Boston.com

My photograph got put on Boston.com leh!!

haha.. 

http://www.boston.com/thingstodo/special/halloween/20pumpkinfest?pg=9

Sixth Annual Boston Pumpkin Festival 18th Oct 2008

The annual Pumpkin Festival is here again. Time to start carving and see if Boston can set a New Guinness world record. This is my pumpkin before carving. Huge and heavy. Haha.. time to carve the first pumpkin of my life. 

First I had to take a big spoon and remove all the stuff inside the pumpkin so that it is empty.  Bf is so much faster than me. He had already given two eyes to his pumpkin and he was starting with the nose. 

hehe... The finished product.  I carved the orange one and bf did the green one. We decided to name them Dimple Gal and Broken Nose respectively.  Although I was slower, I think my pumpkin is nicer leh. Did you notice the dimples... haha 

After carving, we took our pumpkins to join the rest of the pumpkin family in the plaza. There were pumpkins all over. Wow...... haha..  We found a good spot for our pumpkins and landed them with very interesting neighbours. 

Here are three of their interesting neighours. Bright eyes, The Cat (notice the cat ears) and old grandpa pumpkin. 

Other pumpkins around the plaza. 

wow... a jay chou fan in boston?? 

稻香 - 周杰倫 lyrics (meaningful neh..)

不要这麼容易就想放弃 就像我说的
追不到的梦想 换个梦不就得了
为自己的人生鲜艳上色 先把爱涂上喜欢的颜色
笑一个吧 功成名就不是目的
让自己快乐快乐这才叫做意义
童年的纸飞机 现在终於飞回我手里
所谓的那快乐 赤脚在田里追蜻蜓追到累了
偷摘水果被蜜蜂给叮到怕了 谁在偷笑呢
我靠著稻草人吹著风唱著歌睡著了
哦 哦 午后吉它在虫鸣中更清脆
哦 哦 阳光洒在路上就不怕心碎
珍惜一切 就算没有拥有

还记得你说家是唯一的城堡 随著稻香河流继续奔跑
微微笑 小时候的梦我知道
不要哭让萤火虫带著你逃跑 乡间的歌谣永远的依靠
回家吧 回到最初的美好

Day trip to Ipswich and Essex

Ipswich and Essex are two cities near Boston. They can be accessed by taking the commuter rail (train) for about an hour. During the summer, there are buses bringing people from the commuter rail to the tourists destinations in the two cities.

When we reached the Ipswich station, there is already a bus waiting for us. There are many tourists like us and they all told the driver that they are going to Crane beach. Before coming, we did not plan on going to Crane beach as we just went to Revere Beach last week. But seeing how EVERYONE on the bus execpt us is heading for the beach, we decided to go talk a look as well.

We arrived at Crane beach at about 11a.m. and it is really clean and nice. There are already many people there. Although we are not dressed appropriate for the beach, we decided to walk on the sand and play with the waters anyway.

Many people are like us playing with the waters and making sand castles. The most impressive castle is the one below:

Seeing how beautiful the sand castles are, we decided to make one too. Hmm.. except that we have no tool to aid in the construction. Hence we gave up trying to make a castle. Below is our lame attempt at making a sand Mian Mian.

Next, we went to the Russell Orchard for fruit picking. But before we embarked on our fruit picking, we stopped by the Orchard tour and grab some apple cider pop first. wooo.... so.... nice....

There are many different fruits in the orchard. These two weeks is the season for blue berry and Raspberry picking.
To prevent people from picking fruits and not paying, the Orchard authorities decided to put a guard at the front gate. Except ... that....

..... the guard is sleeping very sounding.

There are also many animals at the Orchard. We said hello to the duck family, little pig and their friends.

After that we went to Essex for lunch at Woodman's and take a look around the city. The city is famous for its shipbuilding history and the large number of antiques shop around. Lf finds the shipbuilding stuff pretty interesting although by this time of the day, I was too tired already.

25th birthday

Don't misunderstand. Mian mian is not yet 25 years old...but I'm already 25 years old!!! Going to be 30 soon.... =(

Revere Beach + Sand sculpture competition

I went to a sand sculpture competition@ Revere Beach today. But I guess the highlight for bf is not the sculpture but rather the roast beef burger and lobster roll from Kelly's Roast Beef. Bf claimed that Kelly's is the first place in the world to make roast beef burger. I din find the roast beef that great. But I like the lobster roll. The lobster meat is sooooo biggg.... wahhhh....

Delicious neh... After lunch, we went to walk around the beach for a while and take pictures of the beautiful sand sculptures.

This is my first time seeing sand sculptures. Hopefully it does not rain for the next few days.. or else the sculptures may be destroyed.

So which one of the sculptures do you like best?

