National Mall and Pentagon City

Karlijn and I headed down to the National Mall today to check out a Chinese Culture Festival, which sounded really great. It was actually a bit lame. They had some really good Chinese dancers, but we expected to see some booths and eat really good Chinese food. There were only a few vendors, and some of them weren't even making the food on site. I wanted some Chinese dumplings, but they only had noodles and such. So we decided to walk down the Mall and head over to Pentagon City Mall so I could get a clutch purse to take to Gala.

As we headed down the Mall, we saw other small demonstrations, hard core kickball games, lots of tourists wandering around, and the "One Nation Working Together" rally. It was huge! There were TONS of people at this rally, and it hadn't even started much. They changed the directions of the Smithsonian Metro escalators so they were only heading up, so we had to walk a block to find the other. Crazy! The Metro was SOOOOO full of people coming to the rally. I've never seen anything like it! It was busier than rush hour traffic on Monday morning!

Karlijn and I grabbed some food at the Pentagon City Mall and shopped around. There are some super expensive shops there (who pays $250 for a shirt?!) but I found a really cute clutch for $12. Success! Now I'm all set for Gala and only had to spend $12 on the ensemble...which is pretty great for any girl! Luckily I already had the dress, shoes, and jewelry, which I brought with me "just in case" I had a reason to use it. I'm glad I do!

-Jen