Many thanks to @Ace108, who calls for participation of this contest. Here's my participation.
感谢@ace108 发起的“美丽星期天” 的主题。 这里是我的征文.
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We hang out with friends today. My friend(M)'s husband D is American too. Coincidently he had very similar upbringing as my husband(@davidmendel). Not surprisingly they become very good friend. D just went to China with M in May, and David was there in late July. This was our first get together since China trip.
这周日是我们两对夫妻之间的约会。朋友 M 的老公 D 也是美国人。可巧的是他的成长经历和我老公(@davidmendel)极其相似。所以他两自然也成为好朋友。D 5 月份的时候和 M 去了一趟中国,David 是在7 月底去的。所以大家相约本周末相聚,谈谈回国的感受。
We always try to sleep in at the weekend and start late. Didn't go out until around noon time. M & D live in Cambridge. It's quite inconvenient to find parking in Cambridge. Good thing is D works for Harvard University, he has privilege and gets a street parking permit. It makes it a lot easier for us to meet them there. After we parked the car, we walked to a Chinese restaurant called Dumpling House nearby as suggested by them.
我们周末一般都比较疏懒,睡了个懒觉,近中午才出发去相约的地方碰头。M & D 住在剑桥。在剑桥附近停车挺不方便的。还好D 在哈佛大学上班,所以有街道停车许可牌。这样就方便很多了。停好车后,大家一起步行去附近的一家中国餐厅叫《南北家园》。
This was my first time to this restaurant. We usually go to "Mulan", which is a Taiwanese restaurant in the town where we live. The overall decoration and style of Dumpling House is very Chinese. They put up a lot Chinese artwork/painting on the wall to represent the Chinese theme.
这是我第一次来这家餐厅。平时我们都在镇里的一家叫《木兰》 的台湾餐厅吃。南北家园的装修很中国化。墙壁上挂了很多中国画,很衬气氛。
I love the dishes here. Very light and not greasy. My favorite dish is steam fish fillet with ginger and scallions. They only put in small portion of cooking oil and soy sauce, they bring out the flavor of the fish itself. Really good choice.
这里的菜比较适合我的口味,清淡,少油。 特别是蒸鱼片,原汁原味。只撒上少许油加酱油。鱼肉肥嫩,入口即化。值得推荐。
This dish is bamboo tips with dried bean curd. I love the bamboo tips they used. This is one kind of the bamboo that I used to eat a lot in China. I remember I went to the bamboo mountain and dig it myself in early years. It's not very popular here in US, that was another good surprise for me.
嫩笋炒香干,笋非常脆嫩。这种细笋之前在国内的时候我经常吃。而且早些年还自己上山去挖过。在美国并不常见,所以又是一大惊喜。
Mini soup dumplings with pork and pan fried dumpling are the most popular dishes for people dining here. There are a lot soup in the steamed bun. And the dumpling was fried just about right. Taste really good.
小笼包和锅贴是来这里吃饭的人必点的。 包里汤浓多汁,味鲜。锅贴煎得正到好处。
Sweet & Jumbo Shrimp with boiled broccoli is good too. Good combination of flavors.
甜酱大虾做得也非常地道。加上清烫花椰菜,正好中和口味,不腻。
Sliced beef Sichuan style is one of the most favorite dish of M & D. M came from Hunan, and D also loves spicy food.
小辣椒炒牛肉丝,这是朋友和她老公的最爱。牛肉非常嫩。加上小辣椒的辣,那个爽啊。
Steamed peapots shoots was good too, not as greasy as Mulan's.
清炒豆苗也不错。比木兰的清淡。
In general, this is a very nice and authentic Chinese restaurant. A good place for people who loves Chinese food. If it isn't that it's too far away from where we live, we may come here a lot. Luckily we have Mulan in our town center, even though it's not as good, it can still serve the purpose. Here's link of Dumpling House just in case you are interested.
总的来说,这是很不错的一家餐厅。对喜欢中餐的人是非常好的选择。如果不是它离我们住的比较远,估计会成为我们家的后厨房。不过还好我们还有“木兰”餐厅可以去。虽然味道稍次些,整体口味也是比较存正的。 如果你感兴趣的话,这是南北家园的网站地址。
http://www.dumplinghousecambridgema.com/
We were chatting while we ate. Had really good conversations. David talked with D about their China trip. M and I had our own side conversation. Sometimes we chimed in two men's conversation. It was good time.
