We had a lot of great tours on the last day! The Harvard Tour was absolutely gorgeous! Our tour guide Ronia, a current Harvard student, gave us an amazing tour! Touring is one of the experiences that you have to go there in person and feel the space, the weather, the architecture, the people, the sound, and the sense of learning. I cannot tell you how I felt to be in the Harvard Tour. But I can tell you some fun facts about Harvard! Harvard is a liberal arts college. Because President Lowell said you should learn a little of everything and something very well, you are required to take 1⁄4 of your classes as General Education, 1⁄2 of your classes as your major or concentration that you want to study, and the rest, you just do whatever you want. Sounds fun?
Later on we guided ourselves to the Black Heritage Trail. It was an educational and meaningful tour. Here are ten reasons why you should go visit the Black Heritage Trail: 1) You get to see the 54th Regiment Memorial, 2) You get to visit Beacon Hill, 3) You will find out all about Phillips School, 4) You will hear about the Underground Railroad, 5) You will see the Charles Street Meeting House, 6) You will know who is Timothy Gilberg, 7) You will get to learn about the history of the African Meeting House, 8) You will find out who is the first woman who gave a speech about politics at the African Meeting House, 9) You will learn about William Gear Reverson, 10) You seriously have to visit this trail because of the previous nine things I told you. -Sandy Jiang
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I was so excited for this day because we are visiting Harvard University! Harvard
University is my dream school, so I was so excited to learn more about it. Our original plan was to self-tour the campus but by luck when we were heading out of the train station I decided to walk the other way instead of exiting from the University side and ended up bumping into a tour group. The tour costed 10 dollars and it was led by a current Harvard Student. The student spoke in two tones, a tour guide voice and her regular voice which I found interesting and it made the tour fun. One thing I enjoy doing now is to pronounce Harvard as Harvard because the students there tends to drop their “r’s” when talking. After the Harvard tour we self-guided the Black Heritage trail, led by David Yi and me because we both took AP United States History. History is still fresh in his mind but for me I had to review since I took AP United States History a year ago. We were able to successfully give the tour to our group and through it, I was able to review and learn new information. After all the tours and all the walk we finally took a break by eating pho in Chinatown. After eating Pho in Chinatown we headed back to the Boston Common to attend a Freedom Trail Tour. I loved the tour for the Freedom Trail because the tour guide was very interactive and funny. Even though we were all tired since it was towards the end of the trip. I highly recommend anyone to attend a Freedom Trail tour at Boston! The tour ended at Faneuil Hall and we walked over to Quincy Market to buy dinner, the lobster roll was delicious! Also we were able to see street performers outside of Quincy Market. After exploring Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall we went over to Mike’s Pastry to try out their cannoli. The line to buy the cannoli was incredibly long but it was worth it because the cannoli tasted good. -Lisa Yu I woke up at 8 to get breakfast at the lobby of the hotel. We went to the Boston Public Library which is ranked top 15 in the nation. Then we had a MIT self-guided tour, and we also went to the Black Heritage Trail office for a self-guided tour map. Later on we had lunch at Gourmet China in Chinatown, and afterwards we had a tour by ACDC See Town by A-AVOYVE where we learned about the history of Boston's Chinatown. One fact that was very surprising was the age of our tour guides. Many of them were still in high school and one of them was still a freshman! After this we went to the Boston Market and walked around. Then we went to the Skywalk Bridge Observatory, which had a very beautiful view but we were only able to see half of the observatory because the other half was closed. We had dinner at Wabora an Asian Fusion Restaurant which had mostly Japanese food. Then we went to CVS to buy water and headed back to our hotel.
