Wei's Blog: Unnecessary Subtitles: Unnecessary Colons:: Boston Trip: Part One

Introduction

Travel is one of the most heavily marketed industries in existence. Slickly-produced brochures of sapphire oceans and twilight cityscapes belie an endless list of inconveniences: heavy expenses, jet lag, flight delays, luggage mishaps, language barriers, culture shock, isolation, illness, etc. Travelers spend a lot of their time doing nothing but waiting: at the airport, the bus stop, the ticket counter, the train station, the hotel lobby. The pictures they take are less for themselves and more to make other people jealous. There is a constant pressure to have fun, to justify this inordinate expenditure of time and money, to tick off every local attraction like a checklist. It's exhausting.

The more I travel, the more I realize how I don't care about any of that stuff. I love to travel. If money were no object, I'd go everywhere. I'd trade all the jet lag, overpriced food, and missed flights in the world for the experiences I've had in overcrowded airports and stuffy bus stations. It doesn't matter how low the negatives of travel may become; they will always be inconsequential in the face of the positives. Every time I go someplace new, part of me changes. And it's always for the better.

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/1a/75/2e/1a752e8479c067154351f34ec6db8ef8--best-travel-quotes-best-quotes.jpg

It's long been a dream of mine to travel alone. I romanticized every aspect of it: the freedom, the independence, the solitude. I was beyond excited to get the chance to do so this spring break. My expectations were incredibly high. (Spoiler: I not disappointed.)

Days 1 and 2

I got to the airport at 7:30pm, three and a half hours early, because I was afraid of making a mistake and missing my flight. I didn't make any mistakes and spent three hours doing card tricks for people (mostly families with children) at the gate. Doing magic for children is one of my favorite things. Their eyes get really big -- you can almost see them filling up with awe. If you do a really good job, they'll even gasp and put their hands over their mouths. Magic lays bare the best parts of childhood -- curiosity, wonder, innocence. The positive social feedback is addictive.

But my mediocre card tricks were just a small part of the magic of the airport. The real magic was in the people around me. I talked with curmudgeonly old folks who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, mothers taking their children to visit relatives, college students on spring break, and more. I watched a Russian group of people play a card game I didn't understand and even figured out a couple rules. Everyone I talked to knew a million things I didn't, had experienced a million things I hadn't. We were different in countless ways. Yet here we were together, sharing the same space, the same sights and smells, the same destination. That was a kind of magic. It made me feel alive.

Airplanes are also a kind of magic. I've written about them before. Two hundred years ago, our ancestors took months to journey across the country, braving brutal conditions, ravaged by countless diseases, at the mercy of the terrain. On this trip, I sat for a couple hours in a padded seat in a temperature- and pressure-controlled cabin with food, water, and WiFi access, and I achieved the same result. My neighbor was a nice elderly man named John who happened to be from Boston. He gave me some recommendations for cool things to see in the city: gaslit streetlamps, sunset vantages, art museums. I went to some of those places. They were great.

Real magic.

I arrived in Boston around 7:30am, right on schedule. I'd been awake for twelve hours at this point, so I decided I needed some coffee. I looked up the fanciest-looking restaurant on the coast, found a bus to take me there, and had the following breakfast:

Incredibly expensive. Incredibly delicious.

Chugged two cups of coffee with it to stay awake. First time I've used drugs in months. Mixed Sweet 'N Low with Splenda as an experiment.

Experimental results.

It was a two-minute walk to the pier, where I had the following views:

Shortly after getting off the bus.

This guy was the first one to welcome me to Boston. He'll be back later. Hard not to show off when you look this good.


This view was absolutely sensational. I'm not sure what else to say about it. It was perfect.

One of my good friends just happened to be in Boston at the same time, so we decided to meet at a random park I found on Google Maps:

As soon as I got to this park, I immediately decided we should meet somewhere else.

I decided to go to the Prudential building/mall, which was one of the places John told me to see. What followed was a totally embarrassing cavalcade of errors during which I discovered (a) I could not decipher Google Maps most of the time; (b) during the rare times I could, the GPS tracking was so bad it didn't matter; (c) I did not comprehend the bus/train/subway system at all. I spent around an hour missing a bus, missing a train, wasting some money on tickets, and walking in a big circle before I got a message from my AirBnB host saying I could drop my luggage off early, which meant I didn't need to go to the Prudential building after all, and the entire past hour I'd spent trying to do so had been totally wasted. I had a huge smile on my face during this entire time.

