Mikel Marketing Newsletter

obama town
By: Mimi Dinh

WASHINGTON, DC:
Planning our annual family reunion with four families took some serious thoughts this past holiday. After our snowboarding trip to Whistler, my husband, daughter and I were all itching to get our fix once again before the season was over. Wanting to kill two birds with one stone, we joined our families in DC for the reunion and were able to see my nephew (who was just born a couple of months ago), spend time with our loved ones, enjoy exquisite home cooked meals by my mother-in-law, and sneak in some snowboarding toward the end of our trip. While I would love to give you every detail about each place we went, I will spare you and just hit the highlights….

Hotel George
Everything about this city screams politics. The most popular clothing colors are red or navy. The hottest shoes are Ferragamo pumps. The most popular labels are Chanel and Valentino for diplomats wives, and Brooks Brothers and Britches for the Capital crowd. Being ‘hip” is not the goal here; being “powerful” is. The most popular places to stay are the Hay Adams and the Willard.

I guess we weren’t part of the “in crowd” because we chose to stay at a very “hip” hotel. Walking into Hotel George, a cozy boutique hotel, I knew my family and I were in for a treat. Built in 1929, the historic hotel is a true icon of fashion and hospitality. The chic, eco-friendly hotel is perfectly positioned for business or sightseeing in the nation's capital. This hotel is totally my style, modern, sophisticated, with plenty of character and edge. But its location was why we booked it in the first place. Tucked away on Capitol Hill’s business district, adjacent to the U.S. Capitol, The Hotel George is a short walk from DC’s many exciting destinations, attractions and landmarks like Union Station, the National Mall and Smithsonian Museums, U.S. Supreme Court, Verizon Center, International Spy Museum, National Gallery of Art, Nationals Stadium and The White House.

One of my most unforgettable memories from DC happened while I was on my morning jog. Each day, my husband, nephew, and I would run laps around the National Mall for about an hour, from Lincoln Memorial to the Capital. Running is extremely therapeutic for me, and an excellent way to stay in shape while I travel since it requires no gear; just a pair of running shoes and off I go. One freezing morning, my jog was going as usual, when all of the sudden I felt tons snow flakes tapping on my shoulders. I looked up, snapped out of my usual deep thoughts, and noticed that the sky started turning dark gray and the snow began swirling right before my eyes, like a cyclone or tornado. It was exciting and crazy at the same time. But, the craziest thing was that while everyone else had vanished, we were the only three nuts left in the park; kept charging ahead like there was no tomorrow. Then as fast as it began, the “mini snow storm” stopped after only 10 minutes. Just one of nature’s miracles, I guess. When we finished our usual one-hour run, we beamed with victory as we high-fived each other for sticking it out during that surreal force of nature. Talk about running fools!

Hirshhorn Museum
As many of you already know, I’m an art lover, so I was in heaven surrounded by so many top museums within walking distance of each other; and best of all, they’re all free. As soon as my daughter and I walked into the Hirshhorn Museum, I was like a kid in a candy store. I walked the halls in what seemed like a trance; I was simply in awe, even though this was not my first visit. In almost every direction, inspiring pieces of work consumed the hallways. All of my favorite artists (Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko, Alexander Calder, Joan Miro, and Kelly Ellsworth) were featured in this museum.

The Hirshhorn Museum collects, preserves, and presents international modern and contemporary art in all media, distinguished by in-depth holdings of major artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. On each level, the museum featured a different exhibit. My favorite had to be The Panza Collection. Featuring paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations, film, and wall drawings, The Panza Collection shows the notable diversity of approaches that flourished in the mid-twentieth century.

National Building Museum
Architecture is another passion of mine. It’s captivating to me to see how creativity, design, planning, and functionality can be combined to create magnificent and inspiring buildings. This museum is known for its unique exhibitions addressing fascinating topics often overlooked by other institutions. Some exhibits explore the work of innovative architects like Frank Lloyd Wright to cutting edge, contemporary practitioners like Zaha Hadid. The museum is also a resource for and advocate of sustainable design. Knowing this, I had to see the Green Community, an exhibit that explores “sustainable development.”

The Green Community depicted the origins of our ecological situation and showcased communities where citizens, political leaders, planning/design professionals, developers, and government agencies are working together for a more sustainable future.

A believer in “green living” myself, it was definitely a motivating attraction. I only wish Houston could adopt a few of the many sustainable strategies these communities are using to better our city’s quality of life.

Museum gift shops in DC are among the best places to find unique gift items such as books, clothing, jewelry, videos, crafts, decorative arts, toys and more. The National Building Museum Gift Shop maintains a superior reputation and is often referred to as the best museum gift shop in DC. It was even selected for the 2008 Best of Washington Award in the Gift Shops category by the U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA).

