Be it Airbnb or a vacation house where we would stay, we had high expectations for Vermont in early October. It didn’t disappoint us.
But before all that dreamy foliage thing…We visited the Teddy Bear factory in Burlington VT to put ourselves in
retrospect for a little while.
After the Teddy tour, we enjoyed the sunset at Waterfront in Burlington downtown. A very peaceful and relaxing place.
A group of 11 this timesunset at Waterfront
Our vacation house was in Waterbury, not far from Stowe which is a famous town for skiing and sightseeing.
It’s very convenient to buy things from local markets so we didn’t bring too many food materials this time.
When we woke up the next morning, the view was astonishing even just from the inside.
view from the dinning tableattic bedroomthe balconyview from the balconyview from the balconygroup photo at the balconygroup photo at the balconygroup photo at Stowe cable tourgroup photo at Stowe cable tour
I tend to avoid Airbnb when I go on a vacation since its risk is always higher than chain hotels, but after my
recent airbnb trip I just
realized how much fun I had missed because of this.
Two weeks ago we (me and my friends) spent a fantastic weekend in Newry, Maine where we
rented an Airbnb house and drove all the way from Boston for 3 hours - just to taste a
bit of nature.
This place, although in Maine, was actually quite close to the White Mountains area in New Hampshire. Acadia was naturally our initial plan,
as most of us had never visited this famous national park, but it was too touristy (and far and expensive) for a group
of 10 who spend most of the time together playing board games. Yes, we drive more than
200 miles to find a place for playing board games!
arrival
The house was recently renovated so it looked incredibly new. Unfortunately, it had irritating chemical smell upon our arrival.
We opened all windows and doors for a while, then the odor was gone and we did find this place
quite cozy and interesting.
outside our house
After our house tour, the living room immediately became our favourite spot. Great
view and light, large space and fireplace, lovely furniture, we could really see ourselves sitting here
playing all day - and we did!
the living roomdining and kitchenstorage and decorationbalcony
We played Splendor, Risk, and Mahjong (麻将) and it was all fun and games until someone
finally got hungry. In fact, cooking could be the biggest problem here - you had to drive a dozen miles
to buy materials. Luckily we brought whatever we need for a two-day trip - all we ever needed was
just drinks and noodles!
cooking soybean saucenoodles with soybean sauce
We cooked the delicious 炸酱面 (noodles with soybean sauce) and it was a treasure.
We did go hiking around in the day and it was also much fun. Overall this airbnb experience
was extremely wonderful and we unanimously agree that we would do a similar trip to Vermont
in the foliage season this year.
On a warm Saturday in April I visited Woonsocket, a small town in north Rhode Island where
the film Hachi: A Dog’s Tale was filmed. I always wanted to go there because it’s really close to
where I’m living now, plus a group of fans and dog lovers even made a Hachi Trail(see below) that has all noticeable filming places in it.
Following the trail map I was astonished that the town even put a Hachi statue in front of the train station, and I was able to rebuild the image and establish a connection to this touching film. Here is what I got:
