6-22-22 National Zoo and Artechouse

 Last night we went to dinner at Izakaya SEKI, a Japanese restaurant just around the corner from where we are staying.  Nathaniel had sashimi which had tuna, octopus and salmon along with assorted veggies.  He also had a salmon rice ball and a kelp rice ball.  Dave had kisu and shrimp tempura and I had a variety of mushrooms in a butter garlic sauce.  It was very good, but Dave and Nathaniel voted the Greek restaurant should get the higher number of stars in our book.  We played pinochle again last night.  I won the first round and we started a second.  Dave is in the lead so far, but we have time to catch up with him tonight.

We got up early this morning to have breakfast and get ourselves to the zoo at opening time - 8 AM.  We all decided ahead of time which animals we wanted to visit the most.  I chose the pandas, Dave chose the reptiles, and Nathaniel chose the lions.  We got to see all of those and more!  We walked for several hours and stopped at the Panda Cafe for lunch.  Nathaniel enjoyed feeding small scraps of bread to the birds who suddenly were our best friends!

After the zoo we went back to the metro station.  Nathaniel was excited to take a picture of our ride down.  He sat on the step so he could snap a shot with his phone.  This station has the third longest escalator - 209 feet.

When we got to Gallery Place, we all shifted to the yellow line and went in opposite directions - Dave took the train home to have a nap while Nathaniel and I rode to L'Enfant Plaza.  We walked a ways and finally got to Artechouse.  We were earlier than our appointed time, but they very nicely let us in early.  This was an experience unlike any I had before.  It was a futuristic audiovisual exhibition.  The show playing now is called ASE Afro Frequencies.  It is a multi-sensory immersive show on the black experience.  The music was powerful and the visuals were stunning.  Off to the side of the main space were several interactive stations.  I took several videos and will attempt to put one up here.

When we were finished, we stopped at the bar for mocktails.  Nathaniel had The Guardian - coconut puree, lemon and a cola reduction.  I had Egungun - lime, hibiscus, vanilla, and sumac.  I could only finish a third of mine as it had a pucker factor of 9000!  Nathaniel kindly finished it for me.