Kelly Dr. is beautiful year round and everyone jogs on the path along the river, and I did too. It's an upscale meat market.
I love the row houses in Philly. These row houses were the homes of famous individuals in the late 1700s, but by the 1950s urban blight almost caused them to be destroyed. Now they go for easily $1million.
Best art museum I've ever been to. Drew and I had membership passes and went there every Friday night to listen to Jazz when we were dating.
When I first moved to Philly, I'd never been to such a big city and I wandered around the Benjamin Franklin Parkway gawking at the buildings like a big ole dumb tourist. To this day, I am amazed I didn't get mugged.
I miss Chinatown... a lot. No Chinatown in Pittsburgh, no Chinatown in Buffalo. Where do I go for my fresh baked moon cakes and buns with red bean paste? And where do I buy my lucky cats now? No, really. I need to know. Toronto?
The best for the last...the mummers parade. The best description I've heard of the mummers parade is Broadway meets Mardi Gras. Its Broadway in terms of the performance and costumes. Its mardi gras thanks to the drunkenness of the participants. I think every year I've fended off a drunk mummer trying to hit on me! You get up early in the morning. Get to Broad St. with your chair and thermos of coffee (because it's January 1st) and you sit for for hours and watch the show and then you leave because it's freezing cold and you watch the rest of it on television. If you're hard core, you stay all eight hours and party with the mummers at the mummers houses after the parade. I'm not hardcore. Here's a link as I'm guessing few of you know much about the Mummers parade.
It also rained gumdrops and snowed skittles in Philly...I'm crossing my fingers that it snows skittles in Buffalo and that I'll love Buffalo as much as Philly.
Mukti means "Freedom from some crushing influence or burden/nirvana/freedom/Liberation/Salvation" in more than a handful of Indian languages including the dead Sanskrit. Does it have a meaning in Swahili too? Most interesting...
yes, miss holly lulu is one cool chick, as is my most adorable most pregnant friend with a cool south african name (mukti)- she runs the friday night stuff. :)
Toronto has a Chinatown that makes all other Chinatowns look dinky and hokey.
Toronto's Chinatown is enormous, and hard-core. There are entire blocks where there are no signs in English. We were last there on a rainy day and no tourists were out, but there was a giant demonstration going on down both sides of one main street with huge banners in Chinese and someone with an industrial sound system blaring out Chinese speech. Some of the signs were in English-- it was a protest about some political event in China, and I don't even know what it was.
There is a reason that Toronto was the largest Western hub for SARS and it is not hygeine-- Toronto is a very clean city-- but the sheer fact that there is so much traffic back and forth to China, and just so many Chinese people there.
So yes, Buffalo's Chinatown is condensed into Toronto. Which is well worth a visit, but at the moment the exchange rate will rape you horribly.
I have only been to Philly once-- and I had hurt my foot, so I saw the art museum in a borrowed wheelchair. I totally recommend that way of getting around-- you just ask for one when you come in. We all hung our coats on it and occasionally when I felt OK I'd let someone else ride in it for a while-- it's the only way to see the entirety of a huge museum.
As for the Albright-Knox, mentioned below-- it is focused on modern art, and has a crazy awesome collection. More importantly, the assistant curator whose name is on every wall is particularly beloved to me, as she skates as Holly Lulu on the Nickel City Knockouts, my roller derby team. Look out for #33!! She knows her modern art. And wears her hair like a silent film star.
BTW, I actually meant:
Now, I *can't* wait to go there. :)
And you were amazed that you weren't mugged?!
Hmmmmm.....
And my conference is just a block or two away from the Farmer's market!!!!
OMG! You did a lovely post for me!! That is SO NICE of you! Thanks a million times over!
Now I can wait to go there... :)
Thank you! I am just speechless!
I don't know about the mega fries at Pats, but eating a cheesesteak from there in mid march, freezing my ass off right before a Stereolab show at the theater of living arts is my fondest memory of Philly. My brother and I contemplated trying Gino's after the show to compare, but by that point I had some really nasty indigestion.
oh man i visited a friend in philly and we went to the street market... wowser!
i think i spent about 4.50 and walked away with the two biggest bags of produce and fresh bread ever! i loved it!
funny... when I was deciding on med school, I had to choose between philly and new orleans. I ended up in New Orleans.
But that mummer's parade is VERY mardi-gras-esque- I was surprised. And I'm not talking about the drunkenness- more the costumes, structure, etc.
Ok, so I guess that's not so much "funny" as "random coincidence".
Oy, it's time for me to go to bed.
Have you been to the Albright Knox? pound for pound it is one of the best museums I have ever been too.
My best friend used to live in Phily. Getting mega-fries at Pat's. Going to the Mummer museum. Taking copious quantities of drugs in the giant cemetery or staring at the faces carved into the cornices of the buildings of Penn state. OH! and wonderful South street. So much fun.