On Sunday, Shuwen and Marc started their days with runs around the hotel in Freeport. Shuwen headed out early so that she could make it back to shower & have breakfast before she, Edna and Mark hit the outlet stores. They did some serious damage over the course of the day, which also meant having to be creative with packing up the car the next few days. Marc meanwhile stayed in the hotel to catch up on work.

The highlight of the day was undoubtedly lunch. We drove to a pier just 3 miles from our hotel to place called Harraseeket Lunch. We each got a lobster (we got to see them alive and kicking before they met their fiery doom) and got our hands dirty. We have all been dreaming about lobster since then.

After another shopping shift in the afternoon, we headed back to the hotel to rest our tired feet. The Democratic debate held in Manchester, NH was being televised, so that was a great way to spend the evening indoors. It struck us that Obama didn’t seem as eloquent as we often see him in speeches, and that Clinton appeared the most confident and put up the strongest ‘performance’. We were not impressed by Bill Richardson (despite his impressive resume) as he did not say anything substantive. Shuwen hadn’t heard much about Joe Biden and was interested in what he had to say about the US’s foreign policy. He seems pretty decent.

Monday was a complete washout as it rained all day long! We drove south to Boston in search of Quincy Market. We found out too late and after much grief driving around in the rain that we had googled the wrong Quincy Market and ended up in a small grocery store in Quincy, MA, rather than the big market in Fanueil Hall in Boston itself. It was actually rather hilarious – well, no road-trip is complete without some foul-up of some kind!

At least lunch was good in a Hongkong eatery. We all got some form of noodles, which were all super yummy and perfect for such a yucky day out. We were unmotivated to do much else the rest of the day since it was raining so hard outside, and so checked into the hotel and hung out there. In the evening, Marc and Shuwen met up with Abram and Graham in Waltham for dinner, which proved to be fun and a great way to make up for an otherwise lazy day.

We are now in Newport, Rhode Island and will be heading out shortly for NYC via New Haven, CT. We will be having lunch at Eric & Jane’s :)

Yesterday we had a great day exploring Newport. It’s an amazingly wealthy town with some incredibly mansions and ‘chateaux’. We started off with the cliff walk (we walked about 2.5 miles of it), then headed for lunch and gelato along Thames Street. Then we checked out the International Yacht Restoration School (IYRS) and were introduced to the Bettle Cat – a neat wooden New England class of boat that are still being sailed apparently. At the Southern tip of Newport is Fort Adams and the Newport Yachting Museum that had some artifacts from the America’s Cup. Mark, Edna and Shuwen saw most of a video on the 1974 selection and the team that represented the US in the end. We had no idea Ted Turner was the helmsman that led the US to win the America’s Cup twice! By the way, the finalist that will sail against Switzerland in the America's Cup this year is New Zealand (they just beat Italy 4-1). Newport was a great time especially for Edna, Mark & Shuwen who were all on their high school's sailing team together.