What's the attraction of Washington? What are the interesting things in Washington?
We stayed at a hotel in Washington called Bentley. The hotel covers a large area, with three two-story buildings called motels. The room is spacious and clean. It is getting late. After washing, we fell asleep.
On September 30, I got up in the morning, cloudy and rainy, and Mutu and I wandered around the hotel. Surrounded by low-rise buildings, a squirrel jumps on the grass of the hotel, the chest-high reeds have turned yellow, and the road is full of speeding traffic.
After breakfast, we started our trip to Washington. The central area of Washington is called the National Lawn.
Mall), also known as the National Mall, is also an entity with a cross-shaped central axis in the urban planning of Washington, and our tour is also in this area.
The central axis of the "Great Lawn" is mainly horizontal from east to west, starting from the Capitol in the east and reaching the Lincoln Memorial Hall in the west, with a length of 3.2 kilometers; The north and south are supplemented vertically, from the White House in the north to the Jefferson Memorial in the south. The intersection of the two axes is the Washington Monument. If the towering Washington Monument is the coordinate center, then the Capitol, Lincoln Memorial, Jefferson Memorial and White House are located in the east, west, south and north directions respectively.
The first stop is the Vietnam War Memorial, which is located on the north side of the artificial lake in front of the Lincoln Memorial. There are huge trees on the lawn of Nuoda. Through the sparse Woods, the towering Washington Monument stands tall. The semi-submersible underground monument is V-shaped, 500 feet long and made of black marble. It is densely engraved with the names of 58 132 dead people, arranged in the order of each person's death. This monument was designed by Chinese American designer Lin Ying. In front of the monument, people presented bouquets. Only by standing here can you appreciate the anti-war power of the United States.
Walking out of the Vietnam War Memorial Hall, there is a statue of three soldiers next to it, which is the product of a compromise plan to quell the criticism and resistance of the memorial hall designed by Lin Ying in the United States. However, three American marines are full of energy, which is really a good sculpture.
Green grass, lush trees, birds singing and flying in the forest, squirrels jumping and running on the grass, people have picked up cameras to photograph the tranquility of the city.
Not far from Vietnam War Memorial Hall is Lincoln Memorial Hall, which is located at the western end of Washington National Lawn. This is an ancient Greek temple building, made of granite and marble. It was built in memory of abraham lincoln, the first16th president of the United States. During the American Civil War, he defeated the separatist forces in the south, liberated slaves and safeguarded national unity, which was admired by people of all ages.
There is a marble statue of Lincoln in the center of the memorial hall, with hands on both sides of the armrest of the chair, looking solemn. There is an inscription above the statue-"Lincoln will live in the hearts of the people forever."
There is a huge artificial lake between the memorial hall and the Washington Monument. Standing on the steps of the memorial hall, the reflection of the Washington Monument is vivid. Through the monument, in the distance, there are towering parliament buildings and white buildings on low hills.
The Korean War Monument is in the south of the artificial lake. A small memorial park, to be exact. It consists of three parts. Part of it is nineteen sculptures of American soldiers with similar life scales, scattered in a grassy clearing "looking for progress".
The second part is a black granite memorial wall with many soldiers' heads etched on it, which is copied and carved according to the real photos of American soldiers in the Korean War news photos.
The third part is also a group of black marbles, one of which says in Chinese: "Our country is proud of its children. They answered the call to defend a country they had never seen before and a person they had never met. Other debris recorded the death of 54,246 American soldiers and the disappearance of 628,833 United Nations soldiers.
We drove to visit the White House and crossed the lawn outside the White House. The Washington Monument is still tall.
Security at the White House is getting tighter and tighter. When 1998 comes, we can visit. I remember I bought a postcard of the White House, stamped it with the postmark of the White House, and sent it back to my daughter. Now there are three steps and one post, five steps and one whistle outside the railing, and the surrounding roads are also crowded with roadblocks. Most tourists take pictures across the street. We detoured from the distant intersection and shot with telephoto through the railing.
The last stop in Washington is the Capitol. Last time we came to America, we also visited. This time, we didn't even have a chance to get there. The travel agency arranged "overlooking" and looked at it from a distance across the artificial lake. It is hard to imagine that the travel society uses "overlooking" instead of tourism. In some places, photos are even taken through the window glass "from the car". Really "China characteristics"!
Washington DC
Let's start with the map of Washington.
