I have to say that it's actually pretty nice not to have to give away your suitcase the night before you disembark off a cruise ship. We finished packing in the morning and then just walked off the ship with our luggage once the announcement was made that we could do so.
We saw all the suitcases lined up downstairs but walked past them and out to the curb where we easily picked up a taxi to the South Station terminal. The only thing that threw me for a loop was that the taxi driver asked us if we wanted the train side or the bus side. I had no idea and told him to take us to the corner of Atlantic and Summer as I had read online.
Well, this was the train terminal and when we went in and walked over to the elevator, there was no 5th floor so we went over to the information desk and asked for directions to Package Express. We were told to walk over to the bus side terminal (Atlantic and Beach st - not Summer St), take the escalator up to the 2nd floor and then take the elevator up to the 5th floor. It wasn't hard to find but it was a bit of a walk across past the trains when the taxi could have just dropped us off on the bus side. If you take the silver line bus from the cruise terminal, it does drop you off on the train side.
When we got up to Package Express, it wasn't opened yet even though it was past 8:30 am and the sign said that they would open at 8:30. It didn't take long, though, for the Package Express guy to arrive so we paid $5 per bag (3 of them) and got a ticket stub in return. It was a little worrisome, though, that our suitcases were moved over near the wall in plain sight. I guess I had imagined that the suitcases would be moved to the back of the place.
At any rate, we went back downstairs and could see the gate to Chinatown just down the street. It was drizzling outside and pretty cool.
Amina and I had agreed that we would skip breakfast on the ship this morning and just find something to eat in Chinatown. We walked into the first bakery that we got to and ordered a red bean moon cake and a roasted pork bun. Both were delicious and just enough for us to share.
We then had a little time to walk around Chinatown before meeting our tour at 9:15. The first thing that struck me was that there weren't streets lined with vegetable/fruit stands all over the place as you would find in New York and San Francisco. There were mostly restaurants and few shops/souvenir stores/grocery stores. We looped back around to the main gate and sat for a little while watching the birds and listening to a man and woman argue very loudly in Cantonese.
At the appointed time, we met our tour guide, Jackie from Michele Topor's Boston Food Tours who was actually Japanese but married to a Cantonese man. Jackie was great - extremely knowledgeable, fun, and generous. She gave us each a packet of handouts that had maps, some descriptions of the places that we would be visiting, and a list of recommended places. She walked us over to a small garden area with a waterfall and sat us down to explain a little about what we were going to do and to talk a bit about the history of Boston's Chinatown. She had several props in her bag that she carried including things for us to see on her iPad, smell and taste. Our group consisted of the 2 of us plus a woman and her daughter, and another woman and her son. The other children were around 9 and 10 years old. We first stopped in the Great BBQ where we sampled some BBQ pork (Char-siu). Delicious. This shop as a take out source for roasted pork, duck and various other animal parts (liver, tripe, feet, etc). Ah-Ming was the guy behind the giant cleaver who cut our pork for us.
On to Ho Yuen Pastry next for a taste of a lotus paste and nut moon cake. This was a first for me - having not ever tried one of the savory moon cakes - this one even had a giant egg yolk in the middle.
We then stopped by Wings Live poultry where she pointed out several chicken varities that you could buy here to be slaughtered and eaten fresh. At Nam Bach Hong Chinese Herbs, she showed us the old scales that the herbalists would use to measure and pointed out the doctor who would examine your pulse and tongue and then present you with your own personalized herb prescription to be filled by the herbalists in the store. Amina and some of the other women bought white lily oil to help with headaches as well as some tiger balm. There were quite a few items in that store that really brought back memories of my grandmother - she frequently had various bottles and herbs at home that she routinely used.
At Bao Bao Bakery and cafe we were treated to bubble tea. Amina and I had tasted bubble tea before but Jackie also ordered some Taro tea which was just as she had described it - like drinking the milk from the bottom of a bowl of fruit loops cereal. They had the cutest cakes in that bakery.
We walked through the Sun Sun grocery store and she pointed out various vegetables and other items frequently used in cooking asian food. She bought a bunch of fresh litchi fruit and we each tried some and then she gave the rest to Amina and I to take with us. Our last stop was for a Dim Sum lunch at Hei La Moon restaurant - the place was huge and crowded. Amina tried the chicken feet for the first time - not her favorite. Jackie ordered an enormous amount of food and we enjoyed it immensely - there were even a few things that I'd never had before.
We thanked her for our lunch and paid for the tour (including a sizeable tip) and then Jackie took us to a larger grocery store to do some shopping - I was looking for a very specific item: Soo Pork Jerky. It's very hard to find outside of the West Coast and, of course, this store didn't have it either. We really enjoyed this tour and would highly recommend it.
Amina wanted to visit the Emerson College campus so we walked the few blocks to the college which was right across the street from Boston Common. What we saw was not what we were expecting. I had gone to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque for college and Amina had been to the campuses of the University of Kansas, Texas A&M university, and the University of Georgia for various summer studies programs. The Emerson College campus wasn't really a campus in the traditional sense. The college was basically occupying the top floors of a couple of large buildings. It was all indoor with no outdoor campus to speak of. We walked over to the adminstration side but it was closed. We then went into the building that housed the dormitory and looked at the exhibits listing the famous grads of Emerson which included Dennis Leary, Henry Winkler, and the guy who co-created Friends.
At this point we decided not to walk to the Duck Tours about a mile away and chose, instead, to have some relaxing foot refloxology done in Chinatown. We enjoyed a one hour foot massage and then headed back to South Station to get our luggage (which had to be picked up before 5 pm) and take the silver line bus to the airport. To catch the bus to the airport, we had to walk back over to the train station where we were originally dropped off. We paid our $2.50 each to take the bus to the airport and got off at terminal B for our flight on Spirit airline.
It's definitely worth a mention that we will not be passengers on Spirit airline ever again. I had checked us in online the day before fully expecting to pay for our suitcases which were $35 each. What I was not expecting was to find out that the weight limit for suitcases on Spirit was not the standard 50 pounds but, instead, was 40 pounds. Additionally, I had to pay $50 extra for my carry on bag while my "personal item" was the free one.
Drinks were not complimentary on the plane - you had to pay for even just water. My knees were actually touching the seat in front of me - I couldn't even begin to imagine if Seth and Rhys had been on this flight with us. The flight was delayed by an hour but we did finally make it back to Dallas around 10:30 pm after a very uncomfortable 3 hour flight. Lesson learned.
Up next.....another trip to Aulani in Oahu for my in-laws' 50th wedding anniversary in about 3 weeks.
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