good old gordon

city hall
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despite repeated warnings from friends on THIS side of the pond, and reports of some serious accidents and illegalities regarding the chinatown bus services on the east coast, i still wasnt prepared to shell out mega bucks to get to Philly, when i could get there for 12 dollars on a 2 hr trip.  though, finding where the bus departs from near Canal street station in the heart of the rather smelly chinatown was not easy...such a different area of manhattan compared to the super-highway of fifth avenue and classy suburbs on the upper east side...anyway, if you happen to stumble in the right area and have an air of a tourist about you (or not even) you get accosted by some chinese woman who pushes you into a queue and shoves a ticket into your hand demanding for money. Amidst the confusion of the newly form queue, a bus does arrive on time and is air condition providing quite a comfortable ride to Philly.

Independence hall
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down to visit gordon and his ridiculous student lifestyle and condo in philly...after he came and crashed with me in London. Busy as ever, once i was in contact with Gordon, who had his cousin visiting at the time, i was to explore Philly under my own feet and direction, but this was not after he picked my luggage in his sparkling silver audi A8 - what is a student doing with a car like this? i was soon to find out his family is richer than i thought though he is pretty sound despite this!

visit gordon and his ridiculous student lifestyle and condo in philly

public feeling
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On the corner where i dropped the stuff off, i had some vietnamese noodles (pho) and then was off wandering without map or direction, which is what i love doing most when im exploring a big cities.  First thing to notice was how big the boulevards were, and i quickly stumbled on the large impressive and recently restored city hall with very New england stylings and oppressive external decorations. and wandered whether the liberty bell was in there. but soon found, esp with the absence of a clouud of Japanese tourists and coaches, that this was not the independence site.  Really nice and hot day to go wandering on foot, and soon found some tourist trail and followed my nose and eventually got to Washington square and then finally on to the Independence historic site.

the original bell??!
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I took the route through the sites of the liberty bell centre and independence hall in the order as suggested by the uber-modern tourist information centre, after first perusing some of the exhibits explaining some of the history of which i was mostly ignorant.  i guess the liberty bell wasnt such a great experience and seem a bit over-rated really, but i was more impressed by the theatrical guide who took us through independence hall and where the declaration came about and was signed, which was really interesting and i was surprised there wasnt more Brit-bashing in the guide's delivery...

Gordon's super flat
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The decided to walk south after an expensive, cool pepsi and walked past a tent where passer-bys were taught the words to their national anthem the star-spangled banner, and you get a sense of how proud Philadelphia is of being a site of such historic significance in the early moments of modern american history, then i wonder down to penn's landing by the river and chill, this the southern tip of town...

and then walk the length of the city (60 blocks), with a rest on some convention centre holding some fossil conference, to get to UPenn campus passing Drexel university with kids plaing ultimate frisbee. finally, Gordon has some time, after having a meeting/interview with some major financial company already recruiting him hard, he still has 2 years left in his degree. clearly this guy is going to be made!

after chilling in UPenn university store, i went to meet up at some corner but didnt realise i was already there, when i left the store, and saw gordon already there in a sharp suit talking on his expensive phone. anyway, go to this calssy retro restaurant called the pod and have a nice crab pad thai meeting up with Justin and Mike, which was cool. anyway, being mid-week everyone is well busy, so they go back to studying and im back to Gordon's crazy nice flat in a closed community.  I watch a film on his widescreen whilst he's off to another meeting and has some project to wirte up!! 24/7.  Upenn is one of the top colleges in the US and is a private one, which mean s like harvard kids, they have to pay around $50000 a year to study there, but in return, they have really great facilities and resources and a really excellent campus. could you imagine if cambridge here got the same sort of financial investment!

anyway, the next morning, i go and have breakfast before leaving for Boston, with Gordon and his girl, who's pretty cool. After a cinnabon, a sickly sweet breakfast bun, im off in search of how i might get to boston.