So, I've got a lot of ties to New England. My dad was from New London, my paternal grandma was from Somerville, and my family has owned a small cottage in the town of Wareham, on the South Coast of Massachusetts, since the 1960s. I own that summer home now.

But there is one thing I'd never actually done - I'd never actually been to Boston yet.

Until now.

Or, rather, a few weeks ago on 6 July 2026. Why'd I wait until now to write this journal entry? Shrug. Obviously wanted to write about it, but just kept putting it off until now.

But yeah, I went to Boston for the first time in my life a few weeks ago.

We were at our summer home for the 4th of July weekend and on Monday (the day before we headed back home), that was the day of our trip up to Boston.

We drove our car from Warham to Braintree and then we took the T into Chinatown and then...

BOSTON BAYBEE! BEST CITY IN THE COUNTRY!

And if there's one thing you gotta know about Boston - it is insanely walkable. Driving a car in Boston? No way, only tourists and morons do that. This is a colonial-era city designed for horses and carriages and walking.

And if there's second thing to know about Boston, it's that just jaywalk. Literally everyone does it. It's how you're actually meant to get around the city. You gotta cross the street and you've done a quick check and no cars are coming? Cross it. No one cares. Literally. It's technically illegal but no one gets cited for it, the damn citation is $1. It's not even worth the effort.

Anyways, after arriving in Boston, we made our way to a restaurant my mum was familiar with in Chinatown, a spot called Hunan Cuisine (a spot she discovered because the first time she went to Chinatown, it literally had a line going out the front door) for lunch.

It's a pretty good restaurant. They give you a good amount of food for the price and the menu's got a good mix of: authentic Hunan cuisine, not Hunan but still authentically mainland China cuisine, and American-Chinese cuisine staples.

I went for the salt and pepper shrimp myself since it's one of my favorite American Chinese dishes. It was supposed to be 'spicy' but it wasn't really.

Thinking next time we go there, will probably try one of the more authentic dishes like the intestines or something. I love experimenting and trying new foods.

After Hunan Cuisine, we made our way deeper into Chinatown to stop at a couple of stores. It was probably maybe a 10-15 minute walk? I don't really remember, like I said Boston is insanely walkable and the weather was really nice too so it was like 'Okay let's head to this place' and it doesn't feel as long as it actually took to walk.

The first store we stopped at was like a mostly make-up store? Lots of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean brands of makeup and hair stuff. Very small place with a small selection of snacks and gifts.

The second store we visited was a fairly new store, the name slips me, but it only opened at the end of June when we arrived. It was a much larger store too, with three floors. The ground floor was tons of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean snacks, candies, drinks, frozen foods, etc. The second floor was more makeup stuff (I didn't go to this floor), and then the basement was toys and blind boxes.

Annoyingly, while they did have stairs to go up to the second floor, the only way to the basement was an escalator and I am genuinely terrified of escalators. Had to ask for specific permission to use the elevator to go down to that floor (and then had to take the escalator back to the ground floor...at least the escalator was a short one only wide enough for one person, which I managed to ride up on while still being scared).

After our Chinatown stops, we then made our way to Downtown Crossing, a major shopping area of Boston and an area where a good chunk of it is basically pedestrians-only (only deliveries and emergency vehicles are allowed).

We got dragged to Primark in Downtown Crossing and...yeah I'm gonna be real it was boring as all Hell there for me because it was just friggin a fast fashion store with nothing I even wanted, really. Of course, we weren't there to find anything for me, it was because my mum wanted to stop there. And I'm pretty damn sure we were there for probably an hour. And then another 20 minutes waiting for my mum and niece to check out. Pain.

Of course, eventually my mum's husband and I decided to wait outside for my mum and niece and I used that opportunity to stop in to a Macy's across the street from Primark to grab a couple souvenirs I absolutely had to get to commemmorate my first Boston trip. Was basically in and out of Macy's in like 15 minutes.

Finally after 50 damn years, they finished checking out and then...we headed back home. Yeah. I was actually legitimately really disappointed because we'd only been in the city for like three hours (and the last hour was - outside of my own personal Macy's stop - just at one store). I wanted to explore the city more, like legitimately. It was a nice day, why did we have to go back already. I wanted to just wander around a bit, maybe stop in Boston Common and relax for a bit in the park before heading back. I legitimately did not want to head back yet because I wasn't ready to.

I was so confused and honestly upset when I figured that like...'Oh we're heading back onto the T to go back to Braintree and then back home' because at first I thought we were going to simply take the T to someplace else in Boston, not 'Yeah we're heading back to Wareham'. Was genuinely tempted to put my foot down and just stay by myself for a bit longer because I'm a grown-ass adult, why am I not allowed to?

But what did I actually get while I was in Boston, anyway? Well, I got this:

I got some sakura KitKats, a Sembo Block Vermilion Bird model kit (I know the box says 'Rosefinch' in English, it's just because 朱雀 is both the Vermilion Bird of Chinese mythology and the name for the rosefinch, birds in the genus Carpodacus but seeing as these kits are based off of Chinese mythology...), some double-layer matcha Pocky, a mini Espeon plushie, Meiji matcha chocolate, some Doraemon chocolate corn snacks, a Red Sox t-shirt, and a Red Sox cap.

Other than the Red Sox stuff, which I got at Macy's, and the Espeon plush (which I got at the store that was mostly makeup and hair stuff), I got everything at the second store in Chinatown we stopped at.

I have also tried all of the snacks - except for the Doraemon ones - and I can confirm that it's all good and my God when they said double layered on the Pocky they were not fucking joking.

Really looking forward to my next trip to Boston, to be honest. Hoping I can maybe get some time to just explore the city for a bit by myself.