The day before, I and a couple of others decided we wanted to get up early to head to a flea market. It was an hour away, and started at 9AM – so we planned to leave by 8AM, and I woke up at 7AM (which in retrospect isn’t that early, but for my sleep schedule here, it was).
We managed to stick together on the train, but once we got to the flea market we mostly split up. Inspired by my Gameboy find the day before, a couple of guys went off to look for Gameboys. Micro (a German guy staying in the guest house) wanted to find a Gameboy Advance SP (the kind that looks like a little square and flips up) – and managed to find a Gameboy Advance (not SP) with Pokemon Ruby inside, all for 5000 yen (about $35 USD). After some fiddling with the power switch it worked! And now I want a Gameboy Advance . . . 😅
We spent about 5 hours at the flea market, and I got a few things:
A vintage mechanical watch with an auto-winding feature, which cost 5000 yen ($35 USD), but (as it ends up) runs about 2x faster than it should – something I think can be adjusted?
Four Gameboy games:
Super Mario Land, 900 yen (in English!)
Dr. Mario, 500 yen (Also in English!)
“Hamster Club” (translated from Japanese) – as best I can tell this is a game about taking care of hamsters? I got it because it looked cute and was only 500 yen.
Pokemon Green (Only available in Japanese, no English version was produced) for 1700 yen.
A US Eisenhower $1 coin (for $2.10, which I thought was funny)
A couple of old Japanese coins
One other item that is a gift for a friend who might read this blog 😛
After five hours of the flea market, I and another guest-house friend headed to an all-you-can-eat okonomiyaki place.
OLYMPUS C4100On the way I finally stopped at a vending machine to try it out. I don’t know why I was expecting something more dramatic than what happened – I put two 100 yen coins in, pressed the button for the tea I wanted, and it clunked out of the machine into the tray with my change. Japanese architecture is not made for people my height… I occasionally need to duck to get through doorways. I always need to duck on the metro exiting or entering the train, and a few days back, I was in a shop where I needed to hunch over most of the time!Okonomiyaki is done a few different ways, but here it comes in a bowl, a mix of greens, meat (optionally), an egg and some other ingredients. Once mixed together, you pour it out onto a hot griddle and shape it into a pancake of sorts before letting it cook for about 10 minutes on each side. Once finished, you drizzle them with okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise, then cut them up and eat them in little bites.
I first had okonomiyaki with the Petersons, since they loved it when they went to Japan. I’ve never had it otherwise, so I was glad for the chance to try it in Japan!
After this, I was very sleepy – so I went back to the guesthouse (arrived around 7:30) and slept for two hours (till around 9:30) before getting up, grabbing a few snacks at the closest convenience store (convenience stores here are actually quite convenient! They have the normal junk food seen in the US, but also a number of decently inexpensive premade food that’s pretty similar to what you’d find in a grocery store deli in the US). After spending a little time downstairs socializing, I headed to bed.
All for today! More to come, of course. My time in Japan (and thus my time abroad) is coming to an end.
I woke up early for my interview (for real this time), which went well!
Then I headed back to the guesthouse to drop my luggage off after checking out of the hotel. I wasn’t allowed to hang out at the guesthouse till after 5PM, so I headed back out to Akihabara, the “Electric City” district. I’d already been, but I wanted to do more exploring, and potentially buy a piece of retro technology for myself.
On the way to the subway station, I saw two little dogs sitting out in the sun in front of a shop. Seeing me grin and stop to take out my phone for a photo, the Japanese lady who ran the shop waved me over, so I stooped to pet them.
They were so soft!The subway was actually quite empty at this time of day! Normally there are so many people around that I don’t feel comfortable taking photos.There are a lot of really cool old neon signs in Akihabara, which I imagine would look awesome at night.
After getting to Akihabara, I explored another set of electronics department stores I hadn’t gone into yet.
I did find a shop with a bunch of older digital and analog cameras, and was very tempted to get some – but most weren’t that interesting (or were overpriced).
I did find the same model as the camera I’d originally brought that stopped working (momentarily)! But it was like $65, which is far more than I want to pay.
It is in muuuch nicer condition than mine is though…Of course, there were Nintendo consoles also.