Orlando-Disney_Magic Kingdom_part I

We went to Magic Kingdom on the second day of our visit. We arrived very early at around 8.00 a.m. and were one of the first to catch the ferry from the main transportation center into Magic Kingdom.

After a short ferry ride, we reached Magic Kingdom! Yay... the disney theme park with most disney characters and most magic. And of course... most kids... hmmm.... so it is really better to reach there earlier before the kids wake up. We were greeted by beautiful shops and streets on main street. And of course we can see Cinderella's castle.

We decided that the most optimal thing to do was to go straight to Frontierland to get a fastpass for Splash Mountain. (as it is a popular attraction and the waiting time can go up to an hour in the afternoon) When we reached Splash Mountain, we realized that we were so early that there wasn't a queue. So we took the fastpass and went immediately to take the ride too. haha.. meaning that we will get two rides. =P

Splash Mountain as its name suggests probably involved water... and getting wet. Hmm.. but why is there a "splash"? It is because the climax of the ride is a slide from five stories down into the river and of course water will splash up and make u wet. This picture was taken in front of splash mountain. If you look carefully you can see a boat starting its slide down.

For the splash mountain ride, we were sitted on a log. The ride presents scene from Disney production, Song of the South, telling the adventures of a Rabbit that leaves his home to look for his laughing place. A fox and a bear, the bad guys, are determined to catch him. Just before the final drop, we could see the Rabbit tied up into a bundle and crying for help. And then.... whew..... we were dropped from the top of the mountain. Wow... I got pretty wet from the ride and bf said that he could feel himself almost coming out from his seat. (dun worry, the ride is safe.)

The ride was not over after the drop. We were led into another hidden tunnel and we saw the Rabbit safely at home, relaxing, telling us that he had learnt his lesson. In the background, a lot of critters were singing the ride's theme song, Zep-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, to celebrate the rabbit's safe return. Bf started singing along too. haha.... and I was glad that I was still in my seat... seriously.. there was no seat belts or any other safety stuff at all.
After Splash mountain, we went to get a ride on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. It is a roller coaster with many turns and drops. It made me dizzy after the ride but it was fun. Next, we went to Adventureland and took a Jungle Cruise and visited Captain Sparrow on the Pirates of Carribbean boat ride.

Kids and parents began to fill in at this time of the day and it got pretty crowded. We walked through Liberty Square, trying to feel the history of America and the huge fight for independence. The Haunted Mansion was our next stop. I must say I was quite impressed with the ride. The exhibits were very nicely made and the effects were also very good.
In Fantasyland, we took many kiddish rides like the Golden Carrousel.

For lunch, bf got himself a huge turkey leg. looks yummy...

Next, we went to Tomorrowland to drive a racecar. I was the driver and bf the passenger.. haha..after the ride, he told me that my decision to quit learning driving is correct. hmmm...

After our scary ride on the racecar, it was time to watch Mickey and his friends for the "Dream come true" performance on Cinderalla Castle.
At 3 pm, the parade will start. So Bf and I quickly went around looking for a good spot to catch the parade. And since there was still some time, we started eating the grapefruit that we brought. Haha.. it was quite cool to eat grapefruit in the hot sun. I think people were envious of us. =)

The parade started.... and first came Daisy, followed by many other characters.

Orlando-Disney_Epcot_World Showcase_Part 5_Japan + Italy + Germany

We went to Japan for lunch. We had curry rice and beef bowl. Tastes like Yoshinoya. But it is still good to have rice after so many days of waffles, burgers and fries.

The shop in Japan sells many Hello Kitties, no Daniels and many Japanese curiosities. They even sell pearls from oysters. The customer will choose the oyster and it will be open in front of them to retrieve the pearl in it. There are also many Japanese snacks but we decided that those at Porter Exchange are much better. Too bad.. no anime to please my bf.

We went to Italy at 7.30 pm which is the magical time to visit. Italy is very beautiful during sunset. And my bf called it the most beautiful country in Epcot. We took some pictures with Poseidon.

After sunset, we had sauguages at Germany for dinner. They tasted very much like those we get in Shaws. I guess most people were there for the beer.

Orlando-Disney_Epcot_World Showcase_Part 4_France + UK + Canada

France...home to Paris the city of love! We had a Neapolitan dessert at this bakery

After that we went into a perfume shop and tried out the perfume there. I gave a huge squeeze and a lot of perfume was released into my hand. We would have stayed longer but the shopkeepers were looking at us so we ran away, smelling nice.

There was a garden in front of the perfume shop and they plant flowers that were used for extracting perfume.

There was also a show in France. But I think it pales in comparison to the little girls in China.

Next we went to UK. There is really nothing there other than Beckham's autographies, which my bf din even notice. Oh wait... Mary Poppins was also there. I almost wanted to take a photo with her until I noticed that she asked a lot of questions. [1192]

There was also nothing much in Canada, except for a cute little duckling.