Went in with Leanne, this rain free but windy, morning and caught the Metro at the Kings St Station, bound for the Pentagon City shopping centre. We had two missions - firstly to visit the Drug Enforcement Administration Museum and secondly, to do some window shopping as well as some "no, you've got to pay for that" shopping, at Pentagon City. This complex is huge. It spans two sides of a major road and has four floors of tempting (to women mainly) shops and exhibits.
But firstly we went to the DEA Museum, which we had not previously heard about. There were a number of enclosed sentry boxes around the building in which the museum is housed and each one contained a bored, but armed guard. I'm not sure why these folk needed to be armed, but I guess the environment is very different here and weapons may well be needed. One of these guards was able to provide information on where the museum was located - it was not well signposted. The place turned out to be far from crowded - I guess like us, many folk may not know about it and it's hardly the kind of museum which would attract large numbers of visitors. Details of past activities and (mainly) successes were presented in a series of information boards with a few agents' weapons thrown in, to maintain interest.
This is a photo of President Nixon (impeached but pardoned by Gerald Ford) announcing the formationt of the DEA in 1973, together with a few varieties of agents' badges.
We were out of there within the hour and turned our attention to Pentagon City. Shops visited included Nordstroms, Marshalls, World Market (Vegemite here sells for $9 for a 200gm container !), Victoria's Secret and Macys. The place is full of shops, many of which are of the boutique type - if you've seen one you've seen them all.
It has a large food hall on the ground floor, which is always packed and seats are at a premium. At lunch time, food samples are touted to potential customers outside individual shops, in the hope of enticing samplers to make their lunch choices at these shops.
This is a shot of one half of the food hall from the fourth floor. I couldn't fit it all in even from the 4th floor !
Pentagon City Mall has approximately 1.37 million visitors a year. It's built on 4 fully enclosed floors with glass elevators and exotic architecture. The lower level of the mall is directly connected with the Washington Metro line. Built into it are 4,300 parking spaces.
After this experience, we metro'd back home, via Home Depot and Pet Smart (a large pet store chain), where we watched a dog daycare centre in operation. There were actually two glass enclosures spaced apart from each other, catering for big and little dogs. Staff worked inside each of the enclosures, keeping the dogs active and no doubt, preventing the smaller ones from being converted into food. Apparently owners pay to leave the dogs in the care of the pet store, while they are at work.
