Day 1

Anywhos, I flew red eye Friday morning and got to Washington D.C. around 11am.  I tried calling the Embassy Suites for information on their shuttle service… but I couldn’t understand the PBX operators’ Indian accent :(  I finally found my way to the hotel at around noon.  I spent the entire night flying so I went straight to bed and didn’t wake up until 5ish….just in time for out first meet up at 6pm.

Our itinary showed 6pm dinner, or my breakfast+lunch+dinner since I havn’t eaten all day. Iris Ho, our fearless leader, brought us to the “manager’s reception” but it was really chips and juice :(  We then walked to a Thai restaurant Crystal City Shops for dinner.   Our dinner group was around 25 ~ which is typically hell when it comes time for the check.  However, one of the girls took charge and asked for individual payments.

Dinner ended at around 7:30 and we still wanted to do something.  We wanted to KTV but we only had one car.. so we hit 711 for snacks and watched movies in our suite.

Day 2

We spent the morning learning about the political history of Taiwan, the current political status of Taiwan, and watched the exclusive movie preview of “Formosa Betrayed.”  We went back to Crystal City for dinner at a horrible Japanese restaurant.  I hate to admit it… but at this point Washington D.C. didn’t meet my expectations as the Capital of the most powerful country in the world.  It felt very suburban and less developed than parts of Las Vegas.  We took the subway to Georgetown and went barhopping.  Georgetown was a small section so we quickly ran out of bars and ended up at a Barnes & Noble =p   We took a cab back and enjoyed cheap wine and Cheetos.

Day 3

We started the morning with the foreign policy advisor of Barack Obama and later met the foreign policy adviser for John McCain.  We then polished the talking points for our congressional visits on Monday.  I got more tables and chairs from another suite and converted our living room into meeting room.  Our night ended at 4am with spilled wine and smirnoff.. and I’ll leave it at that.

Day 4

Day four started after two hours of sleep. We took a bus to the FAPA headquarters and then to the congressional halls for breakfast.  Our team met with the aids of Congressman LoBiondo, Pascrell and Andrews and Senator Mendenez.  I think we did a pretty good job at proving that China is evil and that the US shouldn’t bow down to their demands.

I ended my D.C. trip with a visit to the Library of Congress and the National Air and Space museum.  I think the trip was definately worthwhile. I got to meet a lot of likeminded people, people who care about preserving democracy and peace and working together to fight disease and human rights and self-determination.  It was a group of people who cared enough to stand up and voice their princples and put actions to their words.  It was a group that was changing the world.