First, popularize some basic knowledge. There are two Washington States in the United States. One is Washington State in the northwest corner, where there is the famous Seattle, where it rains all the year round. Yes, it is Beijing that meets Seattle in Seattle. The most famous are Starbucks and Microsoft. Seattle people like coffee very much. They always claim to have the best coffee in the world. This is my impression of Seattle. The American drama "izombie" that I have been watching recently is set in Seattle. The other Washington is the capital of the United States, Washington City. Americans like to call Washington, D.C.
Colombia, or "Special Zone"
We live in Silver on the northern border with Washington.
Spring, silver spring. It is said that there is NOAA's office building nearby. The office of NASA is also in Washington, but in the south. I have been to several cities in North America, not many, but most cities have rivers passing by, and the scenery is beautiful, which adds a lot of aura to the cities. It takes about 30 minutes to drive from our hotel to the White House, but the subway is a feasible choice, although it is not as convenient as driving.
Looking at the shape of DC on the map, we can see that this square city was planned by people, not slowly developed by colonists in history. In DC, most north-south streets are named by numbers,1st.
The street begins. The east-west street is named by letters, starting with AStreet. The White House is located on 15 and 17 streets, as well as H Street and Constitution Street.
Ave)。 In addition to these north-south vertical roads, there are also some roads that cross obliquely, most of which are named after American States. Because of these inclined roads, many circles are formed in DC. For example, we went to DuPont for a while.
There are ten roads in the circle. In the middle of the circle is a fountain, in which the Greek male diviner is carved. Our dear Massachusetts Avenue is also in this circle.
According to Wikipedia, the urban planning of Washington was completed earlier, so the roads are very narrow. After both sides of the residential area are full of cars, only one car can walk in the middle. But strangely, these roads are two-way lanes, so if two cars meet on the road, one of them can only find an empty parking space to stop and avoid. Fortunately, the quality of people in Beijing is relatively high, and there is no dispute. Such a wide road in Boston only allows one-way parking or one-way traffic, and there is no two-way traffic, so it is quite novel to see it this time.
In addition, because downtown Washington is full of government units and classics, there are almost no houses for people to live in, so most people work in the city during the day and go home outside the city at night. Even downtown Washington many years ago was empty at night. This has also aggravated the congestion in this city. Traffic jams in the city in the morning, outside the city in the afternoon, and traffic jams for an hour or two every day. Single-center cities are prone to congestion, but multi-center cities like Los Angeles, where pizza is spread, also have many problems, because the cities are too scattered and the public transport system is inconvenient, so it is almost impossible to move without cars. If you miss a bus, you must wait at least one hour before the next bus. This is unimaginable for me who lives in the iron lion grave. Our No.22 bus runs almost every 2 minutes, haha ~
A map of the White House and its nearby famous attractions.
Of course, the White House is the most famous scenic spot in Washington. I have been there once in winter, and I can only watch from a distance. Professor Myneni told us that if we want to see the White House, the nearest one is actually the back door. From the map, too, it is true that the back door has a better view. Just south of the White House, there is the Washington Monument. On the west side of the monument, a long artificial lake is a reflection pool. At the end of the reflection pool is the Lincoln Memorial Hall, which contains Lincoln's huge marble sculpture. There are dozens of museums on the east side of the Washington Monument, all of which are free. One of the most famous is the American Air and Space Museum. Fighters and capsules in the exhibition hall are very open-minded and suitable for friends with children to visit. Unfortunately, I'm not a military enthusiast, so I can only take a cursory look. Seen from the east, the Lincoln Memorial is the United States Capitol, but it is being repaired every time. I have to complain that Americans (I heard that all construction workers are Mexican) are really inefficient.
If you only go to Washington for one day, the green part of the above picture is enough. Almost all the top attractions in Washington are in this area, which Americans call national parks.
Shopping malls, national shopping malls. Most of the scenic spots are open. If you want to visit the White House and the Pentagon, you can make an appointment online in advance, about two weeks in advance, so I haven't been there yet. In addition, a large number of cherry trees are planted on both sides of the reflection pool. In April, when cherry blossoms are in full bloom every year, Lincoln Memorial Hall is also beautiful, but unfortunately it has never been seen. The following is a picture stolen from a classmate. Feel it.
Cherry blossoms in front of the Jefferson Memorial.
Because I study geography, I always unconsciously observe the planning and road construction of a city. As we all know, Beijing's traffic is a big problem. Beijing is an old city with narrow roads and inconvenient expansion. Opening blocks may be a solution, but the narrow hutongs in 49 cities can't be opened to traffic at all and still can't solve the traffic jam problem. It may be a good idea to change the existing road into a one-way street, but for China people who have no one-way street habit, it is also a painful process to change their habits.