Over the week, I realized that there were many places that I missed out on my trips, so I decided to go visit some of them today. It was not only cold today, but the winds were frightfully strong as well. There were times throughout the day that I was scared that trees might fall on me. The first town was right next door in Grafton, where I first headed to the
Old Mill Pond near the
Webber Conservation Area. The trail I took after parking at the small lot on the corner of Waterville Street and Leland Avenue is highlighted below in pink.
I headed to the Old Mill Pond Dam, but there was only a wooden bridge here over the Bummett Brook.
Dejected, I headed back to my car. Seeing Pratt's Pond was on the map, close to Waterville Street, I decided to go check it out, finding a beautiful waterfall there.
From here, I headed to the
Gummere Woods on Wheeler Road near Worcester Street. The trail I took after parking is shown below in pink.
Right at the entrance, there is a view of the
Quinsigamond River.
While walking down the path that followed the river leading to Lake Ripple and heading into the
Marsters Preserve, I tried to spot good views of it, but they were far and few, giving only a few partial views.
From here, I took an alternate route to head back to my car. I definitely don't recommend coming here, especially because there are better views of Lake Ripple from Worcester Street and Providence Road. The next place I went to was the
Parker Preserve area, where I parked at the end of Salisbury Street. The path I took here is highlighted below in pink.
I walked straight down the path till I approached the powerlines, where there were many other trails branching out from where I was. I decided to cut through the powerlines to the other side, where I found the path to get to the small hill. Before going in though, I took pictures of the powerlines.
Other than that, there was nothing much else to see as I headed east to the Old Telephone Easement, turning left onto it to get back onto the blue trail, which eventually joined the yellow trail, which I turned left on to get back to my original path to head back to my car. Like the Gummere Woods, I don't recommend coming to this part of town.
Next, I headed to the
Silver Lake Town Beach area, located on Upton Street between Old Upton Road and Nantucket Place. The path I took here to get to the
Fletcher Reserve is shown below in pink.
The beach was closed for the season, but the beach area was still beautiful, complete with a small waterfall at the edge of the lake.
From here, I headed straight up into the peninsula jutting out into the lake, from which had great views of the lake.
From here, I headed back and up into the
Mazza Farm Conservation Area, and past it into the Fletcher Reserve area. Here, there is a small island that is linked by a rock bridge, and onto that I went, hoping for more nice views of the lake, but was rewarded only with partial views.
With that, I headed all the way back to my car, then drove to find the West River Reservoir in Upton. My original plan had been to look for the trailhead from Moroney Road, but ended up being told by the resident there that I was trespassing on private property. When I asked for directions, he told me to go to Dairy Drive instead. Dairy Drive is a residential neighborhood, and on my first drive around I was unable to find the trailhead. I had given up and was about to leave when I decided to give the map another look, finally determining that Dairy Drive was actually an unmarked road on my map, so I managed to use it to locate the trailhead, which is near 13 Dairy Drive. From here, the path I took to explore the small reservoir is shown below in pink.
In order to get to the shore of the reservoir, I had to cross an old railroad first.
At the reservoir itself, there were some nice views of it from various spots along the shoreline.
With that, I was done with Upton, and I headed to
Whitehall State Park in Hopkinton. I decided to first stop at the dam area at the junction of Highland Street and Exchange Street. The views of the reservoir from here were terrific.
I decided to head to the canoe launch area nearby on Wood Street as well, where there was another nice view of the reservoir.
With that and a meetup event in Boston to go to, I decided to head into Newton to continue my sightseeing there as I still had time to spare. I visited the
John Ward Elementary School, the
Mary Immaculate of Lourdes Church, as well as finished my tour of the
Boston College Main Campus.
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| John Ward Elementary School |
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| Robert Q Crane Memorial Park |
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| Sculpture outside Robsham Theater |
While exploring Boston College, I also saw the beautiful
Chestnut Hill Reservoir on Beacon Street and Chestnut Hill Driveway, with the
Metropolitan Waterworks Museum and the
Waterworks Apartments at Chestnut Hill on the other side of it.
