Today, I had some work to do on a Saturday, but I did not need to go in till later in the afternoon, so I decided to pay a visit to the
Worcester Historical Museum. While waiting for the museum to open, I did some sightseeing, and had breakfast at Lou Roc's Diner on 1074 West Boylston Street, which was packed with people this morning.
Deciding to stay away from traditional breakfast food, I decided to go for their special, strawberry, banana and chocolate chip crepes with whipped cream on top, which was pretty healthy yet scrumptious, except for the whipped cream I guess.
My next destination after breakfast was the Worcester Historical Museum, which my friend had told me was pretty interesting. After parking my car at a free spot nearby, I passed by One Chestnut Place, where there was a nice sculpture entitled "Boy with a Dolphin".
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| Boy with a Dolphin |
Finally at the museum, I was surprised to learn that the inventor of the
Smiley,
Harvey Ball, was from Worcester, much less that the Smiley was even invented in the first place.
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| Smiley Death Star |
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| Authentic Smiley Face |
It was also interesting to learn how Worcester rose to prominence as a centrally located industrial city during the early 19th century, then declined after the 1950s with the leaving of several key companies.
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| Story of Worcester |
Overall, the museum was a pretty decent one, though still quite small, but definitely one of the better ones in this area.
I had some time before needing to go back to work, so I decided to use my Livingsocial deal at
Ski Ward, which is usually a place for skiing activities in the winter, to see what summer tubing is all about.
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| The lanes for summer tubing |
I was the only one here at this time of day, especially with impending rain ahead. Unperturbed, I went to grab my tube, located in a pile stacked up in a truck container. The tube had a "leash" attached to it, and I was told to use it to move the tube around. Doing so immediately conjured up images of a kid pulling along his toy truck.
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| Pulling the tube along |
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| View of the hill behind |
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| Getting ready to go |
However, trying out this interesting concept allowed me to see how summer tubing is made possible.
A bed of pitted rubber is used, and water is sprayed over the bed to make it slippery enough for the tube to slide downhill. However, going downhill in a tube, however fun, became boring very quickly with a lack of variety or excitement, so I left after only sliding downhill 3 times.
By now, I was a little hungry, so I decided to try out another place in Shrewsbury, The Edge at 51 Hartford Turnpike, which is supposedly good for hot dogs and root beer. The owner told me that everything was homemade, including the Olde 43 Root Beer, of which I had a mug, together with my Jalapeno Dog, made of Jalapeno relish, chilli and yellow mustard. The root beer tasted a little weird, while the hot dog was okay I guess, although I enjoyed my little snack.
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| At Charles River Canoe and Kayak |
Having never sat in a canoe before, I decided to get into one with 3 other people.
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| Our Canoe |
This was when the fun began. We had a little trouble starting off, being unable to coordinate properly, while I constantly stopped paddling to take pictures of other people around us having similar problems in their canoes. Thankfully, we had a dragonboat rower on board my canoe, so he soon got us in line, although it still failed to keep us from going into the lily pads at times.
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| The boathouse we came from |
Some of my friends went into the lotus pads willingly to pick the flowers, which are actually edible and can be used for soup.
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| Lotus flower |
As we continued rowing, we passed by several interesting sights, including an Indian statue with a bull, with a sign offering free water to rowers, and sure enough, there was a carton of mineral water bottles behind the sign as we rowed past. We also saw a dog swimming in the water to fetch a ball. He had to negotiate his way around the boats as well as we went past.
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| Free Water |
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| Swimming Dog |
On the way back, we started to race with all the canoes and kayaks, and until we got tired, we were actually the fastest boat on the river.
I had a really fun time at canoeing, but it was not the end of the day yet. Half of the group headed into Waltham for dinner at a Japanese fusion restaurant,
Ponzu, located along Moody Street. My other friend had recommended this place, and it just so happened that a Groupon for this restaurant came up as well, so we decided on this place for the group in the end.
We were split up into 3 tables with one Groupon at each table. My table decided to try out the Malaysian dishes on the menu, going with the Roti Prata, Indonesian Gado Gado, The Banana Leaf Dried Curry Beef, and Chow Foon or Char Kueh Teow, but all the dishes were actually pretty disappointing. The roti prata tasted like it was fresh from the freezer, the gado gado was just a salad with peanut sauce, the beef was much wetter than I expected, while the Chow Foon was a little bland.
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| Indonesian Gado Gado |
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| Roti Prata |
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| Chow Foon |
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| Banana Leaf Dried Curry Beef |
Of the Sushi we ordered, only the Hurricane Maki was of any decent standard, made of
spicy salmon and crab salad roll topped with sweet and crispy taro strings.
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| Hurricane Maki |
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| Pink Lady Maki |
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| Butterfly Maki |
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| Celtic Maki |
We also got a complimentary Tapioca dessert, which was also so-so as well.
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| Complimentary Tapioca Dessert |
It was a good thing we had a discount for this place I guess.
With that, a fun day of kayaking came to an end on a somewhat disappointing note.
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