Holiday in USA (2)

In my last blog I covered the first part of my trip from LA to Iron Mountain to New York City. Now we left the heat of NYC by coach to go to the heat of Washington DC, but with great blue skies. Here I am at the US Capitol building, just like the one in Havana...well almost.

Cuba's is smaller for sure! I was lucky to be there 6 years ago.

We met this funny guy ( I mean the one on the right) who wanted to join the other clowns in Congress!

We enjoyed a slow walk down the National Mall, which will look really good when the renovation works are finished. Of course we stopped off at some of the great Museums along the way.

The National Gallery of Art is in a beautiful building and the new wing by I. M. Pei was also wonderful to walk around in. He really likes triangles, doesn't he? He used them in Beijing (Xiangshan Hotel, Bank of China building) as well as in Paris.

I was so happy to see the 12 animal signs of the Chinese zodiac. Here I am beside my animal sign, the rat. That gives away my age now. 

 

 

I got a great photo of the White House at dusk. I waved to President Obama but I didn't see him wave back. We left DC just in time before the thunderstorms which cut off electricity for several days. Just imagine what it was like with no air con! That never happened to us in Beijing so far, though we did have problems with flooding of the roads.

Our next stop was Miami, such a famous tourist resort but we came during the hot off-peak season. The Hispanic influence is very strong here, and we treated ourselves to a great Latino barbeque buffet.

 

At Miami Beach, there is a mixture of different beaches for different interests, (we even had a peek at the nude one but no photos sorry) and at South Beach, a large collection of art deco buildings. Some in this style remain in Shanghai but none in Beijing.

I guess it's a fun town when all the tourists are here, but quite expensive. Saw some party glasses.

 

Do you think they suit me?













There were lots of seafood restaurants....

cheap cocktails especially giant sized mojitas....

and all kinds of bar entertainment, such as this drag show.

We then went on to our last stop Fort Myers to see some old friends who had travelled with us a lot in China and now it was our turn to see how they lived. A big thanks to y'all who made our trip so enjoyable.

We got a very warm welcome, and saw that our friends lived as a very close family, just like in China. We tasted all sorts of yummy home cooked and southern restaurant food. It was also mango season there so we had lots of those.

Here's a typical brunch.......

We went to see the historic centre of Fort Myers, which looked quite new and modern to us, but that's because anything over 100 years old is called historic there. We also went to an art collectors home......

and admired lots of "historic" goodies, including several Chinese pieces....

 

.....and a pair of Foo Dogs, which we call stone lions, just like outside any important person's home in China, including the emperor's (have you seen the ones at the Forbidden City or Summer Palace?). Mind you these were not carved out of marble or cast in bronze......but the male and female were in the correct place on either side of the main door.