Well it is the 20 November 2005 and i've completed a grueling day in Boston, taking in much of the famous sights - this insight may give you a bit of an idea of what you can do when you plan your trip to Boston....
I got to Boston taking the Chinatown Buses from New York's Chinatown - they are all US$15 each way, and no tip is necessary.
They stow your bags below and the trip is typically about 4-5 hours in length, never less than 4 hours, never over 5 hours and this includes a stop at the local fast food place (which ever is offering the best deal to the bus driver - ie plenty of free big macs, etc!). This time it was "Roy Rogers". We stopped for about 20 mins.
I took the "Lucky Star" bus. I felt like a star with an empty seat next to me! - unlike the crammed Bus to DC last time I took a NYC Chinatown Bus!.
I was planning on taking the Fung Wah bus lines, the biggest, but I was running late and grabbed any bus I could jump on... Fung Wah was too hard to find.
There is one other bus operator - Boston Deluxe but they aren't as regular as Fung Wah and Lucky Star (try your luck!)
Boston is a beautiful city, I have been to a number of American cities and Boston comes across as a very liveable, enjoyable city, with the exception of the drivers and pedastrians - it's nuts! But i'll talk about that another time, it is a quaint area and I learn't alot of History about it today from an ex-pat Aussie living in Boston now.
Bit of a background on Boston -
Population - approx 600,000 in the proper boston area, but in the greater Boston surrounding area - we're talking 2-3 million total. Parts of Boston and north of Boston were reclaimed from the water (ie built on land fill) which actually is not uncommon (much of downtown San Francisco is actually built on landfill - including I believe (?) the TransAmerica Pyramid (the tallest building in SF and famous for it's tall, but pyramid like structure / design).
There is a subway network in Boston metro area called the "T" - it includes trains, but also buses. It's not as enviro friendly as say SF, but some buses do use electric overhead cables. The train network closes at midnight. Boston will uses the antiquated "token" system - like the NYC subway used to use until recently. You basically buy a token for US$1.25 and it gives you entry through a turnstile, and when you exit - you just come right on out.
The train system runs of 3-4 different lines and each train on each line is different in terms of it's width, etc so they can't interchange on tracks.... interesting fact! Another interesting thing I found about the trains was they have alot of tear off coupons on the ads - kind of a funky, interactive, engaging idea.... good for a direct / response marketers dream! We should do this down under!
Anyhow, where am I staying? Out in Medford (nearest station is on the Orange T line) to Wellington Subway station. It's a suburb of Boston to the north. About 3 miles from downtown boston, not far. There is a free shuttle to the Wellington subway station provided by the hotel - When staying you rates vary but are usually very very low - typically about US$60-90 on their site amerisuites.com, US$40-60 on Hotwire.com or 3,000 Gold Passport points if you have some spare hanging around. 3,000 points is not alot and is probably one of the most generous awards of all hotel loyalty programs. Check the "Hyatt Gold Passport" section on the left navigation or use the search facility for more information on that hotel program on frequentguide.com.
I've stayed at 3 different Amerisuite properties in the US so far, and they are like McDoanlds - virtually identical, right down to the bathroom sink (not kidding you!). They use the same bathtubs, showerheads, desks, lounges, bed spreads, cutlery, plates, granite on the floors of the elevators, elevators, prefabricated cement walls, signage,
...breakfast sausages, waffle machines, door locks, lamps, etc etc! So you know what you'll get each time and I have to say - they're great, I always know what to expect (ie a large Hilton Garden Inn room), free hot breakfast daily, free popcorn and tea/coffee at night and during the day, free parking, daily room service, and a pretty good rate. The top 2 amerisuite properties in terms of value in my books are:
1/ Secaucus Meadowlands New Jersey - only a 12-17 minute bus ride on the NJ transit (bus 320 - see www.njtransit.com for more info and search for bus route 320 there is a PDF you can download with timetables, fares, etc) and best of all it costs just US$2.85 each way to 42nd St Port Authority Bus Terminal in Times Square! (buses run till 1am daily and resume at 6:30am-7am). So this is a great option - without paying through the nose for hotels in NYC and NYC prices (read US$140-200 for a crappy hotel and US$400-450 for a reasonable 4.5* hotel, go figure - even priceline.com and hotwire.com you'll be lucky to find something sub US$170/night depending on season). There is also free parking at the property, free breakfast and you get a huge suite! (you could really basically fit 6 people in the suite if you really wanted and each could get a great breakfast (read 6 backpackers, great deal here!! at US$15 / night including hot brekkies!
2/ Las Vegas Paradise Road Nevada Amerisuites - well this isn't "on the strip" it is actually a solid 15-20 minute walk up to the strip, it is opposite (diagonally) the Hard Rock Cafe/Hotel. Next to a big German beer house (very cool!). It's close to the airport - but best of all they offer a free shuttle to the Aladdin (on call - no tip necessary and free chilled bottled water) and free pickups/drop offs at the airport. This is particularly good when trying to get a fri/sat night on the strip (never expect anything cheap on fri/sat nights - yes on other nights not these tho).
So i digressed, but I wanted to point out Amerisuites - superb, love 'em!
Back to Boston.....!!!
