Perambulations

Besides taking a 4-mile walk on the day I went around with my sister when she came to town, where we saw six museums and had dinner in Chinatown, we ate in Chinatown two other times and toured the National Portrait Gallery one evening.  I hadn't seen the new Obama portraits yet, so that was a first for me as well as her.

Although the Barack portrait is more lifelike and symbolic as well, filled with flowers to remind us of his Hawaiian (not Kenyan) birth, we decided that the more stark and simple Michelle portrait, which bears less of a faithful likeness of her, is the one that will better stand the test of time.  It has an elegance and a strength that portrays her rock solid inner self, it seems to me.

Chinatown was filled with tourists, and hustlers, as always but it is being taken over by franchises that are supplanting the local Chinese restaurants one by one, especially in light of the continued success of the Capital One Arena there where the hockey and basketball teams play, plus the success of the residential building around there in Penn Quarter so there are only a few places left where you can get authentic Chinese fare.  We ate at one such restaurant, the Chinatown Express Restaurant, a noodle place on Sixth Street NW which featured hanging bird carcasses in the window so it is off-putting to many of the squeamish sort but it is good and authentic food and I enjoyed a moo shu pork dish while my sister enjoyed fried noodles and pork.

The next night we had a draft at an Irish Pub on Fifth Street NW before having dinner at Clyde's at Gallery Place, a restaurant that's affordable with good service that I always enjoy.  Even in the dark as I walked my sister back to her hotel we passed many distinct buildings which I knew something about so I would fill her in on its history, like the National Building Museum, the world's largest brick building supported by brick columns, or the old Pension Building, making perambulations around the District almost always interesting and informative.