Boston, USA

On June 20, 2013 I made a quick 4 day trip to Boston, MA to meet one of my most dearest friend that I haven't seen for a long time and took this opportunity to explore Boston as it's my first time there.

Air  Canada CRJ from
Ottawa --> Boston

Flight from
Toronto --> Ottawa

So, my day start off by heading over to the airport here in Toronto. My first flight will be a domestic flight taking me to Ottawa and connecting there onwards to Boston. Out of all the flights I've been on in my lifetime I would have to say these two flights were the most eventful. On the flight from Toronto to Ottawa, it was quite smooth until we were coming in to land in Ottawa. Our landing were quite turbulent and could actually feel the plane being push side to side by the wind. Pilot's first attempt to land failed and made a go around and landed safely on the second attempt. On my second flight from Ottawa to Boston, the flight was smooth and everything was good. Until again, during landing, it felt that the plane was making a steep dive towards the airport runaway at Boston, which is a first for me, as my previous flights made smooth gradual descent towards the airport.

Copley Square

Once I deplaned, I went outside to the public area to meetup with my friend that I was dying to see and headed off to the hostel where I booked to stay at. On our way, we exchanged some words and what amazed me was that public transit is FREE for one way if you get on at the airport, which was AWESOME!! Something that I think the transit agency in my city should implement. The hostel I booked was Hostelling International Boston. It might be located in Boston's Chinatown, but for the price, location, and the cleanliness, it's pretty good deal and I definitely would recommend this place if you are travelling on a budget. After checking-in, we heading out to have dinner and my friend took me to her favourite Chinese restaurant. After that we did a quick stroll around the area, showing me were I could do my clothes shopping, someone buildings that make up Boston, and importantly where the Boston Strong memorial in Copley Square. And lastly, a nightly walk through the Boston Common, until it was getting late and my friend had catch the last commuter train back to her school residence.

The next morning I headed out early, first heading to Boston Common and the Garden to take some photos of the area. Weather was hot, bright and sunny throughout the day so it was an awesome day to snap some photos. After that, I headed towards the area where my friend told me to go shopping for clothes. I didn't go on a shopping spree, but bought a few t-shirts that I can wear back home.
Once I completed my shopping, it was midday and I headed over to South Station to meet up with my friend again. From there, we headed towards Quincy Market. This place was filled with people and buskers, and it was a pretty lively place even though it was midday Friday. A lot of different unique stores, many food stands/restaurant, where even the foods were pretty unique, one example would be the pizza bagel.

Once, toured around Quincy Market and its area, I wanted to take a look around the MIT campus. As a computer science student at the University of Toronto and knowing MIT being ranked top internationally, I wanted to know how their campus looked and the feeling I get once I am on their campus. My school may not be the top school internationally, but being ranked around the top 20, I still have pride for attending this school, but after a short walk around on their campus, my pride just went down the drain. You get this feeling that students at MIT have something to be proud of. They have this "Infinite Hall" in their main campus building and student have this thing where they will climb this dome on their main campus building. As for my school, after attending for 5 years, I don't think we something like this. So, they do have something to be proud of. Visiting MIT might have made me lose some of my pride for my school and it might not be recognized like MIT or Harvard, but I shouldn't lose my pride in my school just because of MIT or Harvard and I should still be proud of attending a school that still has been ranked pretty high!

My friend headed back home early and since I didn't want to waste anymore time doing nothing back at my hostel and the weather being clear skies, I wondered if there was a good place to watch the sunset. So, I looked at the map and noticed there was a park along the river on the east end and as it was a few minute walk from my hostel, I headed over to that park. By the time I got there, the sun hasn't even set yet so it was good sign and there were already quite a few people readying to watch the sunset, but this didn't bother me at all. Weather was just perfect for viewing the sunset and brought this relaxing feel. After the sunset, I took a stroll along the river towards Science Park Station on the Green Line, where I took the Green Line back to my hostel.

