Trying hard now, gettin' strong now, gonna fly now in Philadelphia

The last time we were in the United States for the Thanksgiving holiday, we eschewed the traditional turkey dinner at home and instead took the train to New York for a short holiday (see here and here). This time around wasn't much different. Instead of returning to Gotham City, however, we rode the train to Philadelphia on Thanksgiving Day. I really would like to say only kind words about Amtrak, the national passenger rail service, but the train was more than a half-hour late pulling into Alexandria:

We arrived at Philly's 30th Street Station and its impressive Art Deco main passenger concourse late on Thursday afternoon:

The entire East Coast was feeling the chill on Thanksgiving - the temperature in Philadelphia was a brisk 27° Fahrenheit (-3° Celsius) as we walked from the 5th Street SEPTA station to our hotel. This was the late afternoon view from our room on the top floor of the Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District:

The same view after the sun went down. That's a full moon rising over the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, but you wouldn't know it from the best my camera could do without a tripod:

The camera also couldn't do justice to the massive Art Deco United States Custom House shining brightly in the twilight:

Just as in New York three years previously, we were able to find a table at a nearby restaurant for Thanksgiving, thanks to a list of dining options provided by the hotel cross-referenced with a Google search in our hotel room. My gratitude to Jones for providing me with all the fixings (the girls, however, both chose to have beef brisket. Bloody foreigners...):

It was an even brisker 19°F (-7°C) outside as we awoke on Friday morning, though it had warmed up to 27°F (-3°C) by the time we had breakfast and left the hotel (the temperature would never get above freezing the entire day). Our first stop was the Independence Visitor Center, in Independence National Historical Park. There, my daughter and I posed with one of Philadelphia's most famous citizens, though we wouldn't have time on this trip to run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art:

With tickets in hand, the three of us walked over to Independence Hall:

The colonial-era Georgian building began life in 1753 as the Philadelphia State House:

One of the rooms on the ground floor served as a courtroom:

But it was the other room on the first floor that is considered as the birthplace of the American government. It was here that delegates from the original 13 colonies met to approve the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, with the Declaration being read aloud to the public outside in what is now known as Independence Square. And if that wasn't enough, this room was also the site of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where delegates ended up creating a new U.S. government by agreeing on a Constitution:

As our Park Service guide explained, there are two correct answers to any question about Philadelphia: the Declaration of Independence and Rocky:

An original copy of the Declaration can be viewed in an adjoining building:

Philadelphia was at one time the second-largest city in the British Empire and was a center of opposition to British rule during the American Revolution. It was the capital at the start of the war, and then for a ten-year period from 1790 to 1800 until Washington, D.C. took over. You can visit Congress Hall, and the see the chambers where the House of Representatives...:

...and the Senate met:

A committee room:

Portraits of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, in honor of the assistance given by France during the Revolution. Without French troops and materiel, the colonists wouldn't have prevailed. In the first of many moral compromises that have afflicted U.S. foreign policy over the ensuing centuries, the U.S. government didn't look on too kindly when the French monarchy was overthrown in 1789:

After Independence Hall it was on to see the Liberty Bell. This sign was displayed prominently in the distance as we waited in line at the Liberty Bell Center:

Informative displays on the history and significance of the Bell greet visitors on the way to the icon:

The Liberty Bell, one of the most recognizable symbols of the United States and Philly's top tourist attraction. The 2080 pound (943 kilograms) bell was cast in London in 1751 and hung in the belfry of the Pennsylvania State House across the street, and tolled on important occasions (probably including the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence). The famous crack developed in the 19th century, and the bell became unusable in 1846 after being rung for George Washington's birthday. It was first called the Liberty Bowl by anti-slavery abolitionists in the 1830's:

Independence Hall as seen from inside the Liberty Bell Center:

A closer view of the crack:

After performing our patriotic duty as tourists, it was time for lunch. Heading east from Independence National Historical Park, we passed by the Customs House building, the one seen from our hotel room:

