my Georgetown excursion

There is more to Georgetown than its infamous M street (known for good food and shopping). Its nooks and crannies are pretty sights to explore and see, especially in the fall. I love walks and I love autumn and I love exploring. What a great combination.

You can get to Georgetown by walking by the waterfront from the George Washington University campus. I walk out here occasionally just to enjoy the weather or see the sunset.

The houses themselves are fun to look at around Halloween.

The Tudor Place is a very old manor house with large gardens designed by William Thornton who also designed the Capitol building.

I love autumn because it has all of my favorite colors in one place.

It’s a big park where people bring their dogs to walk and children to play, and where you can meander through the mazes and acres of green grass.

You can’t be lonely if you have 1. music and 2. a camera and a 3. big smile. :)

I was astounded by the sheer size of the Oak Hill Cemetery. This tranquil place apparently holds around 18,000 graves and was established in 1849.

Random facts: This (left picture) is the grave of John Howard Payne, the composer of “Home, Sweet Home.” He died in 1852.

Staying too long in a cemetery gives me the hibby-jibby’s.

The Dumbarton House is known for its 18th and 19-th century furnishings.

The Mt. Zion cemetery is very small, even more so compared to Oak Hill Cemetery. This is where African Americans were buried before the Civil War. Segregation even after death. America’s come a long way I suppose if you consider that an African American is currently serving in the White House. But it’s still got a long ways to go.

I am so loving fall – it has to be my favorite season.

This excursion is … to be continued…

 

a better place

If pictures speak a thousand words, than these shall express my heart’s deepest sentiments.

World War II Holocaust Museum

This museum was built in 1993 during the Clinton adminstration to remember the past so that it would not repeat itself. I find this very ironic since it was only a year later that the massive Tutsi genocide occurred in Rwanda while the U.S., UN and the rest of the world chose to do nothing.

History repeats itself. We can’t just watch it happen and then build a museum 50 years later to express condolences.

The U.S. has a lot of pressure and expectations as a democratic unipolar superpower to intervene and to help. But, I’m not a U.S. citizen. I’m a Korean. I don’t know the extent of aid or involvement my country had in Rwanda, or has in Darfur or Sudan. As a political science and international relations major, if I end up working for the Korean government I’d like to make South Korea into one of the biggest aid-giving, ‘humanitarian’ countries in the world.

I don’t think that there can ever be a ‘peaceful’ world or that pain will be erased from this world. That’s not my goal. There will be brothers against brothers and a lot of pain and suffering, especially during the end times the Bible says. What I want to do is be God’s love to the hurt. I want them to know that God never abandoned the weak, the poor, or the hurt.

What can you do?

Little Town of Bethlehem

I went to see the screening of this short movie about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at Georgetown University. I enjoyed the movie immensely, but the panel afterwards even more. The most poignant moment of the evening was when someone from the audience asked Sami, one of the men featured in the movie, about the nonviolence movement:

“Can you tell us any stories of hope? Do you think there is a tipping point for peace?”

“No. We are still really far. This is not a success story. We are failures. We didn’t stop the Occupation, we didn’t remove any checkpoints. And the reality is deteriorating. But we are sick with hope… A lot of people ask us what keeps us going. Solidarity. Comoderie between the most unlikely people. We managed to change. We gain an understanding and humanity of the other side. Courage – this is what keeps us going.”

cupcake, cupcake, cupcake

I declare America to be the land of cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes.

Land of cupcakes, brownies, and chocolate chip cookies. Today at the Farmer’s Market Hyuna and I devoured half of a lemon pound cake while the sparrows were begging for crumbs. It was divine. Then afterwards, a group of friends walked to Georgetown to try the infamous ‘Georgetown Cupcakes’. It melts in your mouth and for some reason leaves you feeling really guilty. Cupcakes like those should be illegal. You know you’re swallowing a teaspoon of sugar for every bite. But here, you can get away with it. Then, at the exclusive J Crew event for GW students, they had an array of small chocolate chip cookies. I had half a bite, and actually stopped (something I have a really hard time doing with food) because I felt sick. So much sugar intake for one day.

Oh America, the land of baked goods. Be good to me – do not tempt me further.

the city I love

It’s 2 p.m. and my Comparative Politics of Middle and Southern Africa class is out. I head towards Citi Bank from Bell Hall. As I pass the IMF and the World Bank the proximity of both which Emily says is part of a conspiracy (must look into further), not only am I enjoying the weather but I also realize I’ve been falling in love with the city for 3 weeks. D.C. is a city of many things, one being languages. My ears pick up Italian, Spanish, Chinese, and well, English, on the benches, corners and sidewalks of streets. It’s a city of diversity, a melting pot of sorts that symbolizes I guess what America is all about. The man strumming his electric guitar on the corner only adds to the persona of the city.

Friday afternoon’s walk will take us to the National Gallery of Art. Sarah and I pass the Lincoln Memorial and Monument, all the while admiring the beautiful nature in the middle of this small big city. And I enjoy watching her be amused by the huge squirrels which I have now become accustomed to seeing everywhere. We head towards the Capitol building, get lost along the way, but finally make it to the West Wing of the National Gallery of Art. I’m not an art expert, but I take time to appreciate the beauty. The amount of art, even in the West Wing, is too overwhelming and this is a place I must return to. When the gallery closes we head towards the adjacent Sculpture Garden where a jazz concert featuring Bruce Swaim has just begun. We say hi to some friends and find vacant seats on a bench. The man besides me says “Ni hao,” and I politely correct him – “We’re not Chinese.” Then we must be Japanese. No. Vietnamese. What, no. The fact that we are Koreans leads to a friendly half an hour conversation about his Korean friend who had serious gambling problems, families, and dating tips. I love the fact that I can have conversations with complete strangers and share cultures and thoughts. We enjoy the music before walking back to campus – on the way we make a bet on how many runners we will see (well over 25), which I lose and now I owe her 3 scoops of Ben & Jerry’s icecream.

3 weeks. And I’ve fallen in love with a city.

at the National Gallery of Art