May 12th 2014: Dinner at Thyme Japanese Cuisine, North Andover

Today after work, I managed to get my car back after it suffered another flat tire on Saturday. As I had to return some scuba gear I still had with me to Northeast Scuba in Chelmsford, I headed there first, and after handing everything back, I decided not to waste the rest of the daylight hours, heading first to the Wilmington Town Forest in the town of Wilmington, which I have explored before. This time, I entered from River Street in Andover, close to its junction with Lowell Junction Road, and the path I took here to get to the pond here is shown below in pink.

The trails weren't too bad here, although the pond itself wasn't much to see here,

and it was pretty close to Camp Forty Acres.

My next spot was in Andover itself, at Wilkinson Reservation. I entered on Woburn Street near Rattlesnake Hill Road, the path I took is shown below in pink.

There weren't any good views of the pond though with all the trees.

My final hike for the day was the small Lupine Reservation, located on Lupine Road and Central Street. The path I took here is shown below in pink.

The views of the Shawsheen River here are pretty nice.

From here, it was on to dinner at Thyme Japanese Cuisine, a pretty decently decorated Japanese restaurant in North Andover.

I wanted to use my Groupon here, but the waitress told me that it could only be used for the Hibachi table. As there was no one at the tables at this moment, and they would only open it for 2 people, they would not do it for me, no matter how much I asked. In the end, I settled for just using the coupon for the worth of what I paid for it rather than try to refund it through Groupon. I decided to get the Ee Dako (Baby Octopus)

and the Monk Fish Liver for appetizers,

and decided to get the Roast Pork Ramen Noodle Soup once I saw it on the menu.

Pretty good actually, that I was enticed to try their desserts as well, getting the Torta Nocciola (Alternating layers of hazelnut cake, hazelnut cream and chocolate cream, topped with praline hazelnuts).

Pretty good meal overall, although I was a little disappointed at not being able to use my Groupon.