-Danny Yu I felt so much better after my rest and I was ready to explore. Early in the morning, we head down to the Boston public library which apparently is the top 15 in the nation. It indeed was very beautiful and looked historic. The whole library was filled with books and on one of the floors, it even had a water fountain somewhere. Then, we went over to Chinatown and was given a tour by two young tour guides, Nancy and Jenny who was part of a program called A-VOYCE. It was nice to see a tour guide at our age giving back to the community and sharing their voice of what Chinatown is. I also was able to see a reflection of myself since I am a youth tour guide too. I was reminded of when I first done tours and my nervousness as a bunch of adults came to listen to me. After the tour, we went over to their office and was able to talk to everyone about our works and programs. It was fun to see that they were working on similar projects like us. By the time we left the office, everyone knew everyone’s names and we felt as though we knew them for a long time. I couldn’t believe that I can make friends across America.
-Angela Iao We went to the Boston Public Library. Love its architecture. Then, we visited MIT. Coincidently, MIT was having its commencement. Guess, self-guided tour is the way to go. We attended an A-AVOYCE (from ACDC) tour. We got to learn about the history of the Chinatown there. After the tour, we met with the youths from ACDC. We finally made it to the Skywalk Bridge Observatory! Besides the view, the stories behind different buildings are also marvelous! I just wish that I could stay longer there to hear every story! I will share with you one of my favorite buildings. “The Boston Symphony hall is the brick building with bright green rooftop. It was built in the 1900s by Henry Lee Higginson. The symphony hall will give you a sense of surround by the music. You will feel like you are on the stage with the music being made. This is the best symphony hall because it is built for the sound, not the show. And you should remember, there is only one composer who is great enough that the founding committee agrees to put his name on the hall. His name is Beethoven” (Skyway Bridge Observatory Audio Tour, 2016).
-Sandy Jiang After not being able to make our plans yesterday, we tried our best to make the most of our time the next day. The Embassy Suites provided us breakfast, so it was one of the few days that we had a full sit-down breakfast. We headed first to the Boston Public Library, which is rated top 15 in the nation. I enjoy reading and going to the library a lot. The Boston library would definitely be an ideal place for me to study and read. It would be amazing if San Francisco had something similar. It reminded me a bit of San Francisco’s Main Library, but more grand and spacious. MIT was actually having their commencement on the day we arrived. The Boston team led us on a self-guided tour based on a map/tour sheet we got from the admissions office. For me, the most memorable part of the campus was the chapel. It had a very interesting design where it was a cylinder with an extended rectangular part. Inside the chapel, there were very unique lights hanging in the background at the front. We quickly stopped by the Black Heritage Trail tour office to get a self-guided tour map for the next day. Even though we couldn’t make their tour, we still wanted to go on the trail and learn about it. For lunch, we went to Chinatown and ate at a recently opened restaurant called Gourmet China. After lunch, we met up with a youth tour group similar to our Chinatown Alleyway Tours with a non-profit group called Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC). Their youth tour group was called See-Town and was led by their youth program, A-VOYCE. The tour program was similar to CATs in the sense that it was youth-led, youth-run. It is a relatively young program, having started only two years ago. They also had a younger demographic, as the tour guides were able to join in middle school. Our own tour program catered more towards high school and college students. At the end of our tour, we stopped by their office and had some time to meet and interact with their youth. It was a great opportunity to share about the work that the youth at CCDC does and learn about the work youth in Boston were doing for their community. We then went to the Boston Public Market to explore. It reminded me of the Ferry Building that we had in San Francisco. They both had distinct small businesses that offer products not usually sold elsewhere. Afterwards, we went back to the Prudential Center to visit the Skywalk Bridge Observatory. We went right before the sun settled and was able to catch pictures of the city in good lighting. We also stayed a bit after to catch the city at sunset. For dinner, we went to a Japanese restaurant called Wabora. They were known for a fruit shaved ice bowl. I didn’t try the dessert, but the food was delicious as well.
-Diana Lin I wake up early and go down to the lobby for free breakfast from our hotel. Our first stop is at the Boston Public Library. The fountain is always good tourist attraction, it is very pretty. The library is fascinating as well, they have the movie type of library where books are line up against the wall and the library is gigantic and there are the moving stairs too. I wish we have that in San Francisco.
