An Afternoon in Washington D.C. for Twice (February 2026)

We spent the afternoon in Washington D.C. to see Twice live in concert and eat delicious food.

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If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Ever since I studied abroad in South Korea in the summer of 2024, I’ve been trying to write blog posts for the little things I do, even if it’s going across town for a fun little day. When I was studying abroad in Busan my Korean teacher would show us these Naver (a Korean search engine) blogs random people would make documenting visiting parks or bakeries, and I loved that energy.

I think the Internet is a cluttered place, so even if no one reads this at the end of the day, it’s a cute little time capsule for as long as we have electricity—or my credit card stops paying for this domain. Today’s blog post comes from a random plan that emerged when the Korean girl group TWICE announced their world tour coming back to the United States.

When I saw they were coming into Washington D.C., my friend and I committed to seats in the second tier. We paid about $182, and with the 360 stage it was the perfect decision. More on that later—I don’t want to spoil too much in the introduction.

That said, I took a half day at work and then headed off to DC with my friend the day of the concert. Here’s a breakdown of what we did.

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Traffic was extremely bad going into Washington, so we got alcoholic ice cream at Tipsy Scoops.

In our original plan, we were going to go to the Union Market area to stop at a Mexican restaurant, then go to the Yellow cafe and the kitchen depot in the area. Turns out both Yellow and the kitchen depot store were closing by the time we get there, which was greatly pushed back because of traffic on 295. It took almost twice the amount of time to get into the heart of DC when it’s usually a little over an hour getting into the city.

We ditched our plans of going to the Union Market area because of the traffic, then headed to our parking spot. Turns out it was right down the block from Tipsy Scoops, which is somewhere my friend likes a lot. I had my doubts, but agreed to it because it sounded like an interesting concept.

She got the Mexican hot chocolate ice cream and I got the cherry blossom. I didn’t really care for hers, but I also sampled the sangria flavored one and decided I really did not like that. The cherry blossom was okay, and I finished it, but I wasn’t really into the shop in general. My friend loves it though, and so did the other people who came in.

I do think it gave my stomach problems, as I ended up having an entire situation while in Capital One Arena. This was the only thing besides the Rumi’s I ate, and I doubt considering the timing that it was Rumi’s.

Rumi’s Kitchen is somewhere we always return to for a nice dinner in Washington D.C. and for Iranian food.

Once we finished up at Tipsy Scoops, we walked down to Rumi’s. I had a reservation, as it was the night before Valentine’s, and my other friend who was joining us ended up missing her bus and being really late. It was fine though, as my friend who was there with me and I ended up ordering some drinks off of the happy hour menu. I enjoyed my mocktail, as it had rosewater, mint, and sumac—along with some other ingredients—mixed in there.

We ordered the food in hopes it would arrive when my other friend did. In addition to the bread and sabzi, we ordered a sultani (koobideh + barg), chicken barg, and grilled onions. For three people that was definitely enough food, as they gave us two small mountains of rice with the food. My other friend ended up taking it home with her.

We did have such a good time there, as it usually is. Rumi’s is one of the only restaurants in Washington that I’ve consistently come back to again and again. My family thinks it’s some of the best kabobs we’ve had in this country, which is a lot—considering we are Iranian!

It was also nice to see my other friend as well. We had a great discussion while we were eating, then we dropped her off at the subway next to Capital One Arena. After that, we headed into the venue.

TWICE had one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to at Capital One Arena.

Now it was time for the main event: TWICE! We got inside smoothly, then queued for merch. My friend wanted a keyring, but it was in line that I felt my stomach rumbling and I rushed to the bathroom. I spent like fifteen minutes in there and ended up back in the bathroom when she got her merch and bought a water.

Then we took our seats and marveled at how good the view was. The concert did start about twenty minutes late that night, but TWICE did such a good job. I didn’t care for the solo stages, even though they were well done too, but the group shines together. Jihyo especially stood out among the girls.

I didn’t know the recent songs, but they killed everything. I’m such a fan now—this felt like a performance and artistry, which is saying a lot. This is definitely the best girl group I’ve seen in a while, and I go to a lot of concerts whenever my financial situation and job can permit it.

We ended up leaving during the encore, as we only wanted to see “Feel Special.” We found the car pretty quickly and got out of DC, stopping at Checker’s on the way for Coke Zeros and a burger for my friend.

And that was it! It was a fun day overall, and I can’t wait for my next adventure out of Baltimore.

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