I didn’t end up buying anything – it turns out some of the shops I was thinking of buying from were closed (It’s Golden Week here in Japan – the longest vacation most Japanese people get, so a lot of places are closed while the owners take vacation). That was better anyway – I wasn’t super excited about anything I saw, and I’m headed to a flea market on Saturday, so need some spending cash for that.
Next I headed to Ueno Park, a large park in the middle of the Ueno district in Tokyo. In the middle of the park is an old Buddhist temple, but it’s surrounded by ponds and other greenery.
DUCK BOATS! I told myself that if they were less than 1000 yen, I’d get one…
The duck boats were 800 yen (for a swan one), 700 yen for a basic covered boat, and 500 for a rowboat, all for 30 minutes. So I got a covered boat!
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My legs did not fit in the boat well, but I managed regardless to make a decent loop around the lake. It was fun, though would have been a little easier with another person (and shorter legs).
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After this, I walked over to the Buddhist temple, and explored around it a bit.
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After this, I headed across another bridge across the pond and stumbled upon a small flea market. And I found a lot of cool things!
An Original Gameboy for 800 yen (About $5.60)
A Gameboy camera for 500 yen ($3.50)
A Japanese Yoshi game for 500 yen (Still $3.50)
A cute ceramic cup for Mo for 300 yen ($2.10)
A pair of vintage sunglasses that I’m hoping don’t make me look too much like a serial killer for 2000 yen ($14)
A brass whistle with a Nissan label on it (gonna carry it on my keychain to get people’s attention if needed – another guy tested it for 500 yen (STILL $3.50!)
I’d forgotten how difficult the Gameboy’s screen is to see, let alone photograph. Anyway, trust that the photos from the Gameboy camera look a little better in real life. Only a little. Unfortunately, immediately after getting the Gameboy to turn on and boot the Yoshi game I had to relinquish control to Izara, one of the other guesthouse guests, who has become very invested in the game. The sound doesn’t work, but if you plug in a pair of headphones it does.
On my way back to the subway station, I snapped a few more photos in the sunset glow.
OLYMPUS C4100I tried drawing this flower later in the evening. There is a reason I have not posted the drawing.A majestic tree and gateAn older metro car that was sitting in the neighborhood I walked through.This kindly-looking old man was taking a smoke break when I walked by. The streetcar above was behind him and I tried to sneak a photo of him, but it looks like he noticed (and didn’t mind)Little planters of flowers outside people’s houses are really common here, which is really cute!A lot of Honda Supercub mopeds around! I’m pretty sure driving a Moped would be illegal for me here, but I also haven’t seen any places to rent them.
After this, I hung out in the common area and shared my finds with the other guests. I also got sushi at a conveyor belt place down the road, but forgot to take photos.
Today was a nice day! First up, I met up with Joyce Peterson for brunch.
I had an acai bowl. For Japan, this was pretty expensive – almost $10!
After this, we walked around Yoyogi Park, which is a large park with lots of picnic space. Next to the park is a forest with a large Buddhist temple in the middle and multiple large Japanese gates. It’s a big tourist attraction, so we started exploring, then when Joyce had to make another appointment, I kept exploring. It was really nice to see her!
Within the forest there was a botanical garden which cost (only 500 yen!) to enter. Lots of flowers, ponds, and even some bonsai!
One of the entrances to the gardens.
(I do wonder how old these are… Some bonsai take years to perfect, and still require maintenance. These looked quite impressive!)
This one wasn’t part of the gardens officially – it was growing along the path.
There was an ancient well (spring) inside the park too that was less impressive than it was made out to be – just a little circular pond of water flowing into a creek that fed one of the ponds in the park. Before I could see the well, I had to wait in a line of people for about 5 minutes 😛
Outside in the forest there were a number of (attractions? things? monuments?) including this one with a ton of large paper lanterns.
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Outside the park was an area of food vendors and a young Japanese guy beatboxing – I didn’t get a picture of him, but the sounds he was making were actually quite impressive.
I can’t tell for sure, but it looks like this guy was smiling towards me as I took the photo. This little weird electric car was next to a restaurant outside the park. It’s a single-seater, probably for doing food delivery. This little blue Kei car was cute.Mariokart? O.OI forget the Olympics are this old!
After the park and exploration, I stopped at an “American Burger” place to see whether it lived up to the name.
I got a chicken based sandwich, and it was actually one of the best chicken sandwiches I’ve had, probably top three. It doesn’t look it, but with the jalepenos and fried chicken, it was delicious. (Maybe I was pretty hungry too…)
I was pretty tired of walking around (and just tired too – still catching up on sleep), so I went to my hotel (not the guesthouse – I had only booked for 6 nights, and when I went to extend my stay, the 29th and 30th were booked – so I got a different hotel for those two nights and booked the guesthouse again from the 1st through the 7th).
It was a private bed, but unfortunately it was also a very basic room, the bed squeaked each time I moved a centimeter, and the only light in the room made me feel like a lab rat. But, it was a place to sleep!
All for today! This post was kind of low effort, but honestly so was half of this day, so…
Most days in Japan so far I’ve started the day with nothing planned, and then ended up busy anyway. Usually someone else in the hostel is going out to do something in the city and I tag along. Today, Matt wanted to go get curry at a Japanese curry place he’d heard about, and I wanted to go check out a flea market some of the other guests had told me about. So we headed out via the trains!
Almost all the train stations here have these barriers that automatically open when the train doors open, rather than an open gap next to the tracks.
The neighborhood where the curry place was is really cute – it’s only a small distance from the tourist center of Tokyo, but was surprisingly uncrowded.
Matt told me that many old houses here the signs are the name of the house – usually named after the family name of the people who live there.These are the largest pitcher plants I’ve seen!Elliot, I know you’ll like this one 🙂I love the colors here.
As it turns out, the curry place had a long line, and unless we’d had a reservation, we would have had to wait for almost two hours. We gave up and decided to get tacos at a shop we’d passed earlier.
The tacos were pretty good! I always think it’s funny seeing food from a cuisine more local to where I live in foreign countries – it’s interesting to see what’s authentic, and what has been influenced by the country it’s being prepared in.
In this case, the tacos were relatively accurate! I like the tacos back home much more, but that’s not a big surprise. I imagine it’s hard to get ingredients as authentic here.
A classic bike from the 80’s. I think it is a Honda Trail 110.
After the tacos, we decided we were too late for the flea market (it closed at 2:30 PM), so we instead headed into the tourist center to do some vintage clothes shopping. I found a couple of cute shirts (I regretted not bringing more comfortable t-shirts), and some other neat trinkets I was wanted (but resisted the urge) to purchase.
I particularly liked the watch in the middle with the black face, but it was about $31 USD, a little more than I’ve paid for most of my watches.
We did run across a souvenir store, outside of which there were dozens of Gashapon vending machines (for a few hundred yen, they dispense little toys). I saw one for miniature camera models, so of course I got one.
The rest of the day was pretty relaxed. I came back the hostel and did laundry (and in the process, lost my wallet, which I didn’t find until this morning! It had somehow ended up in someone else’s pocket when I was exchanging coins with him for the laundry machine).
We again stayed up quite late chatting about various things (this time, about whether or not everything has a taste (does a ceramic mug have a taste?) and what even makes up taste in the first place.
The lady who plays an Erhu came back in, and a few people hadn’t seen one before, so she gave us another concert, which I this time managed to record a moment of:
A blog post written on the same day as the post is about? Wild!
I continue to forget to take pictures of my breakfasts – generally by the time I get breakfast I’m too focused on eating to remember! But, this morning I walked to a nearby grocery store to grab bananas, yogurt, granola, and orange juice. I also grabbed a few mini oranges for snacks throughout the next few days. The hostel I’m in has a kitchen, which means I can actually cook if I want! I will be taking advantage of it – being able to make my own food will be nice.
After breakfast (and writing the past two blog posts), I decided to head out to a nearby park. I wanted to spend the day very relaxed, so walking around the park seemed like a good idea (and a good way to learn my new camera)!
This flowerbed is right outside the hostel.OLYMPUS C4100
Honestly, not a lot to say here – most of these pictures are from the park!
These tiles were cute!
One thing I did notice walking around (that I had heard before) was that there are a lot of vending machines – on the corners of streets, tucked among residential houses. Mostly they have drinks, and one even had alcohol? This is how I know the legal drinking age in Japan is apparently 20 years.