Our second stop is MIT, because it is graduation so we could make to the tour so we have a self-guided tour. The campus is big but we didn't really get to see and understand the campus. All I see are some very not very good looking buildings. However, the church that we went to is beautiful. It is a small church but there is someone who plays the piano and it harmonize and makes me calm when I was in there. Our third stop is Black Heritage Trail Office, because we missed it yesterday so we decided to go again and we got the sled guided map. After we go to Chinatown for food. Boston Chinatown is small, someone once said, you can finish walking Chinatown in a minute. After I been there I trusted what she told me. We met with our tour guides for a Chinatown tour at the Chinatown gate. Our tour guides are from ACDC See Town by A-AVOYCE. During their tour, they talked about how they have gentrification happen and there are construction which caused people to move out and also talking about affordable housing and public open space for the community to live and enjoy. They have many organizations to help the community and are right next to each other under one building. After the tour, we have a program experience exchange with the ACDC. It is fun to talk to their youth groups and get a sense of what they are doing in their community and how we are similar in contributing and volunteering to preserve our own community. Our fourth stop was Boston Market then we head back to the Prudential Center and go to the Skywalk Bridge Observatory. I didn't went up and I stayed inside the mall and seeing my friend play the Virtual Reality, it was fun. At night, we ate dinner at a Japanese and Korean fusion restaurant called Wabora. Lesson learn it don't order a specific cuisine at a fusion place. However, the dessert was yummy. P.s. for myself: Well done! You didn't eat fast food. -Meifeng Deng For our first stop today, we went to Boston Public Library which is rated top 15 best library in the nation. I loved the library because of how it looked and because of how many books they had. My favorite part of the library is that there is an open space at the center of the library. Time to rely on Google maps to navigate to MIT! It didn’t go too well. We were sort of lost but we still ended up somewhere. We thought we missed the tour of the campus but there were actually no tours. Why? Wells, again I still don’t know if we are lucky or not because on the day we decided to visit MIT it was graduation day. Even though we were unable to have a tour of the campus with a tour guide, we were able to obtain a self-guided tour pamphlet. We followed the trail but had to end it half way because there was a section of it closed for graduation ceremony. We went back towards Boston Commons to go to the Black Heritage Trail office for a self-guided tour since we do not have enough time to attend a guided tour. We had to meet up with a youth group similar to CCDC, ACDC for a Chinatown tour and then a youth exchange afterwards. The tour is called See Town by A-AVOYCE, led by youths. I was really excited to attend the tour since I am a tour guide myself for CATs, Chinatown Alleyway Tours. It is interesting to be able to observe the different styles people use to tell stories or information during a tour. And I also enjoy being able to relate to the tour guide’s experiences. After the tour we had an exchange to share with one another about what they do and what we do in our communities.
On our next stop, we explored the Boston Market and later headed back to Prudential mall to go to the Skywalk Observatory. Half of Skywalk Bridge Observatory was reserved for a graduation celebration so we were only able to see half of it but we had a good discount to get into the observatory. And to end our day we had dinner at Wabora, a fusion of Japanese and Korean food. On our way home after we stopped by CVS to buy water for the next day. -Lisa Yu One thing I like about the hotel in Boston is its free breakfast. We woke up somewhat early to have breakfast in the hotel since it is served until 9:00 A.M. Then on our way we were to the Boston Public Library, which is rated in the top fifteen library in the nation. In our east coast trip, we did not get to visit the Library of Congress, but at least here is the Boston Public Library. The library here is indeed pretty. One image from my brain that I can recall from the library would be the hall that was filled with green lamps facing down on the desks, and with a semi-circle ceiling. If you were to stand at one end of the room, you would be able to have a very nice view of it. Another thing that stood out to me was the set of swirling stairs that I saw in one of the rooms. It was quite a small staircase but I just thought that it was quite interesting. Last but not least, the outdoor water fountain pool at the lowest level of the library building was a beautiful view as well.
