Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Soooooo......... We got to Philly late in the afternoon after our non eventful bus journey and got a taxi straight out to hotel. We had to stay about 10 mins south of the city due to the fact that there was not a lot of accommodation left in the city itself. After settling in to our hotel and getting up to date with a few blogs and sorting out some bills we made the trip across the road for dinner at the Peking Inn. I managed to get Mark to agree on a little Asian cuisine for the night as I am getting sick to death of diner food. We settled into a seat at the bar and had a nice meal, even getting to watch a bit of the Phillys Baseball Team play on tv. After a few drinks Mark got chatting to a local and which then turned into a full blown conversation about travelling and even the restaurant workers got involved by recommending a few good places in Hong Kong that we should visit. After dinner it was off to bed so we could get up earlier to explore Philly in more detail.
The next morning we jumped on a bus bound for the city. The first thing we notices was the massive City Hall. After walking further towards the city (we really had no clue of where we were going, or what even we would see) we decided to follow the signs to the visitors centre. After passing several interesting men's jewellery shops (mark calls them black man bling shops) we then stumbled through time and saw a heap of periodically dressed men and women and even the odd horse drawn carriage. We finally after what felt like forever made it to the visitors centre where we found out what Philly is all about. After hearing a whole heap of stuff about the founding of the US, the Constitution and all about this guy Benjamin Franklin, which until then we only knew as the dude on the US $100 note, we decided that Philly was just the tiniest bit of a bore. Well for us anyway who aren't really that interested into going into the most minute detail of American History. Also, I think we were just coming off a bit of an NYC high... Anyway since we where stuck there for the day we decided to make the best use of it and at least see some of the historical sites.
We saw the Liberty Bell, the site where the US signed the declaration of Independence from the UK, Benjamin Franklin square, some squirrels, Benjamin Franklin's grave, walked towards the riverfront.. got disappointed with lack of anything really at the riverfront, passed a whole heap of bums, got extremely hot due to the fact that it was a smouldering day, got irritate by the lack of anything to see and again did we mention just how hot it was that day!
Anyway being from the Australian school of tourists we took this all in our stride and tried to make best of the situation we were in by finding the nearest pub. Actually we stumbled across not only a pub but an actual brewery in the old city, complete with cobblestone streets. After a couple hours in the aircon and after tasting a few of the drafts and a great feast, we finally had rejuvenated our spirits enough to head back towards the bus stop.
On our way we had a poke around at a few shops, picked up some lovely swiss chocolates and Marky even got to try his very first Philly Cheesesteak. Other than that we headed back to our hotel and headed to bed. The next day we were up early to catch a bus to Washington DC. We didn't get away scott free from Philly though, as while waiting for the bus (at an outside station) the sky's decided that they would open up and bucket down with rain on us. Well played Philly, well played... now lets see what Washington DC has to offer us...
- comments