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| Chestnut Hill Reservoir |
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| Metropolitan Waterworks Museum |
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| The Waterworks at Chestnut Hill |
It was time to head for my meetup lunch at
Pan Thai Restaurant in Boston. It was hard to find street parking, but I was lucky enough to find one without the "Resident Permit Parking" sign looming over me after a bit, and I was only a short distance away from the restaurant. Along the way, I spotted an interesting sculpture at the Harry Ellis Dickson Park on the corner of Westland Avenue and Edgerty Road.
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| Sculpture at Harry Ellis Dickson Park |
I was actually one of the last people to arrive for lunch, being already late, so I wasn't able to meet many new people at this point in time. Looking at the menu, I decided to do something simple, getting the Chicken Pad Thai lunch combo with golden rolls (curry puffs) and chicken vegetable soup on the side.
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| Chicken Pad Thai |
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| Chicken Vegetable Soup |
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| Golden Rolls |
The soup was okay, while the other 2 dishes were delicious, especially the golden rolls which were more like curry puffs. I haven't had those for quite some time now. I also had a fun time talking to people there, talking about my service in the Singaporean Army and the great food we have back home.
After lunch, it was time to head to the
Mapparium, situated within the
Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston. There was time to spare while waiting for the tour to start, so I decided to walk around the area to take pictures of the surrounding buildings. The most interesting building of note was the First Church of Christ, Scientist, known as the Mother Church to some, being the very first church of the Christian Science Faith.
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| Original portion of the Church |
The time to start the tour soon came, so I went into the hall area to wait, where the architecture was really nice, with a fountain in the middle of the room.
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| While waiting to enter the mapparium |
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| The fountain |
Unfortunately, when the tour finally started, we were told that we could not take photographs inside. I will try to describe the mapparium to you though. We walked into it on a 30-foot glass bridge spanning the entire mapparium, which is a 3-storey glass globe with the map of the world, which has not changed since 1935, inscribed on it. As a result of the spherical glass nature of the place, we could experience the
whispering gallery effect, where every single word we spoke could be heard loudly inside the globe. Due to the lack of updates, Singapore was still a British colony, the Soviet Union still hadn't collapsed, and Yugoslavia still existed as a country.
With that, we were done with the mapparium, and on to tour the
First Church of Christ, Scientist. Our tour guide was a really good one, describing everything from the architecture of the building, the history of Mary Baker Eddy and why the new extension which we were in had to be built to accomodate the influx of worshippers in the church, to how the pipe organ in the center of the church was the 8th largest in the world. Pictures inside the main church area follow.
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| Central dome supported entirely by side domes |
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| The side dome area |
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| Church pew cushions |
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| The book used during Masses |
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| Back of the church |
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| 8th largest organ in the world |
Next, we headed to the original portion of the church, where there yet another chapel, though smaller, with nice decor inside. Pictures follow.
With that, our tour ended. I must say that it was well worth the time, and I would recommend it to anyone who visits.
Still having some time to kill before heading to my colleague's house party in Charlestown, I decided to drive around Boston for a bit, taking a few pictures of interesting places along the way.
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John Boyle O'Reilly Memorial,
Boylston Street and Fenway |
I was about to head to my colleague's place from here when he told me to go have dinner first before coming. I decided to try some Korean food in Newton, eating at
Apgujung, a Japanese Korean restaurant. The interior decor was pretty decent.
I decided to get something different for my Korean dish, getting the Spicy Pork Kimchi Bokum, while for Japanese, I decided to try the Sweetie Roll, seeing how they were shaped like hearts.
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| Spicy Pork Kimchi Bokum |
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| Sweetie Roll |
However, the Korean dish was a little too salty, while the sushi did not look heart shaped enough. Oh well, I will give this place the benefit of the doubt, since I probably ordered the wrong stuff.
With that, I headed to my friend's place for the night. I did not know that he lived so close to the
Bunker Hill Monument.
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| Bunker Hill Monument at night |
I had a fun time at the party, and decided to stay over for the night since I was going to have a bowling session with my friend at
Lanes and Games in Cambridge. No point driving home drunk anyway.
Right at the entrance, there is a view of the Quinsigamond River. 
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