Now the next stop for today -- MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Unfortunately, when we arrived at the college, we learned that today is actually their graduation. With that said, it is impossible to find anyone to give us a tour around campus (if only my cousin was still here she might have been able to show us around). So what we did was a self-guided tour around the college with the maps. We only walked through some parts of the college as the grassland area in the middle was blocked for graduation and also with the limited time we had. MIT does seem to be a very nice college campus indeed, with a nice view of the harbor across the street as well. We then took the metro back to the stop of Government City and went pass the State House again and to the Black Heritage Trail office. However, later we decided that there may not be enough time to do a tour around the trail, since we had to meet up with ACDC (Asian Community Development Corporation) in Chinatown afterwards. So what we did instead was to save the trail tour for tomorrow and headed to Boston Chinatown. Chinatown was actually not that far from where we were so we walked there within about fifteen minutes. We ate at a restaurant named Gourmet China, in which we later learned that it was actually a newly built restaurant. We had quite many dishes on the table, but more than half of them were spicy (as about half of the food items on the menu were spicy) so I probably did not eat much. After we placed our orders, the waiter recommended us to take one more order as it may not be enough to feed all of us, so we listened to their recommendation and took a XinJiang dish, with much regrets in the end. Next, most people in our group went to buy some egg puffs while the rest of us headed to the Chinatown gate to wait for the ACDC group that was going to give us a tour around Chinatown. I was standing there, waiting with excitement, because I know that later on I will reunite with my friend whom I haven’t seen for two years. She was once a participant in the Urban Institute summer program in year 2014, and that was when I met her, also the same case for some of the others in our group for this trip. I actually did not realized that Debbie (I’m going to say your name here) was from Boston, although I do know that she was, but just didn’t come to realize until the day before we headed to Boston. Just when I was trying to figure out how I would meet up with her, she told me that she is working for ACDC now and that her group is actually scheduled to meet up with us, the CCDC group from SF. Wow that was pretty surprising to hear. Although I was almost sure that I would see her in Boston when our two groups meet, I did not tell the others as I wasn’t 100% sure that it would happen and I don’t want to bring disappointment to them. Well, now it came out pretty well since it brought surprising moments to them. We were given a See-Town tour around Boston Chinatown by two youth tour guides from the program A-AVOYCE. Now our first stop was the front gate in Chinatown where next to it was a park where we saw many elderly citizens playing card games. This also reminded me of Portsmouth Square in SF, as well as the Columbus Park we visited earlier in our trip at New York. A slight difference would be that this park does not have any shelters so I would wonder if seniors would still come out on rainy days. Another thing that stood out to me was the hexagon shaped features that were placed on the other side of the Chinatown gate, which I learned from the tour that they were just newly added to the park area, intended for children to play on. In my opinion, those features seem a bit dangerous for little children to play on because of the empty holes they have in the middle. The concept of having those added to the park though, was to have children and elders to play around the same area. Throughout our tour, we saw a very big mural (which is the only mural in Boston Chinatown), a few alleys, a statue of Confucius, a Chinese school, and several tall buildings. After the tour we did a youth exchange with the ACDC group and unfortunately Debbie had to leave for work. It has been a while since I’ve done a youth exchange, and now it is back. Both of our groups basically shared what we each do, with all the youth programs and projects that we have done and are currently doing. We stayed inside the building for a while to chat with them before we headed on to the next stop for today. We finally left their office and made our way to the Boston Market. We got off the metro station and the market was literally right there on the block, and it was an indoor market. We went in and explored about the market, where most of us stopped to check out a donut eating contest (perhaps because today is National Donut Day). I was really amazed at how much donuts they can intake within that short amount of time. The donut smell that was floating around did somewhat make me want to