Recommended Places to Visit: Walpole

Recreation

Water Bodies

Clark Pond
Stone Street near Massachusetts Avenue

Memorial Pond
School Street near East Street

Turner Pond
Mill Pond Road and Elmcrest Circle

Diamond Pond
Old Diamond Street

Rainbow Pond
Pearl Street near High Plain Street

Cobbs Pond
Main Street near Sherwood Drive

Plimpton Pond
Plimpton Street near Lavender Lane

Willett Pond
~78 Brook Street

Pettee Pond
~78 Brook Street


Parks

Francis William Bird Park
Polley Lane Near Old Post Road

Architecture

Monuments

Town Common
West Street and Main Street

Lieutenant Barachiah Lewis Statue
Plimpton Street and East Street


Places of Worship

South Walpole United Methodist Church
1886 Washington Street

United Church in Walpole
30 Common Street

Epiphany Parish
62 Front Street

All Nations Worship Center
429 Main Street

Blessed Sacrament Church
10 Diamond Street

Union Congregational Church
55 Rhoades Avenue

St. Mary Parish
176 Washington Street

Word of Life Church
32 Main Street


Town Facilities

Town Hall
135 School Street

Police
972 Main Street

Walpole MBTA Station
275 West Street


Commercial Buildings
Alexander Thomas and Sons Funeral Home
45 Common Street


Historical Buildings
Bird Memorial Clock and Tower
57 Chestnut Street


Old Plimpton School
319 Common Street

Restaurants

Highly Recommended:
Mexican
Jalapenos Grill
960 Main Street
Recommended Dishes:
Puerco en Salsa Verde
Sopa des Mariscos
Tres Leches


Japanese
Ginjo Restaurant
889 Main Street
Recommended Dishes:
Hanami
Orange Dragon Roll
Red Dragon Roll


Tried:
Dessert
Ever So Humble Pie Company
153 Washington Street
Recommended Dishes:
Blueberry Almond Scone


Italian
Pizzeria Grande
1185 Washington Street
Recommended Dishes:
White Hawaiian Pizza
Boneless Red Wings

December 15th 2013: Sightseeing After the Snowstorm

Because of the snowstorm last night, I took my time at home before heading out to the town of Medfield to start my sightseeing there. After viewing Jewell's Pond on Foundry Street and Nebo Street,

I headed to the old Medfield State Hospital, where the land was covered in snow and people were even sledding on a nearby slope.

The main building of the hospital was pretty nice.

 

From here, I passed through Walpole

Old Plimpton School, 319 Common Street

on my way to Canton, where I decided to grab some lunch at Carter's Sports Grill,  a bar restaurant that has taken the place of the former Junction Bar and Grille. The place looks pretty much the same as before, and as empty as well, although probably due to the crappy roads and the cold weather outside.

For food, I decided to get the Homemade Loaded Potato Skins (potato halves baked and loaded with bacon and cheese) and the Mixed Grill (turkey tips, steak tips, pork chops, served with mashed potatoes and broccoli).

Homemade Loaded Potato Skins

 

Mixed Grill

The potato skins were just alright, but the Mixed Grill was actually surprisingly good. The turkey and the pork were actually not dry and pretty tender, while the steak tips were excellent as well. Not bad for a bar restaurant. It could be better though.

From here, I checked out a few water bodies in town

Reservoir Pond, 110 Pleasant Street

Forge Pond, 618 Washington Street

Silk Mill Pond,
Old Shepard Street and Messinger Street

Shepard Pond,
221 Washington Street

before heading to Milton

Hemenway Pond, 1163 Blue Hill Avenue

 

Pope's Pond, End of Lafayette Street

on my way to Quincy. There, I checked out a few places

First Baptist Church of Wollaston

Wollaston Congregational Church

Central Middle School

Old St. Catherine Greek Orthodox Church,
Beale Street and Farrington Street

before finally heading to dinner at Sher-A-Punjab, an Indian restaurant in downtown Quincy. As it was still early, there wasn't much people in the restaurant.
 

With a groupon in hand, I decided to get the Mango Lassi for a drink, the Dahi Puri (Semolina puffs filled with spiced chickpeas, potatoes and mint chutney soup) for appetizers, the Kerala Fish Curry (Spiced tilapia cooked in a red chili curry) along with the Naan Apricot Date (Unleaved, handmade bread stuffed with fresh appricot and date) for my meal, and finally the Ras Malai (Fresh homemade cheese patties, cooked in a milk syrup, almonds and nuts) for dessert.

