I returned home from a two week vacation yesterday night. As you may already know I went to Washington D.C. and the Bahamas, spending about a week in each. I’m not feeling tired or jetlagged right now so I guess I can start talking about my vacation in chronological order starting from leaving Hong Kong. I’ve got so many things to say I might as well write a book or something; “Illya’s Travels Abroad”. During the trip, my family also took close to 400 pictures and I’ll be posting some of those to Flickr (not a whole lot because I currently don’t have a Pro account). I have divided this entry into two parts, part one dealing with my trip to Washington D.C. and part 2 my relaxing vacation in the Bahamas. Right, so here we go with part 1.
PART 1: Washington D.C.
Day 1: Leaving Hong Kong
I left Hong Kong on the morning of the 15th via Hong Kong Int’l Airport. I got on a 777 (300 passengers = full plane) and then had to fly for close to 16 hours to Newark. I’m not known to sleep well on planes and I don’t think I slept at all.
We flew on Continental Airlines and this being the good airline that it is I was able to watch some quality television on the plane. I watched ‘Benchwarmers’, a stupid comedy film about three guys who make a baseball team for those that are “left-out”, ‘Aquamarine’, which is a girly comedy about a mermaid who falls in love with a lifeguard, and ‘Little Big League‘, an older movie about a kid who started managing the Minnesota Twins baseball team. I was also able to watch ‘Malcolm in the Middle’, ‘Two and a Half Men’, ‘Will & Grace’ and some other stuff that I don’t remember anymore. I don’t know why so many people don’t like airplane food because the food served on the plane was actually quite good.
Anyway, 16 hours later we landed in Newark Liberty International Airport and while landing I was able to catch a glimpse of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. It’s a beautiful city. When we arrived in New York it was late in the afternoon. We then had to wait an hour or so to get on a tiny ERJ plane that would take us to Baltimore Int’l Airport. I think the plane had less than 50 seats. This was my first time on such a small plane. Half an hour after takeoff we had already landed in Washington and by this time it was nearing evening time.
So we checked in at our hotel outside the city and went to Red Lobster to eat dinner (which I could barely eat because I was so sleepy) and then came back to the hotel and I just hit the sack and fell asleep and didn’t wake up until the morning. Day 1 was over.
Day 2: First Glance at D.C.
On our first real day in Washington we decided to just go check out a few places downtown. We decided not to rent a car and instead use the Metro (which by the way is extremely enjoyable to ride) to get places. We had some problem with getting weekly pass tickets at first but it was all sorted out.
So we went downtown and checked out the White House (from very far away). The architecture in D.C. is just stunning, it’s extremely beautiful. It’s kind of like Versailles in the 19th century. The planning of the city was very well done.
We didn’t have much time to check out other places there because we had to go to Chinatown to go eat at a Chinese restaurant. Food was good but obviously nothing like the food in Hong Kong.
The arch in Chinatown
After lunch we went to go play putt-putt golf outside the city and it was fun even though I came last in my family because of just one hole where I had to get 8 strokes before I finally gave up because other people were waiting. A lot of people killed their score on that hole anyway. Amazingly, the six or so holes after that one I got either hole in ones or eagles on all of them. But it wasn’t enough to keep a good score and I came last. Just for the record, my stepfather was first (he was keeping the scores by the way tsktsk).
After the golf we called it a day and returned to the hotel where I fell asleep soon enough and slept through till morning.
Days 3 – 7: Exploring The Mall and Stuff
We spent the rest of the week just checking out the National Mall and visiting museums. On the second day of the trip we visited the National Zoo (free admission). We visited most of the musuems in the Mall and saw most of the buildings too. You can see photos of them at Flickr. My two favorite buildings were the Capitol Building and the Library of Congress (I got to go inside the building but could only look at the reading room and the actual “library”). My favorite museums were the Natural History Museum, Smithsonian Castle, and Air & Space Museum. Since I’m definitely not about to write another thousand words about the places I visited, I’ll just show you of some of the places we visited in photo form, since pictures tell a thousand words. There are 85 photos from the trip that you can check out at Flickr.