So I arrived in Boston in the evening (well about 4:30pm which is pretty much starting to get dark - did a little look around the city then went to Harvard / Cambridge to look there
...and also grab some dinner at a popular Mexican Restaurant (I mean REAL popular - ie 2 hour wait) called Border Cafe
So, today (20 Nov), what did I do:
Woke up, enjoyed my free breakfast - featuring sausages (basically like McDonalds Sausage & Egg mcmuffin paddies) with scrambled eggs in a paddy shape, waffles, yoghurts, fruit compoete, bagels, muffins (including blueberry - my favourite - with real blueberries inside - abundant in the US, an absolute luxury in Australia (A$8 or US$6 per punnet, SMALL punnet - yike! - I saw a punnet which was the equivalent of 6 aussie punnets in downtown (expensive Boston) for US$1.99! - woh). You can pick (not recommended) blueberries in the forests here they are so abundant --- or so i've heard! And of course they have cerals, fruit juices, boiled eggs, toasts, etc.
After breakfast, went to downtown for the freedom trail, but first stopped by Watertown which is on the west of the city which was a nice suburban area.
I'll bullet point what I did and go into more details in another blog - but here it is:
1/ Freedom Trail
2/ State building (with gold roof)
3/ Followed the red track of the freedom trail (about 4-5km - 2-3 miles in length)
4/ Stopped at a cementry which included Sam Adams
....John Hancock, Paul Revere and a number of other famous people of the American Revolution)
5/ Walked up to an old church with an old cementry next door with the burial site of Williams Dawes - the person who actually let them know up in Lexington the British were in fact coming - not Paul Revere who was actually arrested half way there - but his name rhymed better for the poem!!
6/ Went past the Old City Hall
7/ Saw another hall/church which was having a service at the time
8/ Walked past a great choclate fruit dipped shop, unfortunately it was closed to noon!
... then landed at E*TRADE Financial's Centre in Boston!
... and then... thought, wow, they are truly BEING E*TRADORINARY! (not funny?? - sorry that's an *inside* joke).
9/ Went to the Finuiheil Hall - which was an old meeting hall atop, a rifle club right at the top and a market down below with shops. Got a great talk from a national parks reps which I will play in a podcast sometime...
10/ Went across to Quincy Market - a pretty cool place (like darling harbour in sydney - so very commercial but fun none the less of foods, etc. Got a choc coated pretzel here - was great!)
11/ Then went up to Boston Tix (bostix) and got half price tickets plus US$3.50 service fee to Shear Madness (HIGHLY recommended - even if you don't like plays). Was $23.50 US all up. bargain.
12/ Kept walking up to another church this time it had no electricity and the bells were ringing. Got to go up to the bell tower and pulled a bell
...got some great snaps of the bell
...and climbed to the roof to take some amazing photos of Boston - the public can't come up here. Paul Revere was one of the original bell ringers here!
After this ended up in the Italian area and had a great vanilla florentine and then went to Paul Revere's original house - this is a great area.
13/ Went down to the Charlestown Navy Docks and saw the USS Constitution.
This is the oldest operating US Navel ship and boy it's old but it's been restored a number of times - had full security but went through. And was great.
In the distance saw the tall tower atop bunker hill (looks like the Washington Monument). and went into the Museum Shop. Have some snaps here.
14/ Caught the tourist ferry (only $2) with full narration back to the Long Dock where Quincy market is once again. Got some great snaps of the Boston skyline here.
15/ Went to Urban Outfitters for some quick shopping then went through the shopping district (main shopping area) grabbed the choc dipped fruit shop and got a white choc dipped oreo (wow!), white choc dipped pretzel (nice!) and a blueberry milk choc tart (fresh.. ).
16/ Went to H&M for a look around then to Chinatown for a great dinner.
Got some snaps of the Chinatown entrance area - synonumous with most Chinatowns around the world, particularly in North America.
Then ate at Vinh Sun (great and busy - unlike other places there). Got some fresh (yes, saw it moving) lobster and a mixed bbq dish with fried rice and chinese kai lan (chinese brocolli) with oyster sauce - was great! And reasonable.
17/ Went then through to Cheers via a park in the middle of downtown Boston and grabbed a great Sam Adams beer (their non standard one but not the colonial on tap!)
Had a nice chat with the barman and also took a walk up to Senator John Kerry's house in Boston and took a snap outside....then headed through another park across to the show -
,,,,Shear Madness - a play about a murder who done it set in a hairdresser shop in Newbury St in Boston! Very funny and interesting
18/ After that went to an ice cream shop
... it was called "Cold Stone" where you choose the icecream and then the ingredients and they mix it up for you, manually, superb! And choose a cone, waffle, or on it's own. Bostonians just love Ice Cream, it doesn't matter if it's snowing, they'll still howe into their ice cream... INSANE!
19/ And that was it, an exhausting but exciting day in Boston...
Tommorrow - JFK Memorial Library (should be great, some shopping in Worcester (west of Boston - Sam's Club, Walmart, Best Buy, etc) and probably some dinner at a funky Pizza place called Upper Crust... then the Chinatown Bus back to NYC, and then the hotel in NJ!
Email me at: bryan@frequentguide.com if you have any ideas, questions or comments!
