April 19th 2014: Hiking in Natick and the USS Cassin Young

I had a meetup event for brunch at Beat Hotel in Cambridge, but before that, I decided to do a little hiking in the town of Natick. I checked out Coolidge Hill first, the path I took after parking at the corner of Jefferson Street and Lincoln Street extension is shown below in pink.

The hike to the top of the hill was actually pretty short, with decent views of the surroundings.

Not a bad hike at all. My next hike was in the Coolidge Woods, and the path I took to try to view the ponds here after parking at Coolidge Field at the end of Sheridan Street is shown below in pink.

 It was only halfway through that all the ponds were wetlands in actuality, as I had not read the map legend properly.

Disappointed that I had wasted my time here, I hurried to the Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary in town, which I had visited a very long time ago, but had missed out on exploring a lot of it as I had gotten disoriented during my hike then.This time around, the path I took is shown below in pink.

I had indeed missed out on several beautiful ponds,

as well as a few waterfalls at the Mill Pond area.

It was also nice to see trees sprouting leaves again, signalling the arrival of spring.

Excellent hike once again. I was unable to check out Little Farm Pond on the conservation land due to a lack of time, and headed to brunch in Cambridge. When I arrived, it was still a little early, so I headed next door to Crema Cafe, a pretty nice looking cafe, for a quick bite,

getting their Honey, Thyme, Walnut Scone, which tasted a little weird, but overall, still a nice place to study at I guess, considering the tons of people in the place when I went.

With respect to Beat Hotel, I had expected a pretty small place, but it was quite the opposite, looking pretty fancy, with a stage and a jazz band playing as well.

For food, I decided to get the Greek Easter Lamb Soup (orzo, lemon, dill)

and the Ham Steak Dinner (Mac and Cheese,Grilled pineapple, braised greens),

while my friends got the Grilled Banana Coffee Cake (honey butter), among other things.

The cake was pretty good, while the soup was excellent, not being too sour for my liking. The ham was a little dry though, although the other parts of the dish were tasty, especially the mac and cheese.

After brunch, I decided to head to the Charlestown Naval Yard

to check out the USS Cassin Young, which had not been available for visiting the past few times I have been here. It was pretty cool to see the inside of the ship, although some rooms were not publicly accessible.

After leaving the ship, I decided to go watch a movie in Waltham at the Landmark Theatres Embassy Cinema, before heading back to the South End area of Boston to park my car in preparation for a dinner with my friend in Chinatown.

Puerto Rican War Memorial,

Washington Street and West Dedham Street

Unfortunately, my friend decided to change plans at the last minute, changing the location to Hong Kong Restaurant in the Harvard Square area of Cambridge, so I had to walk all the way back to my car from Chinatown and drive there. What a waste of my time.

I have been to this place which does Americanized Chinese food before, and did not think too much of it, but went anyway because my friend had chosen it. Apparently, it had been chosen without any basis whatsoever except that it was close to Harvard, where some of my friends were earlier. This was clearly not going to be good. Five of us decided to share among ourselves, getting the Yu Hsiang Meatless Eggplant,

the Singapore Thin Rice Noodles (curry with chicken, shrimp and pork),

the Beancurd with Black Mushrooms, Pea Pods and Bamboo Shoots, the Beef with Mixed Vegetables 

and the Seafood Soup.

Although the beef, eggplant and soup weren't too bad, they weren't anything awesome either. Nope, definitely near the bottom of my list of Chinese restaurants in Cambridge.

It was good to know that my friend has decided to come back to Massachusetts. Looking forward to the bike trip we plan to do in summer.