Peter's Japan blog

In the morning we went back to the Washington Memorial for the free tickets to get up. It's a good view from up there. It's a large obelisk-type of building. It's not a real Egyptian as it is modern made, and much too large for a real obelisk.

We wanted to do the museum of American History but that was closed due to renovation, so we visited the next museum: the Museum of Natural History. And also the National Archives and the Museum of Indian Americans.

Pictures and a bit more detailed story to follow later ;p

Took our trip to Washington DC, but arrived around noon so we did a small part of the Mall. The Washington Monument, the White House, Lincoln Memorial, Arlington Cemetary and Jefferson Memorial (everything west of the Washington Monument). We couldnt go up the Washington Monument, as all the free tickets for that day were given away, so we'll come back tomorrow morning.

There are pictures for day 3, have a look :)

We dropped off Nick at Six Flags Magic Mountain and went back to Philadelphia to check out the historic center. This is the birthplace of the United States of America where the Declaration of Independence was written and signed and has many old restored buildings.

But first we visited the location of a memorable movie scene from Rocky: The Rocky Steps. These are the stairs where he runs to the top and puts his hands in the air. This as filmed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I ran up the stairs, like many other people there, but Tim didn't because his knee hurt, but he did put up his arms at the top (of which I took a picture). This has really become an icon and you see many people doing the same thing.
At the bottom of the stairs on the side there is also a statue of Rocky.

After this we went to visit the historical center, but that's for the next post.

Today we went back to the States, our first real long ride, about 6+ hours. Therefore, we arrived quite late in Philadelphia, so we just had a quick look at the nearest district and had something to eat. We will visit the historic center tomorrow.

Today we went to have a visit to Toronto, about an hour drive into Canada. It has a few large shopping centers and also the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Rogers Center, and the CN Tower. The CN Tower is still the largest tower in the world at 553m. We didn't go up, but it was a nice surprise as I was not sure this was the largest tower in the world.
We went back to Niagara, for a night view at the Falls as they are illuminated by many colored lights when it's dark. It's really beautiful to see, but it was freaking cold at the same time ;p We got many good pictures (which you will see later ;p).

Early out of bed to take the airport taxi back to the airport. Our clock timer just went off at 5h30 and 15 minutes later the phone rang that our Jamaican taxi driver had already arrive (45 minutes early ;p). So we were in a kind of rush to get ready. We got good on time at the airport. We had a short flight to Buffalo on the smallest plane I've ever been on. It had just about 100 passengers with a seat layout of only 1-2 (1 seat, corridor, 2 seats). It was just a short smooth flight of 50 minutes though.
We got our baggage and went to the Alamo desk to get our car. We didn't get the free upgrade to an SUV, so we asked for an upgrade and got our SUV. But man, when we went to the garage to get the car, were we surprised ;p. We got a gray full-size SUV, a brand new Dodge Durango, with enough room to fit 6 people ;p Enough room for our luggage, and it's even bigger than the one we had last time ;p
We had a short trip to Niagara Falls passing the Canadian border to our hotel close to the Falls. After check-in we went to put our luggage in the room where we found a jacuzzi right in our room :D Apparently, every room has a jacuzzi in this hotel (the Clarion President).

After that,we went to have a look at the Niagara Falls. It really is a great view from the Canadian side. There are two water falls: the Horseshoe Falls (the largest one on the Canadian side) and the smaller Falls (which is less spectacular on the US side).

It takes quite some time to walk through Central Park as it is quite big. After just a few minutes you don't really have the feeling you are in a big city full of skyscrapers. It even has a zoo and a big lake (and several small ones). We went to check out the famous Strawberry Fields with the Imagine stone pattern on the ground in memory of John Lennon.
After walking a bit more, we went to take a bite and back to the hotel.