can easily see many Vietnamese restaurants, shops, supermarket, and of course many Vietnamese people.
Every party has its ending, we really had a fun time in Washington DC. We learned and experienced many new things during this trip. there are still many places that we didn’t have chances to explore, but life is an adventure, we will see U.S again in a very short time. Goodbye.