Since I took this week off between Christmas and New Year's, but had no vacation plans, I just stuck around the MD/DC area. Here were some of my adventures from the other day:
1.
Visited the Freer/Sackler exhibits. I took two Hindu classes in college as well as an arts history class on Chinese art, so I was very excited to see exhibits focused on Asia. Here are some of the pieces we saw:
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| Ganesh (or Ganesha) is always easy to identify because of his elephant head. |
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| These are three of the oldest lacquer Buddhas in the world. It's amazing that some of the colorful pigment is still there today! |
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| I like that this Buddha is connected to a mandala. |
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| This was an amazing room that was set up as a shrine. There were statues of gods and goddesses everywhere, and there was a recording of chanting playing in the background. It may sound weird, but as soon as I walked in, there was a different energy in the space. It was incredible and definitely my favorite part of this museum visit. |
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| This is an ancient Chinese bell. The designs on it look very similar to metal work I learned about in school. |
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| I liked these tiger/dragon statues. |
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| Ancient deviled egg plate? |
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| How cute is this antelope cup? |
We also saw an exhibit that focused on the importance of lions in ancient Egyptian sculpture. I didn't take any pictures because the pieces looked like standard hieroglyphics and sphinxes. Those pieces looked kind of rudimentary, until my friend mentioned that the ancient Egyptian art was from 4,000 years ago, while the Buddhist pieces were only about 1,000 years old.
2.
Went to the United States Botanic Garden. I always like visiting the Botanic Garden, especially during Christmas time. Unfortunately the gallery where they have Christmas trees and lots of poinsettias was closed, and the line to see the model trains was too long, but we saw the rest of it.
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| I liked this tree they made from leaves painted gold. |
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| There were random dinosaurs throughout one of the rooms. At least some were home-made, like this one. |
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| Others were just plastic, like this Stegosaurus and crocodile. Not sure of their purpose... |
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| If you look closely, each of those yellow "mouths" has nectar coming from it. I have never noticed that before in poinsettias! |
Then we quickly looked at the
Capitol and its Christmas tree. But it was really cold so we didn't linger!
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| This squirrel was cold and hungry! |
3.
Saw the Christmas lights at the Mormon Temple. I've done this nearly every year since 2013. Their festival of lights is so beautiful; the place looks like Disney World!
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| This tree has "fruit" made from lights! |
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| Most of the trees on the campus are deciduous, but I did see this pine tree! |
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| Their lights especially impress me because they seem to light up ALL the branches ALL the way to the top! |
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| More lit-up fruit |
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| Inside the Visitors Center there were several Christmas trees. |
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| I liked the strings of dried apple on this one. |
Whew, and to think we did all of that in just one day! So much to see and do around the holidays in D.C.!
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