day 5

felt great and refreshed after a long rest in the hotel last night. woke up early today to meet up my guide and begin my tour. today's first stop will be to philadelphia, visiting the independence hall, historic site of the signing of the delaration of independence back in the 1880s. the group size of the tour was about 30, mostly american born chinese families in it and some taiwanese. we were all assigned seating arrangements in the coach to avoid confusion. i happened to be assign next to sharon, who was travelling alone as well. kinda awkward at first, but we started having little chats through the journey. learnt that she was 22, indon-chinese who migrated to california and is currently sching in UCLA. i was kind of glad that at least i do have some kind of companionship for this 9 days of travelling, camera buddies we became later. after the stop at philadelphia, it took us another 3hrs to arrive in washington dc. visited the white house, capitol hill, as well as the holocaust museum in dc. there were like a total of 19 museum in all and all were free admission. we got like a 2hrs time to view any museum we want. the first one that came to my mind was the holocaust. i really had a great insight of the holocaust after that visit. i also saw the hope diamond (titanic)in the natural history museum. next were the infamous korean and vietnam war memorials in dc. i also went to the exact place where martin Luther king gave his 'i have a dream' speech. that was also the place in the 70s where the hippies were protesting against the vietnam war. the most rewarding part of the trip was to see the cherry trees opening their blossoms in dc. the guide told us that it was rare to see them blossom. i learnt later that the trees were actually gifts from japan to dc. had pizza for dinner and transferred to marriot hotel in Pennsylvania for a night there.
indepedence hall
white house
cherry trees.
Lincoln's memorial