I finally figured out just enough of the train system to get to my friend, who knew all about the train system and taught me everything I needed to know. In retrospect, it was a huge stroke of luck that he was there at the same time. I got all the best parts of traveling alone with none of the downsides because I'd found a sponsor. He also knew most of the cool places in Boston, so we went to see them:

This is the oldest church in Boston. It looks a bit like a vampire castle in this light.

It cost like $15 to go inside, so this sneaky pic was all I could get. God's got bills to pay.

The Boston Public Library was one of my favorite experiences for the entire trip. To me, it represents exactly what government is for. It's also a microcosm of Boston in general: centuries of proud history fused with cutting-edge technology. A beautiful combination.

This is the inside view. If all libraries looked like this, the world would be a better place.

My friend told me the green lamps were an homage to Benjamin Franklin. To me, they were a testament to the style of the human race. We've got it going on, yo.

Maybe the British don't have it going on. Microfilm is pretty cool, though.

I continued to enjoy the fusion of modern and historic styles.

Some classic New England architecture. Didn't even notice this until my friend told me to look up.

We went to the most bougie, elitist tea shop I could imagine. Here's some sample monologue from the salesperson: "This tea has faint tracings of rose petals and cardamom, but you can't really those subtleties unless you go looking for them, because the designer was striving to stay true to the heart and soul of the 'white tea' aesthetic, and for that same reason I would also recommend steeping this one at least three times to get the most out of it, because you really lose some of the intricacies of the layered flavors unless you do that. We've got this luxury tea brewer if you're interested, makes multiple steepings fairly straightforward, as it's a very high-quality brand..."
My friend actually got some tea from this place. Even the bag looked out of my price range.

The legendary Boston Common, the oldest city park in the US. 1634?! Just looking at those numbers gave me goosebumps.

Didn't look that good that time of year.
1634, though. Damn.

I am a fan of graffiti art.

This was our first sight of Chinatown. It made us laugh a lot. In Chinese, "wang" is a common surname. It also means "king". In English, it means something different.

More graffiti!

These sandwiches are hilariously labeled "sandwich". (The Chinese also just says "sandwich".)

The gate. Nearby, we saw what I really wanted to see: A crowd of retired Chinese seniors going HAM gambling at various card games. One woman had at least $25 in quarters sitting in front of her.


A bunch of elderly folks practicing tai chi. If you look closely, you'll spot a Master Ninja training in broad daylight.

After Chinatown, we went to a comic store.
I got this.

I also got this.

Some of the locals were not as welcoming as others.

We walked along the Freedom Trail, part of which was Paul Revere's famous ride. This clock tower caught my eye.

The Old State House, where the Boston Massacre took place. Also the famous balcony where the Declaration of Independence was read. Incredible to think how much American history took place here.
Plus, there's a unicorn on the roof. Cool!

The burial site of many famous American statesmen, such as Samuel Adams. They laid the groundwork for this great nation. Now, they lay peacefully in the ground.

My friend's girlfriend worked in a lab at MIT, which I also really wanted to see, so we took a train to Cambridge. I'd been awake for around 20 hours at this point. I was not feeling tired in the slightest.

We got some great waterfront views on the train. God, I love this city.

These apartments were especially eye-catching.

Took some pics in front of the big MIT dome. Here is one where I am holding a bag.

Here is one where I am not holding a bag.
Not sure which one I prefer.

Here is a closer look at the two different bags we got. Mine is on the left. My friend's is on the right. Honestly, when I look at them side-by-side like this, I feel kinda bad for him.

This is the view from my friend's girlfriend's lab space. She told us about how she sometimes sees students dancing around fires down below, and some amphitheater performances.

It didn't look like anything important or scientific was happening in here, but I took a picture of it anyway. Maybe those fancy scientists will find a use for this space later on.

My best guess is that the square with the four lines in the upper right is the business end of a spatula. Then again, I don't know a lot of chemistry.

This timeline of the various buildings and awards won by the MIT biochem department is blurry and unreadable.

This is the map of the campus. You know it's cool cuz it's on glass.

After MIT, my friend and I decided to go back to his girlfriend's place, because we were getting pretty tired. According to his calculations, we'd walked for ~10 miles that day. Her house had some cool octagonal apertures on the porch. It was also the only stucco building in the neighborhood.