Of course, I also took pictures of vehicles. There are a ton of kei vehicles here (Kei vehicles are a specific class of car in Japan, limited to a certain size and engine displacement. In return for the limits, they are cheaper and get tax benefits compared to normal cars)
This moped had a “The North Face” and Prius Hybrid Energy badge on it. Somehow I doubt this scooter is a hybrid…
There are still more mopeds here, and more bikes even. I’d say there are more cars than mopeds, but about the same number of bikes as cars.
…
More pillars for Felix!There were a lot of gardens as part of the park. I sat here for a while, reading.If you look really close, this is a selfie!I thought this light looked really cool.These lanterns were just hanging above this pathway.I liked the light sort of filtering into this small courtyard.This clock looked really cool among the trees!I really liked this poppy against the tile.This light tower looked cool framed through this wire fence.Another light tower, framed through tree branches.
As I was sitting here writing this post, another guest checked in – she is here from China, and brought her Erhu (a two-stringed traditional Chinese instrument) and she played a bit for us! She played Master Oogway’s theme from Kung Fu Panda – and it was beautiful. She’s been practicing for 20 years!
This, obviously, is not her – this is just the first good public domain image I could find for an Erhu.
After the park, I walked back to the hostel, stopping at a local grocery store for a couple of snacks.
After sitting and writing this blog post for a while, I left again, this time with several other folks from the Hostel, to get sushi at a nearby sushi conveyor belt place.
I think I got about 7 plates, which cost only about $13.75!
At this place, you order on a tablet, and then (sometimes as little as 60 seconds later!) your food zooms up on the belt next to the table.
The squid, close upCoffee jelly for desert!
After the dinner, we walked back to the hostel with a quick stop at a convenience store for drinks and snacks, and then we came back to the hostel to sit around the main area and talk and laugh.
Both of these days were sort of travel days so I have less content, and I decided to combine them into one post.
4/21: Last day in Malaysia
My flight out of Malaysia was at 12:10 AM, so I needed to leave for the airport around 8PM (an hour of travel to the airport + 3 hours to get through it). I also needed a solid nap before since I hadn’t gotten enough sleep the last few days, and it would be a 7-hour flight. So my plan for the day:
Get breakfast
Spend my remaining Malaysian cash at a local street market and take more photos
Nap
Go to the airport
After breakfast (which I forgot to take a photo of, but it was the same thing I got for dinner my first night in Malaysia), I started heading to the markets. However, when I pulled my camera out to take a photo, I realized it was dead. I’d forgotten to charge my spare batteries, so I instead walked to a nearby shop for some batteries. When I put them in, the camera . . . wouldn’t extend the lens!
The Olympus is dead, long live the Olympus!
I paid $5 for this camera at Goodwill in July last year, and despite it being grimy, after some cleanup it worked great. It’s since become one of my favorite cameras, being covered in manual controls, with a flip-out screen, and enough resolution to take pretty decent photos for web use (5MP). Later in the summer, I was using it on the beach and it got splashed in a sandy wave as I was trying to take a closeup photo of waves (my fault). It stopped working for a bit after that, but then started working again! The lens made a grinding noise each time I would open it, but it kept working! So I brought it on this trip, having used it for hundreds of photos since then.
Sadly, it finally seems to have given up the ghost 😦
Oh well, for $5 and probably over a thousand photos, I can’t complain! A replacement of the same model will cost around $30 if I find a nice example on eBay.
Of course, I have my phone for photos – but I really prefer a camera with a proper lens, even if it’s from 2003. So now my plan was:
Get breakfast
Spend my remaining Malaysian cash at a local street market and take more photosGo find a used camera for less than $50
Nap
Go to the airport
So, I spent the next hour and a half walking sweatily from camera store to camera store, hoping to find something of around the same era for about $50…
This store clearly used to be a photo store, but isn’t anymore. There were a surprising number of camera/film stores, though!
And didn’t find anything! The camera stores either only sold new cameras, only had film cameras, or had a small selection of too-new, too-expensive cameras.
Luckily, the next place I was headed was Tokyo – the perfect place to find a deal on an older digital camera, so I held out for a day and just used my phone.
Of course, I found more interesting vehicles – a nice example of one of the more popular moped models, a neat van, and a small (for the US) delivery truck painted to look like The Incredible Hulk.
