January 31st 2012: Dinner at The Glass Onion, Falmouth

I drove straight from work tonight to the harbor in Woods Hole to pick up my friend, so we decided to have dinner in area. We decided on the Glass Onion, which unfortunately does not accept reservations, but there weren't much diners at 9pm on a Tuesday night anyway, so we were seated immediately upon entering the quiet and nicely decorated restaurant. After being seated at a nice table, we could not help but admire the romantic atmosphere around us.

Table Decor

After being told the specials, we decided to go with the waitress's recommendations for appetizers, ordering the Barnstable Oysters, which had bacon among the other delicious ingredients in the half shell, and the crab bisque. To top it all, we were also offered a complementary serving of the duck confit rillette.

Barnstable Oysters

Crab Bisque

Duck Confit Rillette

For our main dish, my friend had the seafood risotto, while I got the Pan Seared Long Island Duck Breast. Both dishes were fantastic, but by then we were too full to finish the food, and had to take a doggie bag for both dishes.

Seafood Risotto

Pan Seared Long Island Duck Breast

With that, we headed back to my place for the night before going on a sightseeing trip tomorrow.

January 29th 2012: Chinese New Year Celebrations in Chinatown, Boston

After a late night yesterday, I woke up late this morning. As I had a meetup lunch event today in Cambridge, I decided not to do any hiking in Newton today, visiting a few interesting buildings instead.

Newton Highlands Congregational Church

Lutheran Church of the Newtons

Sacred Heart Church

Parish of St. Paul

Fountain,
Walnut Street and Forest Street

First Baptist Church in Newton

Langley Place, 10 Langley Road

Newton Centre Common,
Centre Street and Langley Road

Greek Evangelical Church

Trinity Episcopal Church

Finally, it was time to head for my lunch at Midwest Grill in Cambridge. This is a Brazilian BBQ buffet place on Cambridge Street, and I was the first customer for the day to arrive. Soon after, the rest of the meetup group arrived, and we started our buffet by heading to the Hot Food Brazilian BBQ and Cold Salad Station, sampling the various stews and salads they had there.

Soon after, the meats started coming on long skewers brought around by the waiters, including sausages, beef, lamb, chicken wrapped in bacon, ribs, and even chicken hearts. Upon indication, the watier will come to your side of the table and either cut off the side of meat you want, with you holding it up with a pair of tongs, or they would slide the sausage or ribs off onto your plate.

Soon, the meat was coming hard and fast, and I could barely keep up. Finally I gave up, and with the late night I had had, I was soon nodding off on the table while the others conversed around me. Even though I had thoroughly stuffed myself with food, the meal had only been about $20, which I felt was pretty good. I have to say though, that I actually preferred Pampas Churascarria on 145 East Central Street in Worcester, which thankfully is closer to me.

Next it was off to Chinatown in Boston to see the Chinese New Year Celebrations there. I decided to leave my car in its free parking spot and follow the others to take the T, walking some distance to get to Central Square MBTA Station, which we took all the way to Downtown Crossing, from which we walked to Chinatown. Here, the roads had been blocked off, and when we got to the center of the area, we saw several crowds of people, each surrounding a lion dance troupe performing in front of a shop or restaurant in the area. With the crowd in front of us, and me being relatively short, I could hardly see anything, but I was still able to take decent pictures of the lions, the banners and people doing kung fu moves. Pictures follow.

Some of my new friends had never seen a Chinese lion dance before, so they were asking me all sorts of questions about the tradition, like why oranges and vegetables, how do the "lions" "eat" the food, why they were all different in color, and all sorts of other questions that I was glad to answer.

After a while though, I realized that the festival was pretty much just the shops in the area paying to lion dance troupes to perform in front of them to give the shops good luck for the rest of the year. I decided to call it quits for the day then, still feeling tired from having slept only 3 hours. I took the reverse trip back to my car, passing by two churches in Cambridge along the way.

Christ the King Presbyterian Church

Faith Lutheran Church

Finally back in my car, I headed back to Newton to resume sightseeing before the sun set. I managed to capture some interesting places before finally heading home for the day.

Our Lady Help of Christians

Newtonville Books

Trinity Catholic High School

The Swedenborgian Church of North America

Renovated Stone Church,
449 Newtonville Avenue

Newton Veterans Memorial Park,
Jackson Road and Washington Street

Newton Senior Center

Boston Chinese Evangelical Church

January 28th 2012: A Day for Lunar New Year Celebrations

I had to service my car this morning, so my sightseeing did not start till halfway through the day.  I started off in Sudbury, where I had found a new trail map of the Nobscot Scout Reservation, which showed 2 nice viewpoints, so I decided to go check it out. I had to park in the same lot as for the Nobscot Conservation Land along Brimstone Lane, and proceed along the same path where I got lost to get to the Nobscot Scout Reservation. The route I took is shown below in pink.

From the parking lot, I walked up the same trail I did several months ago in the Nobscot Conservation Land. Instead of turning right on the fork like the last time, I continued on the left fork of the Bay Circuit Trail. Along the way, at the supposed viewpoint, all I saw were the ruins of a fireplace and chimney.

Heading off the trail to get to the next viewpoint on the Squanto Trail, I did not see anything here, although further down the trail, I found a scout's structure, the Haynes Lodge.

I climbed up the structure, hoping to see good views here, but did not get any, with all the tall trees around.

Walking further down, the trail crossed a nice little stream.

From here, I headed up a really steep slope to get to the top of Nobscot Hill, where I had been before the last time, crossing into Framingham as a result. At the top, there are a few communications towers, but instead of heading to the end of Brimstone Lane from here, I turned around to head to the next viewpoint on the map. Here, on a rock outcropping, there was a partial view of the west.

The next place I went to was the Weston Ski Track in Weston. I had missed this place the last time I was here because it was summer at that time, and the place was still the Leo J Martin Memorial Golf Course at that time of year. This is a place for cross-country skiing and skating, something quite different from other ski areas in the state.

Finally, it was off to Boston to see the Tet In Boston 2012 Vietnamese New Year Festival, which my friend had invited me to. Along the way on Route 9, I saw the Atrium Mall and decided to take a picture of it.

The event was held in the Harbor Pilot Middle School, but I could not find parking along Charles Street to continue from where I left off the last time. I ended up parking at the strip mall parking lot along Park Street.
At the place itself, it was set up like a mini carnival, with areas for kid's games as well as adult ones (gambling), food (which was all gone by the time I arrived) and a stage for performances.

Kid's Games

Entrance into the festival

Performers dancing on stage

Unfortunately, my friend had already left by the time I came, and I was still looking for a meal, so I decided to head to a Vietnamese restaurant in the area to fulfill my Vietnamese craving. I tried the Pho So 1 Boston Restaurant today at 223 Adams Street. Once again, I got the largest bowl of pho with all the beef parts included (#38 on the menu), and enjoyed my lunch thoroughly.

With that, I headed back to Newton to visit Nahanton Park at about 455 Nahanton Street. The route I took here is shown below in pink.

The canoe dock was a nice place to view the Charles River.









Walking the trails on Florrie's Path, I headed to the Winchester Street Parking area where there are a few community gardens here. Here, there is a nice view of the communications towers here. I could not help but wonder how those tall towers would withstand huge gusts of wind.

From here, I headed to the Mount Ida College. Here, besides and interesting sculpture on the side of the road close to the entrance, I saw a huge group of about 40 wild turkeys grazing in the grass as well, the largest I have seen so far.

Wild turkeys

Sculpture

Unfortunately, the college itself is private, so the security guard would not even allow me past the gate, but he was nice enough to allow me to take pictures of the main building from outside the gate.

The next place I went to was the Oak Hill Pathway on Ober Road. The route I took here is shown below in pink.

The trail entrance from the road itself was blocked by heavy vegetation, so I decided to head up the private driveway to get to the other side of the trail, but it was slightly overgrown as well. I followed what seemed like a pathway to the tennis courts here, where I saw a nice view of the surroundings.

The last place I headed to for the day was the Pine Manor College in Brookline. Like Mount Ida College,this place is private, but the security guard was actually nice enough to let me in when I told him I was only sightseeing. However, I found out that this actually did not include taking pictures, when I tried to take pictures of the library near the gate. I still managed to capture some interesting buildings within the campus, however.

Ferry Administration Building

Barn

Sculpture outside the college campus

Annenberg Library

Ellsworth Hall Center for the Arts

With that, I was done with sightseeing for the day, and headed into Boston for a Chinese New Year meetup dinner at Hei La Moon, a Chinese restaurant. A total of 150 people showed up for this event, a 10 course dinner, of which many are shown below.

Seafood nest

Seafood Soup

Twin Lobsters

Vegetables

Red Bean Soup

Fried chicken

Sweet and Sour Pork and Yang Chow Fried Rice

Lighting decoration

I thoroughly enjoyed my time here, meeting new people and catching up with old acquaintances. After the dinner we headed to karaoke at Golden Leaf Karaoke, and I took some pictures of the Chinatown gate and the Christmas decorations nearby.

Christmas Decorations

The Chinatown Gate

Unfortunately, there was no available private room till much later, so we decided to give up and head home.