on saturday, january 6th i caught a quick flight up from philadelphia to boston to visit my friend ly (pronounced lee) from high school. the last time i'd seen ly was in early 2001 when she was flying through los angeles on her way back from a study abroad stint in australia. before that it had been my sister's college graduation party in the summer of 1998. our birthdays are only three days apart, so although we haven't been able to meet and hang out in person, we have kept up a tradition of wishing each other a happy birthday every year. ly has lived in boston ever since after high school when she attended boston university. i've never been there, so i thought it was high time i visited her and had a look around the city.

i only got one picture of ly on the trip, and she did not approve it for publication so i am using this nice picture she sent me a while back.

after picking me up from the airport, we stopped at her place and dropped off my bag and then walked to the T station and caught a train into the city, getting off i believe in the back bay area. from there we took a walking tour of the city, which was somewhat smaller than i had thought.

the temperature in boston the one day i was there went up to an amazing high of 69 degrees fahrenheit, which is why you see people in shorts and t-shirts in the above photo. that broke a record that went all the way back to 1913. walking the city that day, we felt that contrary to al gore's movie, the truth about global warming was that day decidedly convenient. however just twenty days later (luckily when i was long gone), boston set another record (this one from 1912) for coldest high temperature when it went up only as high as 13 degrees fahrenheit. i guess that's where the inconvenient part comes in.

i recognized that unmistakable golden dome from one of my favorite movies of this past year, the departed. i also find it oh so interesting that the building is called the state house when in fact they refer to themselves as the commonwealth of massachusetts.

after walking around downtown, ly and i worked up an appetite and popped into a pub for lunch. under her recommendations, as a requirement of eating in boston we tried some new england clam chowder along with our sandwiches.

as it got dark we moseyed on over to the cambridge area for drinks and dinner, but first we swung by harvard's campus.

ly and i had a couple of drinks at a bar she knew in cambridge, and then we went to a vietnamese restaurant nearby. she ordered up a couple of amazing catfish dishes that were just great.

after dinner we were pretty tired from our afternoon of walking basically the whole city of boston. so we went back to ly's place and even had time to catch the second half of my beloved dallas cowboys lose a playoff game to the seattle seahawks after tony romo botched a field goal hold that would have won them the game. ly was loving it since as i found out that weekend she is a die hard philadelphia eagles fan and therefor is required to hate my cowboys with a passion.

the next morning, ly wanted to try some korean food with me as somewhat of a guide, so we found a local korean place and checked it out. they seemed to specialize in 짜장면 (jajangmyeon), which koreans usually refer to as chinese food. i decided to order up some more typical korean dishes for ly to try, as according to her it was unthinkably only her second time ever trying korean food.

i screwed up because i actually meant to order �장찌개(doenjang jjigae), a kind of stew or soup. i think when i was speaking korean to the lady taking our order i must have said the wrong thing. so the meal was a bit more on the meat heavy side, but i think it was okay.

then after lunch ly gave me a ride back to the airport and i was on my way back to philadelphia. it was a really short visit, but i was amazed at how easy it was to get there and back. the flights were just about an hour and half long, and the round trip ticket was about $200. i guess after getting used to long intercontinental flights it's refreshing to take a short one. and although i'd only seen ly about twice in nine years, we had a great time catching up. as with all my old friends, it's comforting and reassuring that despite long gaps between meeting, we always seem to be able to pick right back up and get along as if we still saw each other all the time.

tagged: boston downtown korean food vietnamese food