Richmond and Washington D.C.

We recently came back from attending my cousin David's wedding in Richmond, VA. Coming from a big city where you gotta drive to the Botanical Garden to see some trees -- I was totally taken back by the beautiful scenaries in Richmond. They had endless rows of tress in all different shades of colors ... Fall is definitely a great time to visit this city.

I used lived in Charlottesville, VA but moved to Chicago when I was only 3 --- so my memory of VA is very limited. So, aside from the wedding, I was glad to sneak in some site-seeing time while I was there. We hit 2 spots -- Monuments Avenue and Maymount Park. Monuments Avenue is the only street in the U.S. that is a National Historic Landmark. It is a boulevard with monuments tribute to the Confederacy. However, I found the houses there more facisnating than the monuments --- each house was really unique in their architectural style. Driving by that street made me feel that I was no longer in the 21st century but back in the 1800s. Kinda neat!

As for Maymount Park --- All I gotta say is WOOOOW! If I lived in Richmond, that is DEFINITELY the spot I would pick to have my wedding ceremony. It was totally beautiful --- so many great photo spots!! The park is 100 acre -- so it was pretty huge. By the time we finish walking through it, I was exhausted. (I don't think we walked the entire park too).

Next stop -- Washington D.C. The drive from Richmond to Washington D.C. was only about 1 and 1/2 hour -- so it was a good short ride up to see the nation capitol. What I love about D.C. is that all the museums are FREE!! Hehehe. Since we went on off-peak time, parking was not bad too. We would able to find parking spaces fairly quickly. The only complain I would have about D.C. is food. There wasn't really anything good to eat inside D.C. --- bascially, on every corner, you got your hot-dog stand. So Patrick and I ate hot-dogs for lunch for 2 days.

Oh! Let's not forget to mention the EXPENSIVE hotel pricing in and around D.C!! We stayed in a small town, Alexendria (about 15mins drive to D.C) and it still costed about $200/night. And for $200, I expected a lot more in the hotel than what was given. Oh well! I gotta admit that the town was really nice. I enjoyed walking down the street at night. We had two nice dinners -- a French cuisine and seafood. Both were really good. The seafood, however, was kinda weird since they serve the crabs and the lobster minus the shell. I think I realized that part of the fun in eating seafood is breaking away the shells!
(But, I think Patrick enjoyed it more since he is more lazy with the shell. Hehe)

New pics are posted in the gallery. Check it out!