Day two in Philly was by far the longest day I ever had on vacation. We got up at 6:45 a.m. Saturday and didn’t go to bed till 4:30 a.m. on Sunday. LOL. Apparently I always do this to myself when I travel – I pack in too much. =P

We got breakfast in the hotel lobby to start off our morning. After we finished checking out, we headed straight to the Independence Visitor Center to pick up our vouchers for our tour of Independence Hall for 10:00 a.m. The great thing about Philly is that all the historic attractions are in the same vicinity, so it was easy to walk to the next location. Another great thing is that Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell Center are both free attractions. However, both have security checks, so there could be long queues before you actually get into the building.

We spent the majority of the morning touring Independence Hall and Congress Hall. I never studied American history, so it was kind of interesting learning about the historical significance from an American perspective. I think I finally got a good idea of where American patriotism comes from. Everything in Philly had the words independence, liberty or freedom attached to it. =P

I must admit though, while both Independence Hall and Congress Hall were quite fascinating even to a non-historian like me, the Liberty Bell Center was sort of the opposite. That could be because…the bell is cracked. LOL. While I’m sure it’s a symbolic relic in the hearts of Americans, I can’t understand why I waited 20 minutes to pass through security check to see a broken bell.

After we left the Liberty Bell Center, we went on a walk towards the nearby shops and residential area. We stopped briefly by Franklin Court to see the location of where Benjamin Franklin used to live. The printing office is still in operation (although I’m sure it’s mostly for show these days). We passed by the Betsy Ross house (she designed the American flag) and also saw Elfreth’s Alley and Christ Church. Elfreth’s Alley is one of the oldest residential streets in Philly and has maintained its look throughout the years. Christ Church used to be the tallest building in Philadelphia when it was built between 1727 to 1744. The interior is quite breathtaking.

For lunch we headed over to Campo’s to try their famous cheese steak. I ordered one with mushrooms and provolone cheese, while my sister tried one with Cheez Whiz. Both were equally good in my opinion.

Later that afternoon we went to the Constitution Center, which was also included as part of our City Pass. If I could choose again, I would have gone to the Philadelphia Zoo (the voucher was good for either attractions, but not both). The Constitution Center was a complete snooze fest, to the point where I actually fell asleep listening to some lady’s 20 minute soliloquy about how the constitution was formed. (T___T)

After we left the Constitution Center, I ran into a bit of a problem taking the SEPTA subway back downtown. This is a long pathetic side story, but if there’s one thing I learned from my experience taking the Septa is this: buying tokens and day passes will cause you unnecessary grief.

(Start side story: Basically in Philly, the subway stops work the same way as NYC – if you need to travel in a certain direction, make sure you enter at the correct street corner. After we figured out which direction we needed to go, we headed down to the platform to buy tokens. Since there were no token machines available, we had to buy them from the operator inside the booth. We already had exact change out, but the operator was too busy counting his float to take our money. This was 3:00 p.m. How do you not have a working float at 3:00 p.m.?!?! Since he looked like he would be taking forever, I had to walk back up the stairs, cross the street, then down the stairs again to buy tokens on the other side. However, the token machine didn’t accept my bills. And of course, I falsely assumed that the operator inside the booth would sell tokens, because you know, they DON’T apparently. I was pretty much ready to murder someone at that point. Long story short – we ended up buying tokens from the original operator, since he was finally done counting his float by the time I walked back over to the other side. End part 1 of my Philly subway story.)

After we made it back downtown, we took photos by City Hall and the LOVE sculpture inside JFK Plaza. Then it was time to collect our luggage and board the train towards Atlantic City. The journey was just under two hours and we had to change trains once in Jersey. When we finally got there, we took the shuttle towards Tropicana Hotel. I actually booked a room at the nearby Quality Inn, which only cost me $65 for two double beds including breakfast. In comparison to the Tropicana, which would have been closer to $200 a night, it was a steal!

The weather had turned extremely frigid by the time we arrived that there was absolutely no one walking outside in AC. It was a totally different feel than in Vegas, where there was an extreme overflow of pedestrians on the streets. After we rested a bit we went out to look for food. Since it was an hour’s wait at P.F. Chang’s, they told us to wait at the shops upstairs. Upon entering the Tropicana, I finally clued in that people in Atlantic City hibernate indoors. =P

While I was starving by the time we got our table, the service at P.F. Chang’s was excellent. Food was surprisingly good for American-style Chinese. We ate their chicken lettuce wrap, ginger chicken with broccoli and their crispy honey shrimp. The price was pretty reasonable for two people and I even drank two glasses of wine, which I hardly ever do. (And surprisingly didn’t get drowsy afterwards.)

Since we lost an hour waiting for our table, it meant we only had time for a 20 minute nap back at our hotel before we had to head out again. I will make a separate post about my first 1:00 a.m. concert in the next entry. =)