As I walked, I also took more photos of the streets – in this area, bustling with shops and market activity.
Then, I went back for my nap. Malaysia was really cool, and I knew Japan would be too, but being sleep deprived (and less excited about how expensive Japan would be), I was having a hard time looking forward to the next leg of my trip – I would really have rather gone home.
Traveling has been really fun, and I’m glad I’m here, but it’s been hard, too. I really like having a place I’m completely comfortable in to retreat to when I need a break, and obviously when you’re traveling (and mostly in shared dorm rooms), that’s not very possible. Add that to changing cities and countries every few days, a new language that you don’t know, new cultures you have to think about, and having to figure out where to eat for every single meal every single day, and it gets pretty exhausting.
(As I’m writing this, I feel better – I still wish I could go home sooner, but that would be prohibitively expensive, and I recognize a lot of my feeling like this comes from having been behind on sleep. I’ll be at this hostel for 6 days, I just slept for 16 hours, and there are grocery stores nearby at which to get food for breakfast and any other meal I don’t want to go to a restaurant for – I’ll probably take the next few days a little easier, then feel more ready to explore Japan.)
Anyway! Post nap, I packed and headed back to the airport.
The tower near my hostel had lights along the sides that I hadn’t realized were there during the day! The street market was busier than ever, and I think I didn’t really see as much as Malaysia had to offer – I will have to come back sometime for a more dedicated trip.
On my way out, I grabbed a couple of “thousand layer patties” (little warm pastries which have chicken or beef stuffed in them) from a street shop for dinner. At the airport, I ate these alongside a Dunkin Donuts iced latte before boarding.
This plane was much more like a normal American flight, without screens, free food, or fancy seats. It did have more legroom than normal, though! I slept for most of the flight.
4/22: Camera hunting in Toyko!
The next morning around 8:30AM local time, I landed at Narita International Airport, about 65km from Toyko. Here, I charged my phone, got some cash (cards are less commonly accepted in Japan, apparently), and ate some breakfast at the airport before buying a train ticket into Toyko.
Check-in time at the hostel wasn’t till 5PM, so I headed first to Shinjuku Station, around which there are a lot of camera stores with both new and used gear.
The first few stores I stopped at I felt too poor to walk into – lots of expensive cameras (the cheapest were around $500 USD), pretty but far outside my budget (and not what I wanted, anyway). However, the third one I walked into had an “as-is” shelf, and on that shelf, an Olympus C4100! After testing it, I paid 3500 Yen ($24.50 USD) for the camera and two memory cards (it takes a different kind than my current one does).
This one is slightly older (2002 vs 2003) and a little lower quality, with 4MP instead of 5, no flip-out screen, and a slightly less nice lens. Fundamentally though, it is a very similar camera.
Glad to have found a replacement camera, I headed back out and took a few photos. It was a rainy grey day (much like Oregon!) and it made the streets wet and the bright signs pop against the grey buildings and skies.
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I’m pretty happy with this camera! Straight out of the camera the images have a lot of color, though I can tell the dynamic range is worse (I had to do more minor adjustments to these images in order to bring the bright areas down and the dark areas up than I normally would do for the other camera).
I’ve seen a few of these not-quite-motorcycle, not-quite-car things around.
There were a few more camera shops to stop by, so of course I did. What, just because I found a camera doesn’t mean I won’t look at more!
I forgot to take pictures of the last camera store I went to, but it would have been a perfect place if I hadn’t already found a good camera. It was a small shop, crammed floor to ceiling with antique to (somewhat) modern cameras, mostly film, but with a good mix of digital in there too. There were a lot of cameras sold non-working, most for only a couple thousand yen ($10-30 USD). Of course they had working cameras too, also for what seemed to be good prices (under 20,000 yen in a lot of cases, or USD $140). I may have bought two parts cameras of the same model, in the hopes of combining them into one working camera… They were only $30 together!
I love how small these are! With digital cameras it’s not so surprising, but there’s only so small you can get with 35MM film. The cute factor was part of why these were so irresistible.
These are half-frame cameras, meaning they shoot two photos per one film frame (by using only half of the frame each time). This effectively halves the resolution of the photo which does decrease the quality, but means you can get either 48 or 74 shots depending on what type of film you use! With the cost of film, this is definitely a benefit.