United States Botanic Garden
In order to change things up a little, we strayed from the museums one day and decided to visit the United States Botanic Garden, a garden run by Congress. It is located on the U.S. Capitol Grounds campus near Garfield Circle. The building itself, which includes the Lord & Burnham greenhouse, is divided into separate rooms, each simulating a different habitat. Because it was winter while we were there, the flowers in bloom included Poinsettia Sonoras, Cradle orchid Anguloas, Amaryllis Salmon Beauties, Gardenias, Calanthe Rubens and Orchids, among others. Though the flowers were absolutely beautiful, what caught my attention most was the aroma. Each room was filled with the delightful bouquet of fresh flowers; if only my garden could look and smell that great!

National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art, located on the National Mall, is DC’s largest and most notable museum and houses one of the finest collections of Western painting and sculpture in the world. What made it so interesting to me and my family was the history that surrounded it. Beginning in the 1920s, financier and art collector Andrew W. Mellon began gathering a collection of old master paintings and sculptures with the goal of providing the country with a national art gallery. Following his death in 1937, Congress accepted Mellon's collection and building funds, and approved the construction of a museum on the National Mall.

A substantial art collection and more than 2,000 sculptures, paintings, pieces of decorative art were more than enough pieces to fill the museum.

After our promenade from wing to wing in this museum, it was impossible for us to pass up their three incredible gift shops. The West Building Shop offers a bevy of reproductions including ready-to-hangs, elegant jewelry, accessories, and giftware. Situated in the underground concourse, the Bookstore features gallery publications as well as a large selection of books on art, architecture, photography, and other art-related subjects. Across from the Bookstore is the Children's Shop, which offers an assortment of gifts to inspire creativity—art supplies, books, games, and toys. I had no idea you could find such great shopping in a museum. I ended up leaving with a Mark Rothko poster and several art-inspired knick-knacks.

LIBERTY MOUNTAIN:
A two-hour drive from Washington DC, Liberty Mountain is not a typical first choice when people think of a ski resort. But we couldn’t be happier when we found out about it since it was the most convenient way for my family to fit in some snowboarding while in DC for our annual family reunion. We didn’t care that his was a man-made ski resort, nor did it bother us that the hotel we were staying at was nowhere near as glamorous as our last ski resort in Whistler, Canada. Liberty Mountain Resort & Conference Center made up its lack of luxury accommodations by its convenience. We literally stepped out of the hotel lobby door into the slopes.

Located on 275 acres, Liberty Mountain offered plenty of space to play and countless activities to choose from. The Carroll Valley Resort championship golf course was located next door, as well as several additional courses within a few miles drive. For hikers and outdoor enthusiasts, the Appalachian Trail and Catoctin Mountain State Park were nearby. There were even nearby shopping options, including a multitude of antique shops, the Gettysburg Outlet Center, and Boyd’s Bear Country. Event though there was so much to do, we really spent the majority of our time snowboarding.

With only two full days to snowboard, we used the first day to just have fun on the slopes, review the basics, show off each others tricks, and ultimately just enjoy ourselves.

During our second day of snowboarding, I decided to take a short, one-hour class to better my skills. The one-on-one attention I received from the lesson was just what I needed to nail the toe and heel turns. We all did both the green and blue slopes, finding that they were much less challenging than even the green slopes in Whistler. I’m glad we were able to review and practice our techniques here because, despite our painful falls from the thin, man-made snow, the shallow slopes were perfect for beginners like us.

A unique feature about Liberty Mountain is that their slopes are open all day until 10PM. We immediately fell in love with boarding in the evening, as the lights sparkled on the snow, and the atmosphere changed from a loud and energetic vibe, to a more serene, romantic ambiance. As we snuggled up sharing the lift high above the ground, the scene below unveiled an endless palette of emotion that woke up all my senses: the echoes of laughter, the moonlight, the smell of winter, the intimacy, the peaceful serenity, blending with the faint sound of blades swishing on the snow gave the place such raw beauty, the whole experience was breathtaking.

Our action-packed weekend on the slopes had finally come to an end. The twelve hours of daily snowboarding from dawn ‘til dusk made our two-day boarding equivalent to four – woohoo! I hope my in-laws don’t take this the wrong way, but this Liberty Mountain trip made the early departure from our family reunion worthwhile.

This entire trip became even more significant to me after we got home. Only a couple weeks had past when I found myself watching the 2009 Presidential Inauguration, taking place right on the familiar National Mall. To know that I had just jogged in the very place our first African American president took his oath is very thrilling for me. On top of that, my birthday this year happened to fall on inauguration day. How incredible is that? Go Obamarama!