National Postal Museum

This is my favorite Smithsonian Museum, there is so much more to postal service than just stamps and letters! The museum is housed in the beautiful old Main Post Office of Washington, full of fascinating things to see (Postal dog? Mail police?), and the interactive elements are really fun.

Art-O-Mat, the Vending Machine That Gives You Art

Vending machines gives you cool drinks, small packs of chips, and chocolate bars, but some special vending machines can also give you art; real art-- we're talking 100 percent handmade, original art. At the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 5 dollars gives you a small piece of art that fits in a cigarette box.

Natural History Museum

Now that weekends are the only times I can visit museum, and with summer approaching, I have to get used to crowded museums. The Natural History museum greeted me with a big elephant in the middle, and the halls were filled with furry animal specimen, animals without fur as bone specimen, mummies, shiny rocks, and live butterflies.
https://www.mnh.si.edu/

American History Museum & Rolling Thunder Parade

Memorial Day long weekend and I only visited one museum, the American History Museum was quite busy on Memorial Day. I also got to Pennsylvania Avenue at the right time to see Roaring Thunder, the motorcycle parade. The name Rolling Thunder couldn’t have been a better name, those bikes were LOUD. I got there just in time to see the very start of the parade, and at that parade I saw more than a life’s share of heavy motorcycles.  The Rolling Thunder raises awareness for POW (Prisoners of War) and MIA (missing in action), basically, personnel who have not returned from war but are not dead. I stood there for about 90 minutes and the motorcycles just keep on coming, I have no idea how long it went on but 90 minutes of non-stop motor bikes was enough for me and I went in the museum.

Freer and Sackler Gallery & African Art

Freer and Sackler: The Smithsonian's Museum of Asian Art Office Site
National Museum of African Art Official Site

I had set my day for visiting the monuments of D.C. and the White House, and also the Freer and Sackler Gallery of Asian Art. I knew I would be pretty tired after walking half a day to see the monuments, so I picked a smaller museum to visit. Accidentally I visited two museums because the Freer and Sackler Gallery was connected to the African Art museum, and I went in one museum and came out from another. I did not look up any information before hand to the museum, and it turned out to be a lovely museum whose layout and atmosphere I really enjoyed. It was quiet, spacious, elegant, and with dim lighting at some parts and natural sunlight at others.

Let the Museum Tour Begin

Museum, museums, museums. That is what I said I will be doing all my weekends here at D.C. With the fine collection of Smithsonian museums that are all free, I have been visiting quite a few so far. It’s my second week here at D.C. and I have been to four museums. Not bad. There are a total of 18 museums in D.C., and two more Smithsonian institutes in New York. My goal is to visit all of them and write about them, and the idea is I will have a little D.C. museum guide here. There are also other museums that require (quite a bit of ) money to enter, such as the Newseum and Spy Museum. I do think I will eventually visit those but for now, the free ones. For this post, I introduce to you two museums: American Indian, and Air and Space.