eat a donut, but I later gave up on that thought as I found that it was too expensive. This Boston Market here somewhat reminds me of the Lonsdale Quay Market I have visited about one year ago in Vancouver, except this one here is much smaller. Then we headed onto our last stop of the day -- Skywalk Observatory. Back to the Prudential Center we were at earlier just yesterday, we went to the counter and almost all of us bought a ticket for $7 and up we were on the elevator to the 50h floor to view Boston from high above the surface (this was actually not that high compared to the observatories that I’ve been to in Chicago and Seattle in the previous two trips)! Now this was when I realized that my phone did not have service after two other people from our group who also uses cricket as their server (it was nothing much to panic though, as I learned later in the day that something was wrong with the cricket server so the problem was actually nationwide, and basically we just couldn’t use our phone for about 1⁄4 of the day). We stayed at the observatory for a good one hour to see the sunset, although I was somewhat disappointed because I wished to see the night view of Boston, but too bad the Skywalk Observatory closes at 9:00 P.M. anyways. To end our day, we went to a Japanese restaurant named Wabora for a quite pricey dinner. I ordered a rainbow roll and it was pretty decent. This concludes my second day in Boston, and I am looking forward to the remaining two days (or one and a half day rather) of our east coast trip as it is approaching to its end. Now that my phone has no service, there is nothing better to do except sleeping a bit earlier tonight and get some rest! -Shirley Tsang YES! OUR HOTEL HAS COMPLIMENTARY BREAKFAST. This may seem like a weird thing to get excited over, but hotel breakfast typically has things like scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, and pancakes, things that take way too much effort to make at home.
Now that that’s done, our trip has thus far been filled with sequence upon sequence of unfortunate events. Most notably, I wanted to visit both the Library of Congress and the Massachusetts State Library, but due to unfortunate timing, we were not able to visit either of them. On this day, our luck began to change. We rose early and headed straight to the Boston Public Library; we weren’t about to be defeated again. Lo and behold, it was OPEN WHEN WE GOT THERE GOD BLESS AMERICA. On a list of the top 15 “must-see” libraries, the Boston Public Library lies like sixth or something so I had rather high expectations for it. Needless to say, it delivered. Here, I saw a sight that I probably would never see in San Francisco for a wide list of reasons, rows and rows of occupied adults and businessmen sitting peacefully in a library. Much like the other cities, an integral part of our trip lies in observance of the Chinatown districts of other cities. In Boston, we met up with a youth organization with a name eerily similar to ours, Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC). We were given a quick tour by ACDC’s tour program, See Town(C-Town, get it?), and I say quickly literally because their Chinatown honestly isn’t too big. Not too long ago, resistance against implementation of freeway routes that ran throughout Boston’s Chinatown lacked enough traction to truly be effective. Consequently, it became heavily divided and gentrified, resulting in a Chinatown that really doesn’t look too different from your everyday Downtown district. I’m not about to say that gentrification is evil and needs to be stopped, I think that is something that must be left to individual judgment. Despite the massive gentrification, community organizations like ACDC fight tooth and nail to maintain their values, playing a heavy role in the creation and sustenance of affordable housing. From the youth groups that we have met, it’s quite refreshing to see their awe-struck faces when they learn that Adopt-An-Alleyway has been established for twenty-five years. However, I truly believe that the youth of these grassroots organizations hold as much, if not more power than we do. The ability to shape a grassroots program in its initial years is one of the greatest powers you can hold. Just for the heck of it and because we weren’t about to be defeated in Boston, we returned to Skywalk Observatory. Half of the Observatory was blocked, but that half was simply a view of MIT and Harvard, which were planned visits for our trip anyway. Oh—I almost forgot. We also visited the MIT campus today, but a lot of it was blocked as it was MIT graduation day. Lisa and I ended up giving a self-tour of the MIT campus which was, to put it bluntly really, really bad. Thankfully, everybody was so tired from walking that none of them listened. In other words, all planned :) -David Yi |
AuthorYouth experience from their experiential learning trips. Archives
March 2019
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