[Travel] One day trip to Philadelphia (Part 1)

PART 1: Reading Terminal, City Hall, Rittenhouse Square, Independence Hall, Liberty Bell, Philadelphia Museum of Art, NFL Draft 2017

Around the end of April, I felt like I needed to make a trip to Philadelphia as soon as possible, because, you know, Philly Cheese steak was on my bucket list, and I potentially would be pretty busy this summer with some friends coming to join/visit me in New York, plus maybe trips to Boston and DC etc.

I decided to go on this trip myself because I just wanted a quick trip, as per the proverb "if you want to go fast, go alone" - care to complete the 2nd verse this idiom/proverb ? :P

Originally I was planning to stay there for 1 night and 2 days, but after consulting my friends who had studied, had lived, and had visited Philly, I decided on a One Day trip, because "There is not much to see in Philly."

My friend also recommended me the Chinese bus companies. Now why didn't I take the Megabus? Mainly because I already took Megabus a lot when I was still in college, and now I just wanted new experience, and tried to live like a local :P 

If you want more rational reasons for Chinese bus vs Megabus bus, here they are,

- China bus stopped at China Town in Philly, which was right in the middle of all the tourist attractions. Megabus stopped at the college area, so it would be convenient for students, or if you wanted to visit the universities there.

- China bus cost $12 for a one way trip, and that was final, including taxes and fees. Megabus at the time I looked up (1 day before the trip), the price was at least $13, and I was pretty sure it was before fees and taxes,

- China bus you could pay at their ticket office (where the bus stopped), so basically, you could just pay for your ticket at the very last minute, right before you get on the bus. Megabus you would have to pay online. Years ago, I saw in Chicago that the bus driver wouldn't let one person on the bus when that person offered to pay the driver at Megabus bus stop.

- The China bus agency that my friend, Huy, recommended was Focus Travel, and it ran every hour NYC to Philly and back, and the last bus was at 11PM, so it was super flexible for a traveler like myself.

- Focus Travel China bus also had wifi on board.

I ordered the Focus Travel bus ticket online at Gotobus.com the night before, got to their ticket office at 7:40 AM, showed them my email confirmation, so that they gave me a hard copy of the ticket, got on the bus at 7:55AM. Here's a look at the bus:

The bus was spacious. Everybody could get their own row of 2 seats. It was close to GreyHound cleanliness, but not as clean. Still much better than LexExpress that I had to take during my college years in Illinois, Chambana (that LexExpress company was shut down btw).

Before taking me to the highway, the bus took me a short trip around Manhattan, when I felt so excited! I entertained myself with the thought that I was becoming more and more of a New York local: having haircut at a Chinese barber (for $4), and traveling using a Chinese bus ($12 for a one-way trip from NYC to Philly).

Oh god, that brought me back to those years in Seattle (about 10 years ago), when I used to go backpacking from Seattle to Portland. Good old times.

On the bus, I went over the plan, and what to eat, here's a peek at my original plan:

I was reading about Reading Terminal on the bus, and decided to modify my plan a little bit, I would have lunch at Reading Terminal first, because there was a good-reviewed cheese steak shop there - Tommy DiNic's (https://www.yelp.com/biz/tommy-dinics-philadelphia). This shop was featured on Travel Channel, and had very good Yelp reviews (4 stars and 1600 reviews as of this writing). 

And it was more logical to get breakfast/lunch done first to save me time for exploration. This decision meant that I wouldn't be able to try the original Cheese Steak Pat's. But my friend Andrea said it was a tourist trap, and it would be easy on my next trip to Philly to convince friends to try it, so yeah, next time Pat's.

Haha if you have read up until this point, you would notice that I had so many reasons in my thought process. That's just me being myself. I might look like I don't think much, but in fact I have already built at least 3 good reasons before I do something.

The bus dropped me under an overpass, my immediate feeling was that Philly had a different vibe from New York.

In the photo it might look like NYC, but the pavement was cleaner, and people didn't seem as busy and rushing as in NYC.

I walked about 10 mins from where I got off the bus to Reading Terminal. Upon entering Reading Terminal, I was immediately amazed, and felt nostalgic right away. There were a lot of shops, food stands, with unique decoration. The density of the shops really made me excited. I was reminded of photos of Ben Thanh market in Vietnam - I had never been there though haha. 

Instead of enjoying the view, I tried to find Tommy DiNic's as fast as I could to save time.

I got the roast pork steak, with a root beer. The roast pork was thinly sliced, pretty bland though. It was topped with peppers, brocoli rabe, and sharp provolone.

 The roast pork was put in some kind of liquid sauce before being served. It was fun to watch them prepare the sandwich LIVE:

I have a review about this place on Yelp, so just quote that review here:

https://www.yelp.com/biz/tommy-dinics-philadelphia?hrid=GOgE56kbD2RB8B-ImxdzPw&utm_campaign=www_review_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)

Should be 3.5 stars. I thought the sandwich was fairly average, since the roast pork was pretty plain, even though it was sitting in some kind of sauce before they serve it in the bread.
Besides the broccoli rabe, and a nice seedless piece of hot peppers, everything else was pretty average. The sharp provolone cheese made the sandwich a little less boring, adding some slight salty taste..
Sitting at the counter and enjoying the Reading Terminal vibe were nice, and it was fun to watch they prepare the sandwiches live.

