{"id":38,"date":"2005-02-25T10:48:51","date_gmt":"2005-02-25T14:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/snarl\/2005\/02\/25\/chinatown\/"},"modified":"2005-02-25T10:48:51","modified_gmt":"2005-02-25T14:48:51","slug":"chinatown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/2005\/02\/25\/chinatown\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinatown"},"content":{"rendered":"

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After work yesterday I met up with my friend, Vito, for dinner. We decided to meet on the corner of Boylston and Tremont Streets(across the street from the Boylston subway station). I got there a bit early and thoroughly enjoyed myself watching the commuters and Emerson College students criss-crossing the intersection. I don’t regularly get to see so much foot traffic since the law school’s campus is set off a bit from the activity of Harvard Square. Plus, despite practically living in the heart of downtown Boston, I live on a dead end street with only 4 or 5 buildings (and even that street is off of another side street). Anyway, I didn’t mind at all that Vito was running a bit late because the street scene was so intoxicating.<\/P>
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After he arrived we walked into Chinatown for dinner. Though, I’m beginning to question why it’s called Chinatown anymore since there are so many other nationalities there now. It seems that there are nearly as many Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese restaurants as there are Chinese restaurants. But I suppose Asiatown doesn’t have as nice a ring to it. Still, I just love living in a city large enough to have little ethnic\/cultural neighborhoods (Irish, Italian, African-American, Asian, Jewish, etc…).<\/P>
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Anyway, we decided to eat at a great little Vietnamese place (whose name escapes me). The food was good, as always, and Vito and I had some great conversation. I ordered the same drink I get every time I’m there…that tacky bubble tea stuff with the huge black tapioca balls at the bottom. Of course, I get the version that contains no tea…just fake strawberry flavoring. Sometimes I can be such a 12 year old girl.<\/P>
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When we finished eating we did one* of my favorite things in Chinatown…went to one of the countless little markets. I’m always fascinating by the unusual fruits and vegetables sold there. And the way they display their dead animal products out in the open like that is so foreign to me. Northing is packaged or pretty – it’s just enormous slabs of dead animals (and their organs). The downside is that I’ve never been to a Chinatown market that didn’t wreak. But it’s all part of the charm.<\/P>
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Plus, by the time you get to the junk food aisles, you’ve acclimated to the smells. And, walking down an asian markets snack aisle is my favorite. The packaging of imported asian products is the best in the world. Everything is brightly colored and happy…it’s like every confection container was designed by Sanrio (of Hello Kitty fame). I can’t help but smiling…and then buying silly little products that I really have no use for. Like Pocky. <\/P>
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Pocky is basically tiny bread-like sticks (about the size of a pencil…but thinner) dipped 3\/4 in chocolate. That’s it. It’s a very simple little snack…but I can’t get enough. Every time I go to a market, I buy some. In fact, unlike American snacks, there isn’t that much flavor to Pocky. But the packaging just draws me in. Pocky has come out with a new version of their product…Pocky Men’s. <\/P>
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Yep, you read it right. They’ve now created a Pocky especially for men. It’s hilarious. The box is green (instead of the bright and happy colors you normally find). The entire packaging is in Japanese except for the words “ALL NEW Men’s Pocky!” so I can’t figure out how this product differs from their other products. I guess their other Pocky’s were too feminine? Though, upon opening the package, it appears to be the identical product as the more traditional “girly” Pocky.<\/P>
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I feel so butch now with my many little sticks dipped delicately in chocolate!<\/P>
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*Other favorite things include going into the little bakeries, butcher shop and medicine shops with drawers full of exotic roots and herbal medicines.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After work yesterday I met up with my friend, Vito, for dinner. We decided to meet on the corner of Boylston and Tremont Streets(across the street from the Boylston subway station). I got there a bit early and thoroughly enjoyed myself watching the commuters and Emerson College students criss-crossing the intersection. I don’t regularly get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/snarl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}