Taking the Train

Summer is in full swing! :-) This is good because it means I can just relax most days but also I increasingly am losing touch of what day or time it is, as happens to me every year. But surprisingly I have yet to totally wreck my sleep schedule and I still get up pretty early in the mornings (earlier than I did during the schoolyear actually!) We love healthy habits!

And speaking of healthy habits, I have been getting out a decent amount too! Caitlin had her first week at her internship last week, and I took the train into town on Friday since she didn't have work.

We went to Chinatown and got a very healthy lunch of ice kacang from Penang (the restaurant that Caitlin's parents used to go to when they were at MIT I believe? Caitlin will fact check me if I'm wrong). It was also coincidentally the restaurant me and Naoni went to when we had our Japan orientation, and it's really good, would highly recommend if you're looking for a good meal for a reasonable price in Boston. Me and Caitlin literally only went in to get the ice kacang (but they call it ABC, which Caitlin thinks is the Malaysian name for it) and it was really good!

It's shaved ice with condensed cream, sweet corn, red bean, palm seeds, and jellies. It's very sweet and refreshing and the orange coloring was something natural so Caitlin didn't have a bad allergic reaction, which is always ideal!! Only downside to this dish was that Caitlin said that in Singapore you could get more for about a third of the cost, but since it's probably the only place you can get it in Boston, it's a little expensive. Capitalism, amirite ladies?

After that we walked around a bit more and got some snacks to eat in the Common and some cooking ingredients. We walked through the Common to the Public Garden and sat by the duck pond to have our picnic of baked goods. If Caitlin's dad asks, though, we had a very nutritious meal with like fruits and veggies and protein in it, and definitely not just a bunch of sugar for lunch.

And we saw lots of ducks, including this one couple who were on a really beautiful date!

And since we love love we watched them for a little bit and then decided to take a tour of the duck pond on the swan boats :-)

I think everyone needs to ride the swan boats when they come to Boston, they're maybe my favorite thing you can do in Boston. They're these nice little boats that seat like 15 or so people and have a big swan on the back, which is actually where the captain of your voyage pedals and steers the ship as you traverse around the pond and past the Island of Ducks and the somewhat less exciting Outpost of the Pigeons.

After that, we went back to Caitlin's apartment and peeled some peanuts, and then took a little walk down to the Charles and Star Market (getting very lost in the process). I was worried I was going to miss my train home but the T did not disappoint and with Caitlin's help I made it back to the station just in time to board my train.

Then, this Sunday I hopped back on that inbound train to South Station to meet Caitlin and Karina and make dumplings with the ingredients we bought Sunday. It was a "Trial and Error" process as Caitlin put it but I think they came out alright in the end, and Caitlin really perfected her frying pan technique in the process

Afterward, we went to this dairy free ice cream place called FoMu, and got some refreshing coconut-based ice cream. They had an avocado flavor and we were so curious about what it tasted like (we couldn't get the idea of it just being cold guacamole out of our heads) that we went back and Karina (our hero) asked for some samples. I thought it was actually okay, the avocado flavor was pretty subtle and it was mostly just sweet, none of us thought we would order it for real though.

We also found this legendary Yelp review and wanted to recreate his flexing pic but failed to do so :-( maybe next time...

Okay! I'm going to end this post here because it's getting really long but this week was so much more eventful than I expected and I'm so excited for next week too and spending more time with my friends before I depart for Japan with Naoni in officially one month and one day!

Looking forward to a special guest (no spoilers :0) making her way to MA next week too :^)

Also, I added these pics of a really good bagel shop in my hometown before I realized there was too much going on in this post to really talk about it, but I can't figure out how to delete the pictures in the app so enjoy these pics!!