In April, the largest Japanese festival in the US, Sakura Matsuri, gave me an excuse to hop on the Acela for a quick trip to Washington, D.C. and explore the nation's capitol. Anytime I've been to DC it's been for work, never leisure, so it was a chance for me to explore.
Aside from Matsuri, I took a side quest to Smithsonian National Museum of American History (fun note: I didn't realize how many different Smithsonian museums existed, but I went with the one that focused on pop culture).