Unfortunately, my friend was not available the next day, so I did my own exploring. I wanted to go to the New England Aquarium, so I headed over to that direction in the morning. My reasons for going to the aquarium in the morning is because knowing it was a Saturday there might be a lot of people, so the aquarium was my first place to visit on that day. Once arriving there, I explored the Long Wharf area and there was a small Waterfront Park there which I sat for awhile to relax and feeling the fresh breeze hitting my face. Around noon I head over to the aquarium, bought my tickets and headed inside. There were still a lot people there, mainly families with little kids. This aquarium might have been the smallest aquarium that I've been to, but the layout was quite unique. There was a huge center tank in the middle with a spiral walkway surrounding the center tank. This spiral walkway leads to multiple floors of this aquarium with different exhibitions on each floor. On the lower floor there was a huge open area for penguins, but apparently they were doing renovations for that exhibition at that time and those penguins where temporarily relocated, which was a bit disappointing. After spending two hours inside the aquarium, I finished walking around inside the aquarium and it was time for me to head out. Coming out of the front entrance, I noticed how noticeably longer the ticket line was compared to when I bought my tickets, so my decision on coming here early in the morning was good.

Knowing Quincy Market was pretty close by and having not bought any souvenirs, I headed over to the market hoping to score in some souvenirs to take back home. Walking around, there were a few fridge magnets that I liked, but the price on them were a bit expensive. After visiting multiple shops, they were all roughly around the same price, so I just picked the two magnets that I liked and purchased them. While I was here, I noticed there was an American Eagle store, so I went in and ended up buying a pair of jeans. I headed back to my hostel to drop off all of my purchases so that I wouldn't have to be carrying around them all the time. As I still had some daylight to kill and having no where else on my list to visit in Boston, there was a theatre nearby and hoping that I maybe able to watch a movie, I headed there. Once at the theatre, there was a show starting within 20 minutes that I wouldn't mind watching, which was "The Internship." This movie was pretty interesting, funny, and felt that there were some implicit messages for the audience watching this movie. Heading out of the theatre, the sun was just about set so then again, having nothing else planned to do, I headed back to the park I visited the previous day to watch the sunset.

Next morning, it was time for me to check-out of my hostel. As my flight was in the evening, I still had lots of time, so instead of carrying around of my luggage while hanging out with my friend. I placed them into the lockers that my hostel provides for a small fee. After meeting up with my friend, we headed off to eat dim sum for lunch. During this time, in chinatown, there were some festivities going on with streets blocked of from cars with street stands selling stuff and ongoing performances happening. So, after our lunch we just walked around looking at what they were selling. After that I had to buy some Harvard souvenirs for my sister and headed over there. Since, I wasn't that interested in visiting Harvard, we just walked along the street right beside Harvard and headed towards MIT. Along the way my friend indicated to me there is an ice cream shop where they create many unique flavoured ice cream where each day would have different flavoured ice cream. So, we went there to cool off from the blazing summer heat and had some of their ice cream. As I still had a lot of time left before my flight, and having not much to do, we just decided to watch a movie, again (for me that is). This time we watched "The Fast and the Furious 6."

After the movie ended, it was time for me to head over the airport. So, we headed back to my hostel to get my luggage and headed towards South Station to get on the silver line to the airport. Even though we got on the bus during rush hour, getting to the airport didn't take that as long, about 30 minutes, so I still had time before boarding. During this time I had a quick bite, knowing I won't be getting a decent meal on the short flight, sat around with my friend and talked before going through security to board my flight. As the time was getting closer to my flight I started to head over to gate security, said my goodbyes to my friend, and went through security. Once, I got past through security, I noticed that my plane hasn't even arrived yet. This late arrival had to do with the fact that there was a storm back in Toronto, causing the plane to depart late. My plane arrived approximately 30 minutes late into our scheduled boarding time and departed around 30 minutes late. All in all, I safely landed back in Toronto and this is how I end my 4 day trip to Boston.

Hope you enjoyed my first trip report!!
Feel free to view my pictures HERE!