A good time to visit the Pandas

It was just the right feeling, I felt, to visit the Giant Pandas at the National Zoo. Of course, “right feeling” and “good timing” are relatively subjective. Anyway, it was my decision to pay Tian-Tian (the male panda) and Mei-Xiang (the female panda) a visit, one week after I read about the pseudo-pregnancy of Mei-Xiang. After the Sunday brunch, EC and I went to the zoo and looking for the most beloved animal in Washington DC.

The nice thing about being in Washington DC is there are a lot of admission free museums and parks. The National Zoo is one of them. Unfortunately, parking is not free. Again, I won’t blame them for that because the metro transit is only a few blocks away. When we got there, it wasn’t too crowded for a Sunday afternoon. We had no problem to locate the habitat for the Giant Pandas. But soon enough, we found Tian-Tian was sleeping, with all the paws upward. And, Mei-Xiang was hiding behind trees. For almost 20 minutes when we were there, Tian-Tian disregarded all his admirers and sleeps like a log. With a little disappointment, we thought we should go to see something else and come back later. On the way out, I saw an entrance to the Giant Panda indoor exhibition facility. Once we stepped in, we quickly found there were at least 10 different surveillance TVs inside a control room, showing different part of the Giant Pandas’ habitant. From the TV, we spotted Mei-Xiang walking around in one of their “houses” and Tian-Tian was still sleeping. This surveillance system is to observe the Giant Pandas’ behavior and learn about their lifestyle. Of course, this is totally understandable for scientific research purpose. But, I had this ill feeling for those poor Giant Pandas losing their privacy. Perhaps, they are just like one of those “Chinese-spies” under observation (Americans: “Don’t fool me, I know what Trojan horse (panda) is!”).

Inside the facility, there were a few poorly constructed exhibit houses with “jungle mural”, tree trunks and water pool. It doesn’t seem too cozy for the poor Giant Pandas. According to the staff, this Giant Panda’s habitant is temporary while they are building a new one. Later, we saw Mei-Xiang got into one of exhibit houses. She then started eating apples, sweet potatoes and bamboo leaves provided by the zoo staff. It was really fun to see her sitting upright and chewing the bamboo leaves. Apparently, she can consume 20 to 40 pounds of bamboo leaves a day! Later, Tian-Tian finally woke up and came into the exhibit house next to Mei-Xiang’s. And, he starts eating as if he didn’t eat for days (according to the “panda staff”, he just had lunch an hour ago). EC and I spent another hour watching them eating until we can’t stand no more and had to leave to find food. It was a nice experience to see the Giant Panda, although my “Trojan-panda-conspiracy-theory” was bothering me a little.

A day in DC

It was a beautiful Sunday; mostly sunny and 70°F. My impulse urged me to spend some time in Washington DC. And, I did. I took the Metro transit instead of driving. The train seemed quiet (oh well, it was Sunday morning) and for the first time, I listen to Silje Nergaard’s Nightwatch after I ripped the CD to my iPod two days ago. As usual, her unintentionally mellow and smooth vocal never let me down and switch me into what-a-beautiful-Sunday-morning mode. The ride was about 25 min and it seemed too short (I was enjoying the jazz immensely). After I got out from the Metro station, I just figure I didn’t bring any map with me. So, I went on my unguided quest to explore DC area. It was not too hard for me to tour around the area because I just go to places that are crowded by tourists. I guess most tourists did their homework before touring a city (not me). Surprisingly, DC is cleaner than I expect. And also, less homeless hanging around parks (maybe they are still sleeping). I am not quite fascinated by those government “attraction” such as the White House. I had to detour several times because the increase security of the White House causing sidewalk around it were blocked. After I bypassed the White House, I visited Corcoran Museum of art. On the way to Metro station, I passed by the White House again. There was an old lady “camp” outside the White House’s compound. It was pretty bizarre because some tourists rushed to take photos with her and she kept murmuring “world peace” in different language (I guess she wasn’t sure those tourists are Chinese, Korean or Japanese). How ironic the government paying so much for the security of the White House, and I guess this lady is as safe as the President living outside the White House. This was a pretty good tour in DC for me.

White House's receptionist

Runaway Americans

Seriously, Americans do concern about their future. After Bush won the election, Americans start to look for new place to live (Canada is near). See the news from Yahoo:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&e=1&u=/nm/20041105/od_nm/canada_usa_dc

Election or Erectile-dysfunction?

Election is over. Americans have made the final decision that surprised me. I respect their decision but I was scratching my head wonder why they made such a judgment call. During lunch time, one of my colleagues brought up the fact that Kerry won most of the votes from urbanized states and pointed out most of the educated American voted for Kerry. Another colleague of mine immediately replied “Oh, since you are highly educated why are you still voted for Bush.” Obviously, this raised a question what was the intention when Americans vote for Bush regardless his poor performance. Share prices of defense-related companies and oil companies are soaring today. Big corporate are happy because Bush will keep spending money on defense regardless the country’s deficit (probaly is good for me too) and will allow oil company to dig out Alaska wilderness. People are happy because they can get back a few hundreds bucks from tax cut and care less about the social security and education quality. People who believes in “Carpe Diem” are celebrating. Environmentalist, economist, and people who truly love the country and concerns about the future of their children are crying, however. It is rather a sad day for Americans. What would happened four years later? Let me predict: America’s deficit stacked up to zillion, damaging environment triggered sequential disasters, and since Americans living in perpetual fear of terrorist attack, most of the men in the America have erectile dysfunction (of course, except me).

What I have learned from this election? No traffic jams on the Election Day (instead of 30 min, it took me less than 20 min commute to work) and bad traffic the day after the Election Day (1 hour of commute!!!).