The White House (rear) from Pennsylvania Avenue
The Capitol
Vietnam War Memorial
Me outside the Supreme Court (undergoing renovation)
PART 2: Grand Bahama Island
Day 1: Arriving in the Bahamas
So after spending a week in Washington D.C. we set out to go to the Bahamas. We first had to take an AirTran (airline) Boeing 737 to Atlanta from Baltimore Int’l Airport (journey was about 2 hours) and then at Atlanta we had to get on another Boeing 737 (also AirTran) and go to Freeport International Airport on Grand Bahama Island (1 and a half hour journey). This airport is extremely tiny and has only one runway, you have to use stairs to get out of the plane and onto the tarmac and the airport building itself is also very small. Not that it matters.
Almost all the taxis on Grand Bahama Island are minivans. They don’t have meters but instead have fixed rates depending on where you are coming from and where you are going.
We rented the #1512 condo in Lucaya which was right on the beach. Our condo was on the fifth floor facing the ocean. It was awesome. You have this huge (200 sq. ft.) balcony which overlooks the white sand beach that seems to stretch on forever in either direction. There is also a swimming pool a few yards away downstairs which is never full of people. It’s so quiet there too, very different from what I’m used to in Hong Kong.
Chilling on the hammock on the condo’s porch
Unfortunately for us the first day we came there (the 22nd) it rained the whole day. Even worse, the weather forecast was that it would continue raining throughout the week. We were saddened. But luckily for us, it did not rain at all for the rest of the time that we were there.
Day 2: The Water
The second day was actually the first that we spent outside the condo doing something. We decided to go down to the downtown of Lucaya, Port Lucaya, to try some water activities. First we went out on the banana boat. It was my first time on such a contraption and it was quite fun. The guy was going about 15km/hr for most of the ride. It was all fine and dandy until two people were “launched” off the banana boat. They probably inflicted this on themselves because they took their hands off the handles. Obviously, when people fall off, the driver of the boat that was tugging us has to slow down and let the guys get back on the banana boat. After the second person launched herself off, I think the driver had enough and thought: “Well if you guys want to jump off so much, I’ll help you.” We were nearing the shore when he unexpectedly turns his boat and flips the banana boat with all 8 people on it being thrown into the water. We then had to swim the 50 or so meters back to shore. It was all good though.
After the banana boating, we went on to our next activity: snorkeling. About 15 people get on this boat and go out to where the water is deep and where there are many reefs and beautiful fish. This was also my first time snorkeling and it was at first kind of strange. For those of you that don’t know. When you snorkel, you put on goggles that cover your eyes and nose and a mouthpiece with the actual snorkel on it. You breathe through your mouth so you don’t have to hold your breath. You can’t dive with a snorkel so you just float on top of the water and look down. I must’ve not put my mouthpiece in tight enough because I kept getting water into my mouth. It helps when you have a lifejacket because you can just float and don’t have to waste energy floating but the one they gave us was uncomfortable. I also wasn’t used to the whole concept of flippers and decided to take them off since we weren’t supposed to go far away from the boat. I got a bit sick on the boat but nothing happened. An hour and a half later, we went back to shore and back to the condo. That’s how our second day went.
The Rest of the Time
We didn’t do much on the other days other than hang around on the beach and in the swimming pool. On one day we went out to “Deadman’s Reef” and snorkeled for almost 4 hours. By the end I was very good at snorkeling but also had a stomach full of salt water. Reader discretion is advised for what I am about to say, if you are squeamish, please skip the next sentence and go on. I threw up into the Atlantic Ocean; I guess it’ll never be the same again. Reader discretion over.
On another day we went to the Lucayan National Park. It’s a very small park and there is little to do there except look at a cave where there are a lot of bats. The fun part about this park was that there was a very nice beach with a sandbar nearby which we spent most of the day on. There were many trees there that were uprooted by a hurricane and it was fun to sit around there. Below is a picture of me at Lucayan National Park and another one of me at the beach in the park.
At the Lucayan National Park mangrove swamp
The trees at the Lucayan National Park beach were knocked down by a recent hurricane.
Nothing else really happened and I now realize it wasn’t that great of an idea to write in so much detail about the trip (almost 2000 words man!) but I think I told what happened during my vacation quite well and that’s pretty much all I have to say. Phew.
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