DC Chinatown is Fine

I was sitting on the corner of H Street and 7th NW waiting for a bus to take me back to work and I looked up and saw the old and the new buildings and the marvelous painted archway in Chinatown. Although it was cold, I enjoyed the view of the new buildings and the fresh paint which is a big change from how it looked about ten years ago. All of a sudden this intersection and the area around it look like New York city. It's all because they built the MCI center, whoops, now called Verizon center and that became a magnet for a lot of great development in what was becoming a decaying section of the city. My bus finally came and I found myself glad for the resurrection of this part of the city.  

Dead Chickens Hanging in the Window

Yes, there's at least half a dozen dead chickens hanging not so neatly in the window of the noodle restaurant on 6th street in Chinatown, DC. They hang there cooked, ready to be eaten by the customers who dare enter down the little steps into this den of delights. So far, I've only been able to watch the cook make noodles by watching him through the window they've set up for passersby to see what's going on. For some reason, it's enough for me to be entertained by this, and it hasn't drawn me in to eat there. We usually go to the slightly more upscale restaurant a few doors down where I can be sure they make really good martinis with the vodka I like. But one day, I'll be there with some risk-taker who will go in with me and, by God, we'll order Kung Pao chicken made with one of them dead birds hanging in the winder.

Those Mighty Megabuses

As the light turned green, two of these big blue and yellow behemoth megabuses went whizzing through the 7th and H street intersection in Chinatown when I was there tonight. Where were they off to at 11 pm at night I wondered or had they done their runs for the day and were going to whatever warehouse they are kept in at night? I've never ridden on one but the more I see of them, the more I get the urge just to hop on a bus, Gus, see New York city again, Jane, or maybe never come back, Jack. Something about how easy these buses seem to make it appeals to me. They stop right in the middle of Chinatown, you see the long line of YOUNG PEOPLE with backpacks waiting on the sidewalk climbing in and off they go, hardly stopping anywhere along the way, so I hear. Not like Greyhound or Trailways where you have to go to their station and put up with whatever route they go. But that's a bit like how life is, isn't it? Some buses just pass you by since the big conductor in the sky just didn't want you on that one today for some mysterious reason.

Chinatown Crepes

After going to the movie theater in Chinatown to see Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in "Knight and Day" we stopped at the crepe makers' stand and got snacks. Hubster had a chocolate and banana crepe as they were out of strawberries and I had their savory crepe with Swiss cheese. They make them right there in front of you so I snapped the crepe maker as he did his job, using the miracle of my cell phone camera. These were a very satisfying and filling treat, so much so, in fact, that we didn't finish them and brought half of each home for a tasty snack another time. And, by the way, this movie is a great date movie. Totally ridiculous violence where in extended gun fights only the bad guys die, and some incredible chase scenes including dodging a bull run. Not a bad spoof of James Bond action flicks, only in this one the dame doesn't die and in fact rescues the agent. Whoops! Have I given the plot away?

Not Your Typical Watergate

It took me 45 minutes on the bus this morning to get to work because of some tie-up along H Street NW just before Chinatown, but it did give me time to look out the window and notice how the building height limitation in D.C. (less than 10-21 storeys?) means that the streets haven't become canyons and you don't get the sense of being in a "downtown" area. That is, since all the buildings for the several square miles of DC are about the same height, there is no concentration of sky-scrapers. By the way I love the french word for skyscrapers (les gratte-ciels). All the streets have the about the same height and the a rchitecture is quite varied. The Kennedy Center and the Watergate apartment buildings are examples of older styles of "modern" architecture subject to the same limitation and I snapped them together recently using the miracle of a cell phone camera.. However, now there's a lot more glass and modern buildings than when I first came to DC 25 years ago. There's still  lots of older brick and stone buildings and quite a few churches scattered about downtown but it's changing. Apparently, at one time, the churches were the tallest buildings in town! Chinatown is always interesting as that corner is looking more and more like New York City with the live video screens and huge crowds crossing the road and the general hurly-burly there. I do remember when that section of the city was quite run-down and bedraggled, that is, before they built Verizon (used to be MCI) Center and restored some of the buildings on 7th street. Growth and change is not so strange when its incremental!