After lunch, I started explore Reading Terminal. It was definitely a tourist place, a lot of tourists there.

It was still quite early at that point 10:20 AM, so some shops were still setting up.

A lot of people were lining up at the famous Beiler's donut, where you could watch them roll donut LIVE

I wasn't a donut person so I didn't get any, instead, I grabbed an Apple Dumplings at Dutch Eating Place, because, well, I was more of an apple pie person (especially American Pie).

My Yelp review is here for your convenience:

https://www.yelp.com/biz/dutch-eating-place-philadelphia?hrid=pGCrrDqobS5uDdt8cAaPHw&utm_campaign=www_review_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)

I only tried the Apple dumplings, so this review is for the apple dumplings mostly.
The apple dumplings tasted great! It was basically a hot apple pie, with apple gravy all over it, topped with an whipped cream.
Definitely more tasty and more interesting to eat than a regular apple pie. The hot apple grave ate into the soft dough making the dough taste wonderful (and soggy in a good way) !
You could grab one togo if you were short on time (like myself) on your visit to Philadelphia.
It was only $3.5 for a decent sized apple dumplings. Loved it!
Also the cashiers and servers wore Dutch clothing, so it was fun to watch.

after that, I continued my exploration while eating apple dumplings at the same time. They also had a full market selling raw meat, fish, and veggies there, and a common dining area.

After Reading Terminal, I walked West bound to see City Hall:

I loved the architecture, and I was walking inside to get to the other side of City Hall. There were some people playing flute and singing inside City Hall. The surrounding buildings resonated their voice, which was nice. No tips from me though.

On the other side was a spacious area with some water fountains with children playing. It was a nice view.

The City Hall also looked great from the other side:

After City Hall, I continued walking West on Chestnut St, and just pleasantly found out that Chestnut St was a little cute shopping street, which reminded me of Newbury St in Boston:

I then arrived at Rittenhouse Square, but there was not much to see there. Just a large square where people sat and chilled. There were some people selling local produce, but wasn't interesting either.

I then made my way back East bound. What I really liked was the 70s, 80s British architecture of Philadelphia when I was walking to Independence Hall. There was really nice little street with beautiful small houses.

I also had another view of the City Hall from a different angle:

Also saw some nice people doing the Pedaling tour, NICE!

I got to the Independence Hall when it wasn't even 2PM yet. I thought to myself, "Oh damn, I still have a lot of time"

The Independence Hall was where the Founding Fathers debated, signed and read the Declaration of Independence, so it had heavy historical importance, but I won't go into much details in this blog. You can wiki it yourself :P I love the ideology of American Independence so I could somewhat fathom the importance of the events that went on here.

Enjoy some photos of this historic landmark, it was unfortunate that they were doing some construction/maintenance so it didn't look nice on photos:

Across the street was the Independence Park, with the Liberty Bell museum

It was a super hot day that day (I think above 80 F). I made my way to the Liberty Bell museum entrance. The museum was free so it was nice.

People were mopping the Bell, but if you hang around long enough, you could take a pretty nice photo with the Bell.

The Liberty Bell was used to summon the legislators to Independence Hall in the past (1776-ish), but it only became a symbol and icon of American Independence around the (1846s), during the Anti-Slavery movement, with the help of the press and some tales.

The Liberty Bell had a crack, and they seemed to make a big headline about that crack. Lots of writings about that crack. I didn't seem to connect with the history of this bell though.

There was a nice view of the Independence Hall from here:

After the Liberty Bell, I went to the Visitor Center. It was a nice, cool place with clean restrooms (but no water fountain), so it was ideal to sit down and take a rest. You could grab a free admission ticket for a tour inside the Independence Hall here, but the guy told me they already ran out of tickets.
It was run by NPS (National Park Service).

After the quick rest, it was still super early and I already had visited a lot of the places on my itinerary, so I decided to go the the "long-shot" destinations on my list, namely the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Rocky steps.
To get to these 2 destinations, I would have to take a bus. They weren't walk-able from Independence Hall.

If I remember correctly, I caught the 48 bus on Arch street. Just one bus took me to the museum area. Along the way I could enjoy seeing some sights of the Philadelphia Chinatown. The one way bus cost $2.25, but I didn't have coins, so I paid $3, dang it. You can ask for a transfer, which is a piece of paper to use on your way back instead of having to pay another $3.

After I got off the bus, I realized that they were holding the NFL draft event there, so it was super crowded, and lots of police and security officers there that day.

I wasn't interested, so I took a walk to see the museum and tried to get to the Rocky steps,enjoying some nice views along the way:
The museum:

some art work outside:

I soon found out that the Rocky steps wasn't accessible on that day due to the NFL draft. Disappointed, I decided to blame the NFL draft by joining their event!

They weren't allowing people to bring liquid through the gate, but inside, there was non-stop supply of BudLight. People were drinking and enjoying the occasion. There were lots of displays such as NFL Hall of Fame sculptures, NFL Virtual Reality, display of real championships rings, etc. I wasn't an NFL so whatever lol.

There was a nice walkway to the main stage, with teams' figures on the sides.

After watching some activities such as football kicking, and after refilling my bottle, it was time for me to leave to go back to the Old City area for some dinner.

But this post has been so long, and I am so tired now, so to be continued in part 2 haha. You can go to part 2 in the link below,

READ PART 2