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We started in Princeton, which had a graduate school centennial
celebration the day Megumi arrived.
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We paused for a photo in front of some of the flags at the gala. I wish
this picture had come out better; maybe it's time to learn Photoshop!
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In New York now, here is the Christmas tree in Rockefeller center.
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And here's a lovely view of Manhattan from central park.
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This is a look at Times Square during the day from Broadway...
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...and some nearby theater posters
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Here is Megumi with the World Trade Center. I didn't at the time know the
significance of these two photos; although not the last time I saw or went
to the trade center (in fact I was in south Manhattan on Sept. 5), these
are the last closeup pictures I have of it.
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Megumi, who has a knack for unusual photos, took a picture of her feet
and the WTC. We went to the trade center site shortly after Sept. 11
as well; see the collection from summer 2001.
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This is New York at night, as seen from the top of the WTC. You can see
in this picture how Broadway cuts diagonally across the island.
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They had a nice snowman display in the lobby.
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Our next stop was Conroe, near Houston, to visit Dad and family.
The next several photos are from the Johnson Space Center, one of our
favorite attractions in Houston.
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Megumi with the X-38
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A space shuttle console
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The command module from Apollo 17, the last Apollo mission and man's
last trip to the moon (for now)
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The Apollo 17 rocket.
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Here we are at the base of the rocket, in front of its massive engines.
There were some friendly Korean tourists at the Space Center that day;
Megumi made me ask them in Korean to take this picture. :-)
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Megumi touching a piece of the moon
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Marian and Megumi, though I'm not sure what they're standing in front of.
It looks like part of the space station.
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Dad's family's Christmas tree, loaded with presents on Christmas eve
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The Christmas eve church service in Conroe
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Some of the impressive displays of Christmas lights in the neighborhood
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On Christmas, just before leaving, we snapped this photo of everyone.
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Here we are the next day in Mom's house in Virginia. We traveled on
Christmas to save on airfare, but it also meant that I got to see both
parents on Christmas for the first time in 20 years.
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Grandma and Grandpa. Michael was there too, but I don't seem to have a
photo of him. Sorry, Michael!
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Mom and Bob's Christmas tree, also loaded with presents, on Christmas day
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We went skating in Reston Town Center. Neither of us are very good at
skating, so we were a little unstable.
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Next we went to Washington. There we stopped off at the Air and Space
Museum. Hmmm, I just noticed the aviation theme of this trip...
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This is the Wright brothers' first airplane, flown at Kitty Hawk, NC on
December 17, 1903.
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Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis, the first plane to fly across
the Atlantic
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The U.S. capitol building during the day...
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...and at night, with the national Christmas tree
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The Washington Monument at night
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The Lincoln Memorial, with police car
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Back in New York, the next few images are from the Museum of Modern Art.
This is Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night."
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A Picasso.
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A mural of waterlillies, by Monet. We later saw an exhibition of Monet
waterlillies in Nagoya.
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We went to Times Square for New Years' 2001. We got there
in the afternoon and waited eight hours in the cold. There was a
countdown reminder once per hour. This was the one at 11pm.
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Around that time they threw these hats to the crowd.
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The countdown was started by Mohammed Ali, a few feet away from us.
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At midnight we were shrouded by an unbelievable amount of confetti.
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It was still flying around for a while afterwards, but we didn't hang
around too long. Along with hordes of other people, we made a dash for
Penn Station. We were lucky enough to get a seat on the train back to
Princeton.
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A few hours before the main event we left our place in the crowd for a
bathroom break. The whole place is barracaded, so you're not supposed to
leave, but our new friend Kazumi (whom we met outside the hotel bathroom)
showed us how to sneak back in.
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It turned out that she lives in Nagoya, so we were destined to meet
again. In fact, you can see Kazumi in my pictures from summer 2001
and summer 2002. She came for a four-day package trip to New York.
Apparently, Times Square is a very popular New Years' tourist attraction
for the Japanese.
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We took one last day trip to New York. Here are two pictures of the New
York skyline, taken from the Stature of Liberty ferry.
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The Statue of liberty alone...
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...and with Megumi.
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At the base of Statue is stored the original torch.
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A Liberty pose taken by Megumi...
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...and one by Kazumi. Why they would both think to do that, I don't
know. Maybe it's a Japanese thing.
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The Majestic Theater, where we saw "Phantom of the Opera" that evening.
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Now in Philadelphia, our last stop on this vacation. This is the
entrance to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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The liberty bell
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The nearby Independence Hall. You can feel the history of this place
just walking around.
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One of my most memorable experiences from high school humanities class
was acting out the Constitutional convention, which was held in this
room inside Independence Hall in 1787. I'm not sure why, but I had
imagined a place very different from this. It was interesting to see
how it really was.
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In front of Independence Hall, there are two plaques.
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