If you haven’t realized, the previous post was written by dc on my computer, because he only knows how to download photos into my computer but doesn’t know how to sign out of my blogspot account to blog. Pretty neat for somebody who gets greeted ‘Hi tech,’ (get it??) in emails, huh?
The past month back in Boston has been kind of like the attachment year we spent in Singapore – wake up early, go to work, work like mad, don’t see each other the entire day, go home dead tired, have dinner, read/wait for bedtime, GOTO Step1. The difference now is of course, I take only 10 min to get home, while dc takes 50 (hence his constant whining for a car); and I usually get to prepare dinner (as opposed to going home to Marmee’s yummy dishes). The wonderful part about summer is of course, (1) the weather is (sometimes) wonderful for going out, and (2) we get the weekends free to go out! I know we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, but hey, grad students who have a family should have a life and avoid going back to work during weekends right?
So weekend 1, we headed down to Cambridgeside Galleria to spend our California Pizza Kitchen gift card from Amex (that’s means we have spent another $2500 on our Amex card), as well as find more opportunities to spend money. Summer sales are great! Good deals at Victoria Secrets, and especially good ones at Bath and Body Works. Pardon my ‘auntiness’ here, I have to brag that I got their tinted lip balm at 90% off, 75c apiece. Hooray! Then we tried our hand at making Zhen Xing’s Taiwanese beef noodle soup:
Zhen Xing, if you are reading this, you should be proud of us! Trust me I was thinking about you as I was eating this, because it is just so delicious (even though we forgot to fry the ginger, didn’t put orange peel, added ketchup to make up for the little tomatoes we have…) heh *sheepish grin*.
Weekend 2: more retail therapy! We made a last minute decision about getting a zipcar to go Market Basket-ting because I was complaining about how much I miss grocery shopping. So there goes another hundred bucks, but we did fill up the apartment up with toiletries and lots of cheap fruits.
Justin and Pauline invited us to their place for July Fourth BBQ and we were, not surprisingly, once again overfed by their elaborate menu: potato and dill salad, seafood pasta salad, black bean mussels, minced pork cabbage wrap, the usual BBQ fare, apple pie with ice cream, watermelon (courtesy of Horace) and our lame (in comparison) konnyaku jelly, which everyone enjoyed!. Being our first Fourth of July in modern USA (Baltimore apparently didn’t qualify), we trekked our way down Mass Ave to Charles River to catch the famed Boston POP Fireworks Extravaganza.
Part of the Boston skyline in the moonlight.
Pauline and us, while waiting in the crowd for fireworks to start. It’s interesting how we got to know them so well. One Sunday we arrived late at church and were directed to empty seats next to them. Being the last Sunday of the month, we had a five-minute prayer time, during which dc prayed with Pauline and they were excited to know we were from Singapore because they had just returned from their honeymoon there. So that day, we had a surprise treat from them at Penang and continued going to their place for more food and board games :)
The entire 30 minute (!!) fireworks display was choreographed to (random?) music and I was surprised to see fireworks that I have never seen before, considering myself a fireworks veteran who braved three two-hour waits during the International Fireworks Festival. Check out the morning glory one second from the left and bottom, it’s one of my new favorites. Thank God that our place is right along the river, so we didn’t need to walk far or crowd the T to get home. The fireworks belong to the MIT part of the river and not Harvard, hooray for MIT!
The next day we trooped down to city hall for Chowderfest, excited to sample entries from restaurant for the Best Chowder award. Alas though we reached just as they started, there was a big enough crowd (and small enough sample size) to deter us from getting the $10 ticket to go in. Instead, we hung around outside the Chowderfest area to sample other things (cereal! hot sauce! juice! ICE-CREAM!) and brought home lots of freebies (yay for cheapos!)
And some random tent with animal display inside.. (polar bears are our favorite)
This weekend, Dom took us out for Japanese sushi buffet!
Dom and Xiaosai
It was so yummylicious! The sushi spread was so good, even better than Kuishinbo, though the cooked food section was more like a regular Chinese buffet. Still, I’ll go back there for more Jap food anytime!
It’s our first wedding anniversary next weekend, and we are definitely planning a fun day out!
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