They’re from around 1963 (62 years old!) and neither one works – the shutter doesn’t seem to properly close. I suspect (after watching a video on YouTube) that the shutter blades just need to be cleaned, but I’m not completely sure yet.
(To Felix and Katerina: I don’t think I’ll get the chance to rent a moped 😦 I believe the laws are a lot more restrictive in Japan, and in Italy and Malaysia it didn’t seem safe to do so. Someday I will go back to Barcelona, and I’ll be sure to rent one there! Instead, your moped money will go towards some nice sushi!)
All for now! Let’s hope my spare luggage space survives the next few days – no more camera shops!
Today’s travels (4/13) have me headed from Lyon to Lille, both in France. Tomorrow, train schedules willing, I’ll finally be in Amsterdam – but to be honest, I’ve loved my time in Lyon and am sad to leave.
There are gonna be a LOT of photos in this one, since I spent most of the 11th walking around the amazing Parc de la Tête d’Or – or “Park of the head of gold”. According to Benoit (pronounced like Ben-whee), a local I met, legend has it that Louis 16 buried a head made of gold shortly after this park’s construction. Digging is, of course, forbidden. Wikipedia’s version of the legend says that Jesus’s head is supposedly be buried here. I guess legends change source to source, maybe that’s part of what makes them legends 😉 Either way, the parcel of land has been named this since before 1530!
One of the (many) attractions of the park is a section of botanical gardens. There are several very old greenhouses full of plants, and of course I explored them.
The parc was full of people jogging, lounging, exploring. Many were locals, though I could tell some were tourists like myself. It seems a popular place – the largest parc in Lyon, and apparently today was pretty sunny compared to the last few days. Everyone was out!
The greenhouses created some almost sci-fi shapes, which I enjoyed photographing.
While next to the one on the left, I also snapped a selfie in the reflection of the glass 🙂
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One of the coolest greenhouses had carnivorous plants! Not a lot of Venus Flytraps, but a TON of other types. I was really into carnivorous plants for a while, so I recognized a lot of these.
Sundews like these have long slender leaves with little hairs on them. Each hair has a glob of sweet, sticky sap to attract and trap insects. Once trapped, the leaf slowly curls around the insect to digest it.
When I had sundews, they tried to flower often! The flower must rise far above the plant, so as not to eat the pollinators 😛
Pitcher plants like this rely on their deep “pitchers” to catch prey and slowly digest them. The pitchers evolved to make it difficult to escape the slippery walls once an unwitting bug falls in.
There are SO many different species, and this greenhouse had a lot!
The pitcher plants took up most of this greenhouse, and their flowers were beautiful!
Butterworts like these look harmless enough, but their wide flat leaves are like flypaper – sticky, sweet smelling, and hard to escape once landed on! They also tend to have pretty flowers.
A few more pictures from the greenhouse:
The parc also had a free zoo! I didn’t walk through the zoo, but I did see a couple of zoo animals and a number of resident parc animals.
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As I continued to wander the parc, I discovered a large lake (well, I knew about it from Google Maps) in the middle of the parc. This is where I found most of the geese in the gallery above – but as I walked, I heard piano music and singing drifting across the lake (Zombie, by the Cranberries). I made my way around (eventually) and found a public piano with a crowd of people gathered around.
I took a video – but be warned, this is a digital camera from 2003 – video technology on consumer digital cameras was . . . not great. The sound is fine, but it is actually 240P quality.
Sometimes when I’m walking around a new area taking photos, I see things that I like more for the texture or color than the photo itself. Here’s a collection of these types of photos:
Besides the main attractions, the park was also filled with various little structures – benches, wells, grounds houses, and more.
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There was even a mini train around part of the parc!
I did not have time to explore the whole parc – by 5PM, I was able to check in to my AirBNB (I wanted a break from 16-person rooms), and I’d been walking since 11AM!
A few more photos from the parc and my walk to the AirBNB.
After resting and unpacking, I went back out for dinner (Tacos – but totally different than in the US, more like burritos with kebab/gyro filling) and went to a parc with a view over the city for sunset.
Sorry Katerina and Felix, no mopeds in this post. This was before you sent me Moped money! Mopeds are way less common in Lyon than they were in Barcelona, but I’m sure I’ll find one to rent before the 19th. I did try the rental bikes in Lyon though, and they seem to be the fastest way for short distances (besides a car, if you can find parking, maybe).
That’s all for now! Posts for 4/12 to come 🙂 I may not make a post for today, if there isn’t much to see – after the train, I plan to be lazy in my Airbnb in Lille for the rest of the day and go to bed early.
Bova’s Bakery, where I got breakfast (and my passport-retrival celebration tart the night before)
I had planned to go back to Bean and Leaf Cafe for another burrito, but ended up sleeping in till almost noon! By the time I got showered and out the door, they were closed. Instead, I headed to Bova’s and got a few pasteries. I did stop at the coffee place again for another espresso, this time with a shot of hazelnut!
Wonder how this street got its name?
I wanted to check out the Boston Common (a large park in the opposite direction of the North End), so after finishing my breakfast at a table next to the burial grounds, I started walking (and snapping photos).
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I ran across another historic graveyard on the way, and snapped a few more photos of gravestones.
This one was crazy! Not only did it have the angel of death at the top, it also had a scene carved into it, plus other intricate details.Another scene at the top. Death VS an angel of some type? Not sure…A graveyard friend!
After the graveyard, I finally got to the Boston Common. The Common itself was large and pretty busy (and there wasn’t a lot to see), but right across the street is a garden park, so I spent a lot of time walking around taking photos there.
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While I was walking, I saw another (cute!) guy with a camera. While I was taking the photo below, he got a picture of me! He came up and asked me about my camera, and we had a conversation about photography and he showed me the photo of me he’d taken. I don’t remember his name though, oops!
A monument in the Common, seen through the buds on the trees.
Walking back to my hostel, I snapped a few more photos of the interesting architecture along the way.
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After another short rest, it was time to head out for dinner and to explore the MFA (Museum of Fine Arts) with a friend I met along the way.
This is the best picture I had :( One problem with old digital cameras is their poor preformance in low light situations. A steadier hand and more careful setup of the shot would have helped, but for quick food photos when taking the picture isn’t the main focus at the moment, I typically just shoot and hope it turns out.
Dinner was at Hobgoblin in Chinatown, a jazz bar style restaraunt with live piano music and delicious thai food with my friend. It was their recommendation, and it was great!
Next, we took the Orange line train to the stop closest to the MFA. I really enjoyed taking the subway the few times I did in Boston – it was clean, about as fast as driving in a lot of cases, easy to navigate, and way cheaper than Uber!
We did not have enough time for the MFA (a full day seems like it might be enough? we had two hours), but we did get through a couple of exhibits on ancient art (and a few from only a few hundred years ago!). I found a lot of pieces that had patterns I think would look really cool as tattoos, so I took photos for future inspiration.
This bowl and several others near it had a simple design of a bunch of hands reaching across or into the middle.
This bowl is from 10th-11th centry Iran, and features a peacock.The simple leaf design on this jar is really pretty. It is from the Song Dynasty during the 11th-12th centuries.This design makes me think of Ginko leaves a bit, but I forgot to take a picture of the information plaque. A cute ceramic mouse (or rat?)I really liked the blue on this bowl. I only noticed the subtle koi pattern in the middle while writing this!Josh, do these count as ducks?This is what I imagine you duck farming would look like…
My friend I was exploring the museum with. The high contrast made this a little challenging for the camera, but I like how it turned out!
We accidentally wandered into an administrative wing of the museum, and found this eery-looking empty conference room. This photo is through two windows, there is outside air between the window I shot this through and the one outside the conference room. The reflections also make it interesting!
After the MFA closed at 10, we headed home. The next morning, I got breakfast at another coffee shop (this time a sour cherry cheese danish! Also delicious) and had a slow morning in. It was raining in Boston, and I got this picture from the window of my friend’s apartment (28th floor!).
The green park is the Common, where I was exploring the day before! My hostel would be to the right of the nearest skyscraper at about 2:00 from straight on.
That’s all for my Boston trip! Today’s itenerary in Barcelona is still up in the air, but it involves getting lunch and dinner, going to bed on time, and exploring! I might check out a museum, the beach, or a local park. Who knows, maybe all three?
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