Mango Lassi

Naan Apricot Date

Dahi Puri

 

 

Ras Malai

Kerala Fish Curry

Of all the dishes, I was only disappointed in the dessert, which had more of a chalky feel than a smooth one. The Dahi Puri was especially interesting in taste, considering I did not even know what to expect when it came out.

With that, a short day of sightseeing after the snowstorm came to an end. Not too bad, considering I started out only after 10 this morning.

August 29th 2013: Blowing Glass for the 2nd Time in Norwood

Today, I left work a little early to have a second try at glass blowing at the Luke Adams Glass Studios in the town of Norwood. As I was a little early, I decided to grab a quick bite at the Ever So Humble Pie Company nearby in the town of Walpole, thinking it was a typical bakery, but it turned out to be a factory manufacturing frozen fruit pies, ready made for the oven. Thankfully, they still had ready made scones, so I decided to go with the Blueberry Almond Scone, which actually wasn't too bad.

Back at the studio, I decided to go with a pumpkin for my first piece. Like the paparweight, the first few steps involve getting glass out of the furnace,

Getting the glass

Cooling the rod

dipping it in the colored sands,

then melting the sands into the glass.

 After that, another layer of glass is placed on top, and then a first bubble is blown into the open end of the glass.

After a little more heating, the molten glass is then placed into a mold to shape the pumpkin, whereupon it is blown into again to fit the mold.

From here, the piece is heated and blow into a few times to enlarge the pumpkin into its circular shape.

After the pumpkin finally reaches the desired size, it is cut cut off from the main stem,

whereupon the top is fired with a blowtorch to get ready for attachment to the stem.

The stem then comes in molten after having been dyed, then shaped by a smaller mold,

and after attachment to the pumpkin, the molten stem is quickly stretched and then twisted to shape the curly stem.

The end of the stem is then fired to smooth it and remove jagged edges after the cut.

From here, the entire piece has to be placed in the cooling ovens to prevent the piece from shattering due to cooling too fast.

After my pumpkin was done, it was time for my classmates for the day to make their paperweights. I learned that to make bubbles in the piece, all you need to do is poke holes into the inner layer of glass.

One can also flatten the piece using a metal spatula.

My next piece was a scalloped bowl. The first few steps are the same as the pumpkin, except no molds are used, although if one is used, a jello shaped bowl is the end product.

The blowing of the pipe to shape the bowl is the same as well.

When the bowl is sufficiently shaped, it is time to flatten the base,

and after warming it up a last time to prepare it for the transfer, which involves using another tube with molten glass at its tip and sticking it to the flattened side of the bowl, then breaking off the original connection with the blow tube.

Bringing the transfer rod closer to the target

Sticking to the flat side of the bowl

Time to break the connection

It's broken off!!

After successfully transferring the bowl from one tube to another, it is time to widen the hole on the round side of the bowl, first heating the bowl up before using the jacks to widen the hole

What happens next goes pretty fast. Once the widening is sufficient enough, after heating it for a bit,

the entire bowl opens up into a plate,

whereupon it has to be spun extremely quickly to prevent the plate from collapsing, before turning the rod upside down and allowing the plate to collapse into the scalloped bowl in a somewhat controlled way.

After the shaping of the bowl is done, it is then time to break it off the rod and smoothen the base to complete the bowl, which has to be cooled slowly till the next day like the pumpkin.

For the footed bowl, instead of transferring the bowl from one tube to another, the flattened side is actually pushed inside more to form the inside of the bowl.

After breaking off the bowl, it is then set on a circular base of molten glass to complete the footed bowl.

Finally, it was time to head to Boston after being done with glassblowing. I hadn't had anything to eat, so I decided to use my Groupon at Barrio Cantina, a pretty upscale Mexican restaurant in the Fenway area.

For food, I decided to get the Spicy Wings (with lime cilantro), the Spicy Shrimp Street Tacos (with avocado and bacon), and the Roasted Poblano Peppers (stuffed with chorizo and Mexican cheese, served with rice and a tomato-chile sauce).

Spicy Wings

Spicy Shrimp Street Tacos

Roasted Poblano Peppers

All the dishes were pretty good, especially the tacos which were finger licking good. A pretty good end to a pretty fun night of glass blowing I guess.