Boston --- vacation of countless tours (all paid with money)

Day 1:

I picked up Nonnynu around 5 am. Went to Chinatown. The only thing that was open was two bakeries. We got two big pork steam bow...ate...went back to Hilton and napped until about noon.

We got introduced to Dunkin Doughnut. Boston should not be call Beantown. It should be called Dunkintown. In every corne, therer is at least two Dunkin Doughnuts...even in Chinatown!!! It really dwarfed the chicken feet that we ate for lunch.

Freed0m Trail was great. Thanks to my friend at work's recommendation. The tour was done through role-play. We had some sort of colonial guy who said "...taxation without representation...". We saw all kinds of colonial stuff and learned a lot of history. It was worth the price. He was really informative. Paul Revere didn't do all those stuff the poem says. We finished the rest of the unpaid tour on foot -- saw Bunker Hill and Old Ironside (I think). Interesting to know that there are still gaslights at certain really old part of Dunkintown.

When we were near the Boston Common, there was an unusual looking "bus shelter". It was a long hallway made of glass. Each pane of glass is about 4-5 foot wide and about 2 stories tall. There were six of these. It was actually in memory of the victims of the holocaust -- the New England Holocaust Memorial. (OK, I can't claim authorship to this really nice looking picture. Its way beyong the scope of practice of my cheapo camera). http://nehm.org/design/ to learn more about this memorial.

The numbers on the glass were the number (like a prisoner's number) of each of those died under Hitler's "maw jeung"...a very solem moment. "Maw Jeung"...Nonnynu, that could be your next Chinese idiom.

We ended the day with a Malaysia Dinner.

Day2:

That night..ok...we are still pre-Day2, Nonnynu told me to get up early so we can go to Patriot Day at Lexington. I shoot the route with Hermie (the name of my GPS). It was only 20 some miles from where we stay. Keep with the family tradition...I told her that if people actually get there by 4:30, I will chop my head down so she can sit on it. Needless to say, I owe her a stool in the form of my head.

The Patriot Day parade was great. The town people were really into it. They had muskets, horses, the British Redcoats. middle-age men with real beer-belly and everything. Between watching people's butt cracks, back of their necks, top of their hair, we saw some of the parades and got the idea how the war for America Independence got started...I'm proud to be an American...

Next year, instead of packing the hot plate, pack a ladder.

After that we went to Dunkin, got coffee and ate our stale Chinese cake from Day1.

We hiked Waldon pond. That was great. We over estimated the "pond" because someone lost the map while taking a pee-stop (I will respect that person and not put their name on this site for humiliation) and hiked to some sort of river. Whenever Hermie didn't come along, we got more than totally lost. Luckily, a kind mountaineer pointed us to the right direction. We hacked our way through nats and mosquito for another hour before getting back to our car.

The rest of the day was filled with fun-filled tours at Salem. It was so fun and authentic that I wonder why historians don't go those these people for help with their history books. Nonnynu even made a good suggestion to get the combination 3 - tours package....Kill me...We suffered through 2 of those tours. All the time, I was hoping for Samantha to wiggle her nose to beam me out.

The high-light of the afternoon was the trip up Cape Ann to eat fresh boiled shrimp and see how rich people live.