Washington, DC and Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 3/31/2011-4/5/2011.

3/31/2011 Thursday.  Anne is in China this week, instead of going over to Asia I decided to hit Washington DC since David and Ruby were going to visit.  So happens Johnny will be in town also, and I will get to meet up with him as well.  Later this week I will fly up to Toronto to meet up with Anne, and we will spending a few days there.  One thing we didn’t quite count on was the weather, a couple of fronts are coming through and I will be spend a few gloomy spring days out of town.

It was drizzling this morning, so called South Amboy Taxi for a ride to the train station.  The fare itself was $4.50.  Since I got there a bit early, I walked over to Dunkin Donuts to have breakfast.  Layover at Newark was going to be 40 plus minutes, and I couldn’t resist and bought a small burrito.  Amtrak cars were surprisingly full, no seats with an empty one next to it available.  Otherwise uneventful.  Waited a bit after I got off the train for David to pick me up in his rental car.  Checked into the Sheraton Washington North hotel and got a room on the executive floor.  This isn’t the nicest Sheraton I have seen: more along the lines of Four Points, perhaps.  By being called Sheraton, they can charge for everything, including internet.  After settling in, David and I went back to BWI to pick up Ruby’s sister Julie and her friend Flora, who is visiting from Hong Kong.  Dinner at Legal Seafood, which is next to Chinatown, with Johnny and his colleague Ken.  Food was okay, not great.  We then drove around to try to catch glimpses of the Mall and the Tidal Basin.  We noticed the cherry blossoms are white in color.  Wonder what color we will see in the morning.

4/1/2011 Friday.  After a simple breakfast (bagels and cheese for me) at the Club Lounge we drove to the tidal basin area to catch a free tour bus which took us around to see cherry trees.  We in this case are myself, David & Ruby, Julie and Flora.  Most of the flowers are white, for a small number you can make a case that the petals are a bit pinkish, and some (especially the weeping cherries) are definitely in shades of pink and red.  We were very puzzled, and few believed a ranger’s explanations that the flowers would start white and turn pink when they are ready to fall.  This is not the first time we have encountered cherry blossoms.  Anne also mentioned that she saw on CNN that the bloom is mostly white, no explanation given either.

View of Tidal Basin from Jefferson Memorial.  Cherries are mostly white this year.

 We then went to the Museum of the American Indian for lunch.  A recent issue of Budget Travel mentioned this as a great place to eat.  It certainly was quite crowded, but when I got to the counter I saw that the salmon I wanted looked very dry.  I opted for the salmon (grounded up) burger instead.  That and a coffee cost about $15.  The burger was quite good, I have to say.  We then marched off to the National Art Gallery to see the Gauguin exhibit.  There were quite a few paintings, but at the end the exhibit proved to be a disappointment.  There was a docent who was explaining some of the paintings Gauguin made, and talking about aspects of Gauguin’s life.  My issue is the curator seems more concerned with appealing to experts (perhaps trying to outdo other fellow curators) than the masses.  A great exhibit will let the audience gain some additional knowledge and appreciation of an artist, regardless of whether the tourist is doing a whirlwind tour (like us) or is an expert already.  After visiting Gauguin, I also did a quick walk-through of the Venice Exhibit.  There are many paintings from the 1700s on display.  I am very impressed with how finely done some of the paintings are.  One might be misled into thinking they are high definition photographs standing just a short distance away (well, a bit of exaggeration on my part.)  I walked back to the American Indian Museum to do another quick walk through.  It is a poorly curated museum not worthy of a second tier city.  You come away not gaining any additional understanding of the people at all.  I think the chief curator just ask several groups of people to put together something for display, without any overall picture in his/her head.  The displays remind me of those I saw at EXPO in Shanghai last years.  And those in the “Oceania” section, at that.  When I visit a Native American historic site, I come away having a better understanding and a greater respect of them.  Here you read the right words and phrases here or there, but the overall message is still "we were taken advantage, and we need help."

David and I met up, toured the Air & Space Museum a bit, and sat down to chat over cups of coffee while the ladies were at another Museum.  We ate some of the freeze-dried astronaut food which I found quite forgettable.   I forgot my camera but luckily found it when I returned to the McDonald’s inside the Museum.

We then went to the Thai Place restaurant which lost our reservation.  But they were able to accommodate us .  Johnny and Ken joined us, a little late.  We then took the shuttle to JFK Center to listen to a concert.  Johnny’s other colleague Grace joined us together with her 11-year old daughter.  It was close to 11 pm when we got back to the hotel.