在吃饭的过程中,我们分成两台戏。 老公和朋友的老公在一边热火地交换他们中国行的见闻和感受。我和 M 则在一旁聊我们自己的。 偶尔插插嘴,加入两男人的聊天。大家聊得非常愉快。
After the big lunch, we decided to walk it off. We passed by a mini park in front of Harvard University. There was a live show. It was really good and professional. The singer named Nina introduced themselves to the audience after the performance. They just graduated from Berkeley and about to join work force. This was actually first time three of them performed together and outside. Really amazing. We were really impressed by their performance and talent. Wish them good luck in their career life.
吃完这顿午餐大餐后,大家决定在剑桥附近走走,好好把吃的消化掉。我们路过哈佛大学前的一个小公园,正好有现场音乐表演。 非常专业。据女歌手Nina 说,他们三人刚从伯克利音乐学院毕业,准备走上工作岗位。而且,这是他们三个人初次合作,并初次在外面表演。不愧是名校毕业,给大家提供了非常高水平的音乐盛宴。祝福他们接下来在职业发展中一切顺利。
It was a good and long walk, we decided to stop and rest at Harvard square. We sat on the bench and watched people walking around, very relaxed and enjoyable.
走了很长时间,大家决定在哈佛广场路边休息一下。看着行人和街上的风景,在休闲中感受生活的美好。
Look at this granny and her cute dog, their outfit had attracted a lot eyeballs. Some visitors asked them for a favor so they can take photos with them, and granny agreed happily.
看看这位大妈和她的爱犬。她们的打扮让游客不禁停下来要求和她们拍照,而大妈也欣然同意。
When we were resting, there came two young man. They stopped right in front of us and were about to perform on the street. But before they started, we noticed there was another guy coming over and talked to them, after a short conversation, the two man team moved their stuffs few yards down the road. We realized that the location was occupied by that guy, he didn't want other performers to be in his territory.
在我们休息的时候又来了一对年轻男子准备在街边卖艺。 他们刚开始是在我们正对面,刚把设备拿出来准备表演,马上就有另一个男子走过来和他们交涉,要他们挪远一点。原来那人已经先占了位,他不希望这对年轻人离他太近。这才了解,原来在哪都有地盘之争。
The two young men took their stuffs and camped few yards away. They played guitar while one sang a song. But am afraid their performance wasn't at the par as the Berkeley team. Personally I can't hear enthusiasm in their music. I guess maybe they were just after money. I didn't tip them as I think it was too commercial. They lack the respect and love to music. Maybe I was too picky, but I know good music can really click and connect with people, and I didn't feel that from their music.
看着这对年轻人拿起他们的东西,走到远点的地方又重新开始。他们的表演和伯克利学生完全不能比。个人觉得他们没有那种激情,听不出对音乐的热爱。 我猜他们只是想要挣点钱,我没有给。因为我觉得他们太商业,对音乐没有很大的尊重和热爱。 可能我比较苛刻,要求太高,但是好音乐是真的可以感染人,而他们没给我这种感觉。
Did you see the small sparrow on the ground? Birds here are not afraid of people at all. They enjoy the place as much as we do. In China, most likely you won't see this.
看到一只小麻雀在地上了吗?这里的小鸟一点都不怕人,它就在我们坐的旁边安然安窝,玩耍。这里动物不怕人,这和这里对动物爱护和保护的政策有关的。如果在国内,估计早被抓去吃了吧?
Lastly we stopped by a book store called Coop by Harvard Square. They have 3 stories, full of all different kinds of books. You can smell books as soon as you walk in. Feels really good. There is a small open cafeteria on the 3rd floor, People can buy a cup of coffee or drink and snack and sit there reading books all day long. A very good business model in my lens.
最后我们去了广场旁边的COOP 书店。三层楼高, 满满的都是各种书籍。 满是书香味。更值得一提的是,在书店的三楼有个小咖啡屋,开发式的。消费者可以买杯咖啡或饮料,小吃坐在这里一整天看书。是很不错的商业模式。可以值得借鉴。
We kissed and hugged and said goodbye to our friends and came home. I took the chance to reflect what we experienced today and answered the call of #beautifulsunday by @ace108. It was a great day today, fun, very relaxed and joyful. Now time to get ready for tomorrow. Good night, my Steemian friends.
就在大家的拥抱和道别中,我们开车回到家,结束一天的行程。我也坐下来把满满的一天梳理一下,响应@ace108 的呼吁和大家分享一下。这真是充实和快乐的一天。现在收拾思绪,准备迎接更美好的明天吧。 朋友们,晚安。