Philadelphia part I - Of UPenn, cheesesteak and the Liberty Bell

I'm back from my trip to the East Coast!

It was originally supposed to be a week long trip to New York City, but my group and I decided to make a pit stop in Philadelphia as well. KL and I travelled to the east coast this time with another couple, but it was great fun as they are fellow Singaporeans as well as kindred foodies!

The four of us probably did the craziest time ever by rushing to Philly on our very first day on the east coast. Our plane touched down at JFK at approximately 6am and we had to immediately lug our luggage to get to NYC's Chinatown to catch a bus to Philly. The east coast is 3 hours ahead of the west coast, so we were jetlagged and cold, not to mention starving when we arrived in Philly.

We took it easy on the first day and made it to UPenn to soak in the college town atmosphere. I contemplated buying a Wharton sweatshirt to wear it to one of my future UCI Merage mixers, but gave up as I decided that it would be too pesky ;)

Here's me catching my breath outside the UPenn bookstore.

Wearing Vanessa Bruno sweaterdress+scarf, Helmut Lang cashmere sweater, Rick Owens leather jacket, Ksubi black jeans, Ann Demeulemeester boots, Miu Miu black coffer and a "I heart NY" sticker ;)

A note about the weather then - I had underestimated how cold the east coast would be, so I really piled on the layering all the time! Expect to see the Rick Owens jacket a lot as well as my blue military jacket in all my pictures for this trip. (And yes, I finally took the plunge and got myself an RO, but I would save that story for another post, as well as how the Yaya Aflalo vapor jacket compares to it.)

On the second day, we decided that we must try out the Philly's cheesesteak before we went to visit the Liberty Bell and the Independence Hall. So we checked out Pat's and Geno's, both proclaimed to be Philly's best when it comes to cheesesteak. Unfortunately, both KL and I only had the stomach for one, so the 4 of us ate at Geno's...no special reason for choosing it over Pat's. We ate there because we reached there first ;)

A picture of Pat's (left):

KL and I posing with Geno's cheesesteak:

A close-up of the cheesesteak:

The verdict? I'm sorry Philadelphians, but personally I find that Geno's cheesesteak is not all that it's cut out to be. Maybe I should have ordered it wet or asked for more onions, but I wanted to taste the beef and it wasn't really all that well-seasoned to me. Still, it was a great experience and the cheese fries were not too bad.
That doesn't mean though that I think Pat's is better. I have no opinion on Pat's as I have not eaten there.

After the meal, we headed back to Independence Hall for the tour. Here's a picture of a very special room that I'm compelled to show:

This is the exact room that the US' Declaration of Indepedence was signed in. According to our guide, the moldings in the room itself have been made over several times, but the chairs and the light fixtures are original. So yup, that chair on the dais is probably the very one that George Washington sat in.

It started to drizzle heavily when we reached the Philadelphia Museum of Art, so it was a good thing that we would be spending most of our times indoors.

KL and me being corny and doing the Rocky run on the steps leading to the museum:

That's all for my first post on Philadelphia! Check back next for a detailed post on my favourite exhibition in the museum:

"Hello! Fashion: Kansai Yamamoto"

I promise fashion porn pictures ;)