Philadelphia is known, of course, for cheesesteaks. Famous eateries serving up the sandwich include Pat's King of Steaks and Geno's Steaks, but "must eat at" restaurants often mean "must wait for a table", so we ended up at Philly's Gourmet Steaks. For those keeping score at home, I'm drinking a Dogfish Head, not Philly's own Yuengling. I've had it before and wasn't all that impressed:

I soaked up Philly like a sponge:

Back to Independence National Historical Park and the National Constitution Center, with a theater-in-the-round performance that made the governing document interesting, except for my wife, who fell asleep. No photos or videos allowed:

Photography of the exhibits is permitted, however. Here, Amber tries her hand at voting...:

...while I took the Oath of Office for President of the United States:

Former President Jimmy Carter apparently found my choice of wardrobe to be amusing:

My daughter doesn't seem too impressed with the robes Supreme Court justices wear:

My attention was drawn to the Go 囲碁 board made by a "resident" at one of the internment camps where Japanese (and Japanese-Americans) were confined in the hysteria following the attack on Pearl Harbor:

The 14th Amendment, which our current president seems to think can be changed with a flourish of his executive pen:

Signer's Hall contains lifelike bronzes of the signers of the Constitution. Here Amber poses with local hero George Mason, who we were surprised to learn didn't sign the final document:

Yours truly converses with Nicholas Gilman and John Langdon, both of New Hampshire:

Alexander Hamilton all by himself:

State flags are arrayed in order of their ratification of the Constitution. The final flags are those of U.S. territories, the residents of which lack some of the key rights enjoyed by their fellow U.S. citizens:

Independence Hall stands opposite the National Constitution Center:

The rest of the day was Shu-E's, and so we headed to Philadelphia's Chinatown (the fourth-largest in the U.S.). It has been around since the 1860's, but these days many of the residents come from Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam:

My wife tries out a lychee tea at Vivi. There's a branch very close to our apartment, but the one we went to in Philly had a more extensive menu as well as Mandarin-speaking staff.

My daughter poses with an ornamental plant my wife purchased. Shu-E doesn't know what it's called, but it apparently is very auspicious:

For dinner we went to Empress Garden, which bills itself as a Taiwanese restaurant. "Let's go out for Taiwanese" isn't something you hear very often in the U.S., though I've been to several Taiwanese restaurants in Japan. For the record, Amber had dumplings, Shu-E beef noodles and your humble scribe shrimp fried rice, while all of us shared an oyster omelette 蚵仔煎:

Pennsylvania's confusing alcohol laws (neither the restaurant nor 7-Eleven sold beer) necessitated a long walk to find a liquor store. On the way back to the hotel we walked through Washington Square, with its eerie but poignant Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier:

Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell in the cold night air:

My beer of choice back in the hotel room:

As we had tickets for the 14:18 train back to Alexandria, there was time for a bit of sightseeing on Saturday morning. We headed down to the Penn's Landing waterfront area, passing by the Merchants' Exchange Building:

Looking back as we reach the Delaware River:

Posing with the Ben Franklin Bridge in the background:

The morning belonged to our daughter, and she had chosen the Independence Seaport Museum:

I wasn't very impressed at first with the River Alive! exhibits...:

...but once we moved to the displays on the presence of African-Americans on the Delaware River, beginning with the horrors of slavery, the decision to visit the museum proved to be an educational one:

Amber tries out what it would be like to hide in a cramped box for 18 hours in a bid to reach freedom:

The displays on Philadelphia's maritime history are fascinating:

My daughter did a lot better at steering than she did at raising a sail:

I was interested in this map of Yokohama 横浜 dating from the 1860's:

An exhibit on "Crazy" Eddie Funk, a pioneer American tattoo artist:

We ended our visit to the museum by hopping aboard two ships, the first being the USS Olympia, which served as the flagship for Commodore Dewey in the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898, during the Spanish-American War:

Battle Memorial:

The battleship USS New Jersey, now a floating museum across the Delaware in Camden, New Jersey:

The other ship that can be visited is the submarine USS Becuna. Amber poses in front of the torpedo tubes:

Fighting claustrophobia in the cramped quarters of the sub:

On the way back to the hotel to retrieve our bags, we passed by the Museum of the American Revolution, which only opened in April 2017. By all accounts it sounds like an interesting place to visit, so it's at the top of the list of things to see should we visit Philly again:

And so we returned to Alexandria in heavy rain on a very crowded Amtrak train, with the three of us having to sit in separate seats until the train emptied out in Washington, D.C. The George Washington Masonic Memorial greeted us as we walked out of the station and got into our Uber:

Philadelphia has a reputation for being on the gritty side, but it was very attractive in the historic section of the city where we stayed. I would like to see more of it, though any future visits might be better made by car than train. If I do go again, I'll fight the urge to do like Sly:

Asia, meet America. America, this is Asia

A 15th-century depiction from central Tibet of Amitābha

Winter came early this year to the District of Columbia and its environs, but it didn't stay around long. This was the scene from our balcony as I awoke on Thursday morning:

Snow continued to fall throughout the morning and into the early afternoon:

What it looked like at work:

By mid-afternoon the snow had turned into rain and the ground began to get slushy. Come Friday morning the sun was out, and while the temperatures were low, they stayed above freezing, with much of the snow being gone by the time I woke up. If the day wasn't sunny enough already, I had the pleasure of an unexpected break from classes, as our instructors were busy doing "professional development", or something along those lines. My wife, as usual, elected to stay home, so I headed off by myself to see what was going on at my favorite pair of galleries in the District, the Freer Gallery of Art, and it's companion, the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.  Together they form the Smithsonian Institute's collection of Asian art, "where Asia meets America" (hence the title of this post). As always, I started with the Freer and its current Japanese exhibits. Painting the Classics: Japanese Screens features folding screens depicting scenes from The Tale of Genji 源氏物語, arguably the world's first novel. This Edo-period 江戸時代 pair dates from the 17th century:

In another room, Imperfectly Beautiful: Inventing Japanese Ceramic Style featured examples of pottery used in the tea ceremony 茶の湯, focusing on how Japanese potters broke away from continental influences to create items that emphasized the personal, such as this Azuchi-Momoyama period 安土桃山時代 vase from the Iga region 伊賀焼:

It wasn't all folding screens and tea ceremony utensils. There were examples of hanging scrolls like this early 19th-century Edo-period depiction of the 11th-century warrior Minamoto no Yoshiie 源義家 returning to Kyōto 京都 after fighting in the north:

And in a precursor of things to come, there was this magnificent depiction of Amida 阿弥陀如来 from the early 14th-century, which came with a surprise from the 8th century inside! I'll let the caption tell the story:

The guardians of the Four Directions (from left to right: east, south, north and west):

Again, I'll let the captions explain this Kamakura-period 鎌倉時代 depiction of Aizen Myō-ō 愛染明王:

One of the Freer's ongoing exhibitions is the magnificent Peacock Room, which I've seen on my previous visits (see here and here):

Although the Freer is noted for its large Japanese collection, it also has extensive displays of Chinese arts and crafts...:

...as well as examples from the Korean peninsula:

A rarity indeed: this flower-shaped bowl stand from the Northern Song Dynasty 北宋 is an example of Ru ware 汝窯, the rarest of all Chinese ceramics:

From the Freer it was downstairs to the Sackler, where the utterly fascinating Encountering the Buddha: Art and Practice across Asia is running until November 2020. Pride of place (for me, at least) goes to this Heian-period 平安時代 (late 12th-century) statue of a bosatsu 菩薩, made of wood with gold leaf:

A pair of bodhisattva. The one on the left is from northeastern Thailand and dates back to the 7th century (!); the one on the right is only eight or nine hundred years old and is either Cambodian or Thai in origin:

Video screens depict a day in the life of one the most important stupas in Sri Lanka:

The highlight of the exhibit is without a doubt the stunning Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room, containing over two hundred objects of Tibetan Buddhist art from the Alice S. Kandell collection. The effect of the lighting and recorded chanting of monks creates an atmosphere that is absolutely mesmerizing. Unfortunately, I will probably never have the opportunity to visit Tibet due to the nature of my employment. Then again, even if I were able to go, I would be afraid to see what has happened to the culture as a result of Chinese government policies promoting Han migration into the region:

In the gift shop later, it took all my willpower to stop myself from shelling out  $60 for a book detailing all the objects in the Tibetan Shrine Room (though I did buy some prayer beads that had been blessed by Tibetan nuns, with the money hopefully going to a good cause. I also purchased a book on Buddhist art at the Freer/Sackler). Desire is the cause of suffering, I had to remind myself. I also searched in vain for a CD of Tibetan throat singing similar to what was being played in the shrine room; here's a video shared from YouTube instead:

Another fascinating exhibition currently at the Sackler is Japan Modern: Photography from the Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck Collection, which features a selection of works from 20th-century Japanese photographers. My favorite was Town near U.S. Base, Gotemba, Shizuoka, taken in 1957 by Shigeichi Nagano 長野重一. It shows a group of children in postwar Japan playing near an American military facility that was located in the shadow of Mt. Fuji 富士山:

Anyone who has ever lived in Tōkyō 東京 will surely appreciate this amazing diorama map of Japan's capital:

Resound: Ancient Bells of China showcases the development of bells in China, such as this bird-and-dragon motif example from circa 500-450 BCE (!). This exhibit also provides a rare hands-on opportunity, as visitors can sample the tones produced by replicas of the bells, using computer images to see the variations in sound wavelengths:

Returning to Nippon, Japan Modern: Prints in the Age of Photographs showcases how traditional woodblock printmakers tried to adapt in the age of photography, with some surprisingly artistic results. Shin-Ōhashi (1926), from the series Twenty Views of Tokyo by Hasui Kawase 川瀬巴水:

Another of Kawase's works - Dusk at Kiba (1920). I had to stand some distance away so as not to have my image reflected in the glare of the glass frame. Were I to be a performance artist, I would purposefully put my prints in highly reflective frames so that the viewer becomes part of the image, along the lines of John Cage and 4'33":

Of course images of Fuji-san were popular. Mt. Fuji from Hakone Observatory (1938), by Shinsui Itō 伊藤深水:

Autumn in Okutama (1927), by Un'ichi Hatsukawa 平塚運一, struck a chord as the area in question was one of my favorite weekend escapes from the urban expanse that is Tokyo (while still being a part of the Tokyo Metropolis 東京都):

River Scene (1920), by Kazuma Oda, shows the jarring juxtaposition of a traditional Japanese bridge with the polluting smokestacks of a Japan that rapidly industrialized after the Meiji Restoration 明治維新:

Sanjō Bridge (1954), by Tomikichirō Tokuriki:

The Freer/Sackler isn't only just East Asia. There is an extensive collection of objet d'art from Iran and India, for example, as well as this "South Arabian Mona Lisa" from Yemen. But it's the Japanese art (as well as the pieces from China and Southeast Asia) that keeps me returning to the galleries time and time again when I'm in this area:

The newest attraction on the National Mall is the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in September 2016 while we were in Vilnius. Unfortunately, the required timed tickets for weekend visits are almost impossible to get, and we may have to wait until the next time we're in Washington to go, when some of the hoopla should have hopefully died down:

Passing by a couple of South American heroes on my way to the Metro station:

With my first Amharic evaluation to take place before Thanksgiving (and which I'll probably do horribly on), the visit to the Freer and Sackler galleries provided a brief though welcome break and an opportunity to experience something of Asia again, if only for a few hours on a weekday morning/afternoon. I'll finish this post with one nagging question, however, from these and other galleries/museums I've visited over the years in the West: was there nothing worthwhile in Taiwan to be stolen collected?

Perhaps that question is better left as a kōan 公案...