4/2/2011 Saturday.  David & Ruby managed to get free buffet breakfasts for all of us, so we ate that meal there.  I didn’t eat as much as I could, but more than I should.  We then drove to Mt. Vernon, VA, home of George Washington.  The view certainly was nice, being on the shores of the Potomac.  Even though a lot of people say this is a must see, I didn’t find it that interesting a place to visit.  The threat of, and then light, rain didn’t help.  We had a quick bite at the Food Court.  Ruby then suggested we might as well go to the Crab Cakes place, we all agreed.  Unfortunately, for some reason Magellan decided to take us through the heart of the Cherry Blossom Festival, and I was a bit pressed for time.  So I asked David to drop me off at the Reagan National Airport.  They then proceeded to go to the restaurant and discovered it was closed: it was just written up in the latest issue of Budget Travel.  My flight was delayed for about 45 minutes.  Everything was smooth until I came to the customs line, which looked very long.  It took only 20 minutes to clear, and Anne, coming in from Beijing, came out of customs a few minutes after I did.

Mt. Vernon.  The view from the house is great.  I didn't find the tour that informative, though.

We checked out a rental car – a blue Hyundai Accent – and got to the hotel (Four Points) without too much trouble.  Then we got some Canadian dollars, ate at Pizza Pizza, and bought some groceries for the rest of the trip.  And it is now 11 pm.

4/3/2011 Sunday.  Woke up late this morning, and didn’t leave until about 10:30 am.  First went to St. Lawrence Market, thinking that there would be an antique market there.  It was closed.  Lunch at Spring Rolls which serves fusion dim sum.  Overall only mediocre quality – we still ate quite a bit, though.  Then drove to University of Toronto region.  I went to the Royal Conservatory of Music to see if I could buy tickets to that afternoon’s concert, and was told rush tickets would be on sale in a couple of minutes (1:30 pm for 3:00 pm concert).  Naturally we waited for that and got two tickets for $10 each.  Walked around UT a bit.  After the concert, we drove by the CN Tower, it looked closed.  We found out it closes on Sunday.  We then drove to Chinatown.  Dinner at E Pan (First Grade):  lobster and grouper dishes.  Most of the Chinese we heard in the restaurant was Mandarin.  Later we found out there is a “New Chinatown” on the eastern part of the city. 

The Royal Conservatory of Music.  New Building is where we heard the Fleishers.

4/4/2011 Monday.  It snowed last night.  Spring on the calendar doesn’t necessary translate to an actual one.  Visited the Royal Ontario Museum, with the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal which had to be a new addition that appears to be consuming the old traditional building.  I admire how an architect or designer can put together something like this, but usually don’t find the results particularly aesthetically pleasing.   There was a special “water” exhibit that was just so-so, long on message (green, of course) but short on actual displays.  Did learn a couple of things about the silting effect of dams and how artesian wells are affected by other wells.  They do have an interesting collection of dinosaurs.  There is a display of a Chinese tomb from the Ming dynasty that is also quite interesting.  In general, however, I find the displays reflect a rather narrow world view.  The curator should go out more (she/he should thank me for suggesting boondoggles.)  Also, I find the videos explaining the iconic displays mostly uninformative.

 View from inside and outside the Royal Ontario Museum.

 "The Blue Lady", one of the so-called Iconic Treasures.

A tomb from the Ming Dynasty.

We did stop by the “New Chinatown” as indicated on a tourist map.  And it is even smaller than the “old” one.  We had Vietnamese there.

4/5/2011.  David told us we should try Richmond Hill or Markham for Chinese food, so we drove the 40 or so kilometers there.  Sure enough there were a lot of nice Chinese restaurants.  We just picked one at random and had quite a bit of dim sum.

The Art Gallery of Ontario, like the ROM, is very Canadian-centric.  Again you have a new design wrapping around an older building.  In this case the architect is Frank Gehry, an Ontario native son.  The outside is quite puzzling, bordering on ugly.  Inside, however, is much more interesting, especially the use of layered wood.  We are impressed with this particular artist (Giuseppe Penone) who carved out a tree from a railroad tie or the trunk of a railroad tie.

One of the many works of Giuseppe Penone.

I don’t know how much Canadians travel and if they visit museums in other countries.  They certainly can’t expect to learn a lot about the outside world by visiting the museums and galleries in their own country.  A pity.

It had been a while since I flew out of Canada, so I was surprised how the whole process had changed – and there were no special lines for US citizens.  The immigration, customs, and security processes took about 20 minutes.  I continue to wonder why immigration and customs are in Canada.  Due to weather conditions in Newark, our flight was delayed.  We managed to take an earlier (also delayed) flight and got back at the original expected time.  Train and then taxi to get home.