Melisasa

Thursday, December 31, 2015

"She said, I think I'm going to Boston"

Thursday, December 31, 2015

First time I heard of Boston is through this Augustana song. To date, its still one of my favourite songs so far. Boston was alot warme...

First time I heard of Boston is through this Augustana song. To date, its still one of my favourite songs so far.

Boston was alot warmer than we thought it would be, which wasn't bad. Except that I really wanted to see and experience a white christmas instead of a rainy one. Nonetheless, I enjoyed Boston for its buildings and academic town feel. The brief visit to Harvard made me envious of the students and motivated to be smarter ahahah. The walk through the park in the winter with Ed felt mind clearing and romantic too. The visits to the public library and museums also provided an opportunity to walk through grand and majestic buildings, leaving me in awe. But my favourite will also be at Quincy market where we tried different samples and ate great food, whenever we got tired from shopping ahahah.

We arrived and took the metro to the hostel. Carrying the luggage was insane though.

The first place we went was the public garden that was just 15mins walk from the hostel

There was a light drizzle before, but it just added to the serenity and calmness of the park

There's a lake in the middle and the background is surrounded by churches and beautiful historic looking buildings

If my mum was here she'll be taking photos everywhere ahaha

There are even cherry blossom trees! <3 I thought these are only found in Japan!

There's a voiceover that says "Wait" everytime you press the button. If you can press it quick enough, you can make a tune/rap out of it, AHAHA

The public garden led us straight to the Trinity Church. Idk why, but unlike the churches in Mexico, these are open for us to visit ):

And then it led us to the Public Library

The building itself is so grand and majestic and this classic reading room just adds on to the appeal

If I had all day, I'll be sitting and reading here all day. Who can resist these books and view?

And check out this amazing filing system. Idk how they maintain it seriously, or if they still do

At night we visited the Daily Catch for dinner, a small restaurant located just opposite the Mike's Pastry at the North end

Mussels with thyme and lemon

Best part of the meal was looking at the chef prepare it right in front of us

Black pasta, aglio olio style with grounded squid

And of course, Mike's Pastry to end off the meal

And thus, ended our first day in Boston

Day 2!

Still not over the beauty of Boston's buildings and landscape

State hall, which we never visited, despite walking past a few times

Granary Burying Ground. Holds quite abit of history and its a beautiful place too. Lots of nuts and squirrels ahaha

We then walked all the way to Quincy market (burn some fats before gaining more)

FOOD. FOOD. FOOD.

There's uniqlo too! They even sell books and products form Japan here. Wished they did it in Singapore too.

And finally, we get to Harvard!

And the famous statue whose feet makes one smarter. No point, I only have one semester in school left ):

And that's the famous Harvard magazine building that is built to resemble a face

We lingered around for a little longer, grabbed a coffee and chilled

In the evening, we visited the Museum of fine arts which was free after 4pm on Wednesdays

I love this corridor with the view of art, the cafe and the museum store

And within the gallery, there's a drawing session on going and anyone could participate and draw anything they wanted

And that's how the museum display its rules, ahaha

That night, we went to the Chinese supermarket to shop for dinner and guess what we found!!

In the end we settled for laksa and durian mochi ahaha

The next day was Christmas eve! It got colder, but still there was no snow ):

The south station, where we went to take out bus to new york later that night

And after a 30mins long walk, we finally arrived at the Harpoon Brewery for a tour!

Tours are $5 and includes a sampling session

Overall, the tour took an hour and they showed us all the inner workings of the brewery. Totally a throwback to MA class where we explained Heineken brewing process

Ed and I only tried 4 small cups of beer during the sampling session but we got so red, it was slightly embarrassing ahaha. But their raspberry and christmas flavour was nice

At the end of the tour, we bought a pretzel that was made with the remaining grain mixture from the brewing process. Its really good, but a little pricey at $5