Pictures of my one year in Boston are up, click here to check them out, comments are welcome :)
Recently in Boston Category
30 miles west of boston there's a city called Stow, and in that town, there's a really cute farm called Honeypot farm. We went there for apple picking over the weekend. It is not my first picking activity, but it's definitely the most fruitful one ever.
I've always had a special feeling towards apple trees. My parents planted one in my grandfather's garden when they got married, and another when my mom was pregnant with me. Every year, for as long as I can remember, my family, along with my cousins' would collect a full bushel of apples from the two trees. The apples were not particularly attractive looking nor sweet, but I always enjoyed the freshness of them. To me, the trees also were the proof that my parents are extraordinary, since they possessed the power of making trees bare fruit.
As China's environment deteriorated in the 90s, so did the two trees and the rest of the plants in my grandfather's garden. What used to be a tiny oasis for us in the city during the 80s quickly became an empty, colorless yard. The trees from the Honeypot farm are far bigger and bore far more fruit than the apple trees in my memory. When I walked along them, smelling that apple wood flavored air, seeing the unpicked, ripened apples on the ground, my overloaded senses made me think of the days where my grandfather stood in his garden, smiling at his grandchildren, giggling around apple trees.
Polaroid of the week this week continues on our Fall theme. I just can't get over it. New England's fall is beautiful, besides the maple trees turning red, there are this type of birch trees turning bright golden yellow around my apartment and office.
Fall's upon Boston. Loved this random light that got into the camera.
Fall started across from my apartment today.
BAM!
I never cooked crabs my self in my life... until now. Sorry little fella...
Sally did most of the killing though, I mainly was responsible for eating. :-/
one Silver and one Bronze, not too shabby I guess. It was a fun night.
The ferry I take to work always carries a lot of toddlers. I love how they're always curious about everything around them, this little guy just stared out through the entire ride, not a peep.
12 dollar chicken tender and fries, though they can't justify the price, and only luke warm, I still gobbled it up like there's no tomorrow.
While I consider Pink as a great artist, I was never really into her, thinking it's a bit too personal and "poppy". Sally dragged me to her concert on Saturday, and It was a lot of fun. The advantage of popular music I guess partially is it's ability to raise a lot of money and reinforce it's cultural relevance and legitimacy... Alright, ok, I had a lot of fun that night and enjoyed a lot of her songs. I love live concerts.
I originally wasn't going to watch Inglorious bastards, since I kindda felt WWII movies are a bit over done these days and from what I saw in the trailer, premise seemed a bit over simplified. So after couple weeks I finally broke down and went to see it with my good faith in Mr. Tarantino. Sure enough, he delivered.
To my surprise, Brad Pitt only played a supporting role in this movie, the true star is Col. Hans Landa, a extraordinarily charming SS officer that is creepy as hell. Wonderfully acted by a German actor Christoph Waltz. The movie is brilliant!
Another notable thing was the theater I watched it in. The Sommerville theater is a happy accident, I missed my usual AMC Lowe schedule that day and had no choice, and this theater became my new fav. one. Not only because it's a theater with a long historical background, but also it had an awesome crepe house next to it.
Saw this handsome fella on my way to work one morning.
Over the weekend I went to MIT museum. Yeah, that's right, the tech school has it's own museum, and I have to say, it is pretty impressive, definitely worth a visit if you're ever in Boston.
This is one of it's architecture structural studies, it's like watching math come alive, I felt smarter as I stood next to it, hehe.
Work's just getting crazier and crazier, this is to make up some of the missing polaroid of the week entries.
The above are Zakim bridge and Charlestown bridge. The sunset gets really beautiful here in Boston during the fall.
I don't think I've raved about a pair of sneakers ever, but that changed when I decided to get a pair of New Balance shoes for my trip to Puerto Rico. Since I'm a camera snob, on my trips I usually walks around with 10 pounds of stuff on me, that makes my feet not too happy. I learned that the hard way last year when I was in Spain.
So this year I was determined. After 2 days of shopping in usual places, I discovered Brighton had a New Balance factory store, this made me all giddy and drove in the next day. I'm glad I did because I found the most friendly sneaker selling staff ever, sure, they give you the usual retail bull shit on the sneakers, but it's way better than not getting serviced at all, especially when you start asking for the perfect, lightweight, well cushioned, standing/walking/running, road/trail shoe.
In the end, I picked the 790, a bit tight around my ankles, but I really felt like walking on clouds. This pair of shoes saved me in San Juan, and now I will have to say, I'm a New Balance convert, and a fan of their factory store.
On a separate note to New Balance, how can you have adverting that's virtually non existent when you're trying to sell your awesome shoes no one knows about??? Please approach me for ideas.
This week marks my one year anniversary in Boston. It's definitely been an interesting year. I love this city and have developed a New England pride, I've made many new friends, and saw many new things for the first time. Looking back, I think my memories of Beijing never faded. To mark this occasion, I've created an album dedicated to the city I came from. A collection of pictures I took of the city between 2004 to 2008 can be seen here. Comments are welcome.
Boston Tall Ships are here. Each year these magnificent ships sails into boston harbor and parks at various docks for public viewing, two of them parked right by my apartment. They are the Blue Nose II, and the other Picton Castle
Believe it or not, I've never spent my life in June and July under constant thunderstorms and 65 degree weather days until now. Just when everyone dreaded the possibility of fireworks being canceled this year, things started to look better.
This is Castle island near Logan Airport, one of the patriotic sites in Boston, It protected Boston during both the Revolutionary war and the war of 1812.
It's key cannons could fire all the way into the city, two miles out.
Also, the fort shared the same architect with fort McHenry's in Baltimore.
Weather really cleared up on the 4th, it was perfect for fireworks.
Now I have to admit, it wasn't as crazy as Beijing during Chinese New Year, but we still all oohed and awed for an hour, fireworks going along with Fanfare to the common man and all the other patriotic classics are really something you need to be there to appreciate.
This past 2 weeks has been pretty crazy, the office is slowly calming down from all the adjustments. Some notable things, on our first day we get visted by Boston mayor Tom Menino, and a Penguin ambassador from New England Aquarium named Meatloaf. If I ever have a penguin as a pet, I'm gonna name it Meatloaf.
Finally, I'm taking mass transit instead of driving now. Doing that is nothing new, but, taking the ferry to work is a first for me, dunno how this will go down in winter, but so far, I'm loving it.
Boy we're finally moving, 40 broad, Downtown Boston, here we come!
Big kudos to Nook and Rad Sechrist for putting the posters together for me. Of course Ms. Allie Hughes for the great new company logo.
Thanks to Kerry, I got to go to the Fenway to watch a Sox game finally. Saw this cute guy sitting in the back of me, he seemed oblivious to the game but liked the music and peanuts tossed around the bleachers.
