Oriental East
Actual date: August 14, 2009
Sorry for the lull in posts. See, the version 2.5 update of Lightroom came out, allowing me to process all my RAW E-P1 files instead of relying on the JPEGs, and firmware updates came out for the E-P1 and lenses supposedly improving autofocus performance that I had to test, and… Ok, so all of that is true but not at all the reason for the lack of posts. Laziness is, as usual. Plus the English Premier League and college football seasons have started up in earnest, and I have to dedicate my customary hours to making sure I fulfill my man duty to know as much as possible about sports, especially the ones I claim to follow, but even those that I don’t.
In my semi-defense, this post is a doozy as I’m going to totally and utterly geek out about this dim sum, so that and my natural laziness combined and reacted to form an impenetrable wall of dread and reluctance to post, which I’ve only now been able to overcome. Warning to all: if you don’t care about food just skip this one, as it’s a total food fest and will be quite the long post to boot. » Continue Reading…
Actual date: August 13, 2009
Here are more random bits of adventures in family vacation-ry.
Just looking
Looks like Sofia has learned how to window shop already. Good. Because that’s all the shopping you’ll be doing for a while with the economy in the hole like it is. » Continue Reading…
Dolcezza Gelato
Actual date: August 13, 2009
Yeah, we were full after eating at Bethesda Crab House. Too full for dessert though? Not a chance. On the way back to the Metro, we swung by Dolcezza Gelato for some… uh… gelato. It was a few blocks away, which gave us a chance to see the sights while letting the crab feast pack down in our stomachs. » Continue Reading…
Bethesda Crab House
Actual date: August 13, 2009
Long fun day at the zoo wore us out, and we needed some serious replenishment. Bethesda Crab House was on the dining itinerary that night. We got on the red line Metro at rush hour with a few thousand other people and made our way out to the Bethesda Metro stop, from which it was a few more blocks trek to Bethesda Crab House. Susie met us there soon thereafter. We would’ve gotten there sooner if I hadn’t led us the wrong way a couple times. Note to anybody using Google Maps to navigate D.C.: the listed metro stops are the locations of the escalators. The elevators are often in a completely different spot. Don’t make the same mistake I did. » Continue Reading…
Vace Italian Deli
Actual date: August 13, 2009
As I mentioned previously in the post about our National Zoo trip, we left the zoo at lunch time to grab some lunch to go from Vace Italian Deli. You can see from their storefront that they sell homemade pasta, mozzarella, and sausage–awesome! We didn’t get any of the above since we were just there for lunch, but they had plenty of other great Italian goods that made us wish so badly that we had one of these near where we live. » Continue Reading…
Elephant--one of the favorites
Actual date: August 13, 2009
Sorry for the lack of D.C. updates. This is the problem with photo blogging–you actually have to work on the pictures, then you have to do something with them. Who knew, right? A friend and I talked about how cool it would be to autoblog, but that’s a pipe dream for now.
Anyway, Day 2 of our trip was Zoo Day! We got a later start than we thought (a theme for the whole trip; we should probably just give up on the idea of starting early) although Sofia woke up way earlier than she should have, so by the time we got to walking around the zoo Sofia was worn out and had dozed off. That’s ok. The first few animals were escaping the heat by hiding in their caves or whatever, so there wasn’t much to see. We saw a black bear and that’s about it until we came to the otters. » Continue Reading…
Actual date: August 12, 2009
Part of the appeal of vacationing is seeing new and/or unusual things. To people from Mississippi, D.C. is full of such wonders, only a few of which I had the awareness to capture in photos. These aren’t going to be phenomenally wondrous things, but rather a collection of random and unrelated sights that I found interesting as a hick from a small town visiting D.C.
Line out the door at Greek Deli
Greek Deli is another place near Susie’s office we had penciled in as a potential place to eat. I hesitate to call it a “restaurant” since there’s no indoor seating, and I can only guess that the outdoor seating in front of it is theirs. We didn’t go because we didn’t think we’d be able to sit and eat, but it’s still on the list for a future visit. The guy in the dark blue shirt and khakis is in line to order. Yes, they are lined up outside the store, with quite a few more people lined up inside (maybe about 3 times the length of the outside line?). That’s how good this place is. Supposedly they also have their own version of Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi, albeit kinder and doesn’t sell soup. You are however expected to know what you want and order quickly instead of dilly-dallying, which is understandable considering the lunch traffic they serve. » Continue Reading…
Ghar-E-Kabab
Actual date: August 12, 2009
Flying, lunch, dragging stuff to Susie’s house, and crashing for a few hours–that’s all we managed for day 1 of our D.C. trip. After regaining some energy, we rolled out of bed and went to Ghar-E-Kabab for a super late dinner by our standards, getting to the restaurant around 9:30 p.m. There was only one other occupied table when we entered, which for Ghar-E-Kabab’s sake we hope is because we were so late getting there. It couldn’t have been because their food was lacking, because I can tell you right now that they serve some excellent Indian food there. » Continue Reading…
Walking to Singapore Bistro
Actual date: August 12, 2009
This trip was the first that we had pre-planned around good food. In the past we might’ve made mental notes of a few places we wanted to go to, but this time we planned every single meal. We didn’t want to waste a single meal by just going to eat somewhere close to wherever we were when we started getting hungry. We didn’t completely succeed in that effort, but that’s a story for another post. We tried to plan restaurants to go with activities, and since Singapore Bistro sounded like a good place to eat and is close to Susie’s office we chose it for our first meal. » Continue Reading…
Way too early
Actual date: August 12, 2009
Day one of our 2009 D.C. trip, and we’re on our way! We woke up at 5:30 a.m., which is much too early for us, but the only non-stop flight to D.C. is at 8 a.m. so we did what we had to do. » Continue Reading…