Pandas, Pentagon and a Cemetery

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Geo: 38.8921, -77.0241

Today was a fabulous day as I finally ticked off something from my bucket list. Since I was young I have always wanted to see pandas. The Chinese pandas toured our home, Melbourne, many years ago, but the queues were hours long to see them and I was seven months pregnant, so we missed out. We then visited Berlin a couple of years ago and I planned to see them there, but sadly they both passed away shortly before our visit.

This time we were going to see them at the Smithsonian Washington Zoo.

I hadn't even realised that the exhibit had been closed up until three days before our visit due to the birth of a baby panda – I would have been devastated to miss out again, but all was well. We caught taxis to the zoo, it wasn't too expensive and it was bitterly cold with snow on the ground so the metro combined with a long walk wasn't too appealing.

The zoo was amazing! A small zoo by the standards of others but it had everything we wanted, including the pandas. The baby was gorgeous and we spent a good couple of hours at the panda exhibit, seeing them both inside and outside playing in the snow.

We also spent time at the big cat's enclosure. We find when we visit the lions here in Australia, they are generally lethargic or asleep, presumably due to warm conditions. Not so here. They were playing, climbing and generally having a great time.

We all loved our time at the zoo, but sadly we needed to leave as we had other sites to visit. We cabbed back to the hotel and then transferred to the metro to see the Pentagon and the 9/11 Memorial. After that we continued onto Arlington Cemetery. What a beautiful place, with amazing views of the city too. We all very much enjoyed seeing the Kennedy graves as well as many others.

Back to Foggy Bottom where we had a very enjoyable lunch of petite fillet sliders at Circa, right opposite the metro stop. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the very pretty area of Foggy Bottom before returning to our hotel to pack for the morning before our final DC dinner at Grillfish.

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Photos

Cheetah at the Zoo
Jan 20 2016 232 Cheetah at the National Zoo Washington DC

Baby Panda at the Zoo
Jan 21 2016 242 Baby Panda Cub at the National Zoo Washington DC

Panda
Jan 20 2016 246 Panda at the National Zoo Washington DC

Elephant in the Snow
Jan 20 2016 249 Elephant In the Snow at the National Zoo Washington DC

Lions in the Snow
Jan 20 2016 266 Lions at the National Zoo Washington DC

The Pentagon 9/11 Memorial
Jan 21 2016 271 Pentagon and 9/11 Memorial

JFK and Jackie's Gravesite at Arlington Cemetery
Jan 20 2016 283 JFK and Jackie Graveside at Arlington Cemetery

Arlington Cemetery
Jan 20 2016 290 Arlington Cemetery

Foggy Bottom
Jan 20 2016 307 Foggy Bottom Houses Washington DC