A Day Trip OF Philly

Work wise last year was a crazy year for me, every other month I had to visit our office in US. I will take a flight on Sunday Morning from Hyderabad and reach US in the evening same day after a 22 hour journey.  Office will start at 7:30 am in the morning, and before I could adjust to the time zone change it will be Friday, time to come back so that I can reach India office on Monday morning. So much for those who say going to US is fun.

Truth be told it used to be fun in the earlier days of my career when I will have others travelling with me and we would stay there for more than 2 weeks. This would give us 2 weekends to explore the surrounding areas and even take overnight journeys by greyhound (never had enough money to take flights in those days in US) to reach even far flung places like Niagara Falls.

Fortunately one of my trips last year got extended by 2 days and I had to stay over the weekend in US. The ghumakkar in me was so excited that immediately I made plans to visit the city of Philadelphia the birthplace of American Revolution and democracy. I have always wanted to visit Philly as it is fondly called by proud citizens, who have never forgotten the fact that Philadelphia  (watch the video its is awesome) was the original capital of the Independent United State before DC was built from ground up. Once DC came up the political power shifted to Washington DC and financial power moved to New York, but unlike sulking on its lost crown like the erstwhile capital of Raj in India, Philly moved on and reinvented itself and today is one of the top 5 cities in US.

Soon Philly lost its political clout to DC and the financial muscle moved to the big apple, but Philadelphia retained its title as the birthplace of democracy and continues to be one of the most prominent centers for higher education in the USA.

Anyways this is not a history class it is about my short trip to Philly on a July afternoon. I was warned by my colleagues not to go to Philly as it will be very hot, but I brushed their worries aside mentioning that I am from Delhi and nothing can beat the Delhi heat. How wrong I was, it turned out to be one of the hottest day in the history of Philadelphia with me on the top of an open bus trying to capture pictures through my cell phone

I started my journey towards the local train station to take the train towards downtown Philadelphia. From there the plan was to take one of those hop on hop down bus tours and enjoy the city from top of the open bus. As I was walking towards the train station it dawned on me that the suburbs in US are not designed for pedestrians specially the areas around turnpikes and under bridges as nobody is expected to walk there. As I was struggling to cross the road because the button at the road cross signal was not working suddenly a police car stopped next to me and cop emerged out of it. He was very polite but firm and wanted to know what I am doing  near the under bridge. It was obvious he thought I am an illegal alien or a drug dealer and had one of his hands on his hip next to the gun, with other hand he was gesticulating vigorously. I patiently explained to him that I am trying to cross the road and the button to stop the traffic is not working. You see unlike the city center and downtime where all roads have pavement for pedestrians most suburbs are designed for cars as nobody walks in suburbs. Even if you want to go for a jog you take your car to designated area and then go for your jog not on the roads.

My explanation kind of calmed him and he came out and helped me cross the road by signalling the traffic to stop. But not before warning me that I could get killed if I tried to cross the road like this and it is my lucky day that he was passing by. I thanked him and he went his way after making a call to report the button not working. I did not even want to compare all this with back home in India where there are no buttons for pedestrians to cross road and even if there are who will stop for poor pedestrians?

The local train (SEPTA) came on time and took me to downtown Philadelphia. I got down at Market Street and immediately walked to the hop on hop down bus service that for around 50 dollars takes you to a city tour of Philly attractions and has 24 hours validity. The day was getting hotter but I was excited to see some of the places I have read in school books and seen in movies.  We have a lot to learn from Americans on how to do marketing, a country with 300 years history markets itself better than India which has 5 millennium of recorded history.

I was not carrying my camera as I never thought I will get opportunity to click pictures so the pictures in this post are of poor quality taken from my mp faithful Nokia phone. Unfortunately due to intense heat I did not had the energy to go to all the places and also the indoor air-conditioned attractions like museums etc. had a huge Q of people to get in. As nobody wanted to stay out but get into the cool indoors. Most tourist attractions have a small cafeteria where you can get snacks, though veg food can be a challenge at places.

The open bus takes you through the major attractions of the city and you can get down and spend as much time as you want at the places you like and then board the next bus. It was wonderful to watch the city pass by from the top of the bus with the breeze touching your face. Especially colorful was the china town part of the city which suddenly takes you to the heart  of mainland china in downtown Philly.

Philadelphia has lots of statues in the parks and roads most of them of historical figures like Presidents and war heroes  specially popular being President Lincoln’s statue on Kelly Drive, I could not take its picture as the bus was moving too fast. But I was able to take picture of the statue of chief justice John Marshall outside the west gate of Franklin Institute. Ever heard of a Judge’s statue in India? If yes please inform me.  There is also a controversial statue of the Italian Stallion Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa a must for movie buffs as the story of Rocky series is in Philly. The guides in the buses were very knowledgeable and were telling a lot of stories about not only the city but also some of the controversies going in the city. The controversy around Ricky’s statue was another one.

Other place I wanted to visit was the Philadelphia Zoo, for the simple reason that it houses one of the oldest recorded living creatures on earth, a tortoise/turtle, collected from the Galapagos Islands. This one is almost 100 years old and has seen the two world wars and more in his life time. As all of them in the enclosure looked same I am not sure which one of them in the picture is the older one. Another turtle died some time back and was believed to be 150+ years old when he died.

Next I took a ferry across the Delaware River, which has its own place in history of US. Just type “Washington Crossed ….’” in Google to find out. The reason I crossed the Delaware was that there is huge aquarium across the river which houses marine animals and I wanted to show my kids pictures of sharks all around me as I passed under a glass tunnel.

It is a very unique experience though you know you are safe behind the glass but still when a shark looks you in eyes you pray that she is not hungry! The pictures did not come out good hence are not being given  here. But you can check the website of the aquarium here. The fun part is an open pond with sting rays and other fish which you are allowed to touch. I touched one of the sting rays and and a baby shark and they were very slimy kind of things. I don’t plan to do it again I don’t think it is a good thing to disturb the poor creatures.

When we were crossing the river we saw a  huge battle ship anchored in Delaware River called USS NEW JERSEY this is supposed to be the most decorated battleship in the history of US navy and is now a museum, open to public. I did not had time to go and check the museum but took some pictures from the moving ferry. The ship is so huge that  it did not came in one frame as you can see from the picture. Another thing to note is that although Philly is one of the most densely populated cities in US the Delaware water is clean and I saw a lot of birds swimming in it, unlike the sewer we have made our supposedly holy  rivers like Musi, Ganga and Yamuna.

As I had to take the evening train back to my hotel from Philly I could not see a lot of places like the Independence bell, house of Benjamin Franklin and many more historical places in the city as each had a huge line in front of it. But the 8 hours spent in Philadelphia downtown on top of a bus would be remembered by me for a long time to come.

Quick tip: Most of the tickets are available online and it is better to buy tickets online to save time as then you can straight walk up to the entry. Philly has lots of attraction make a list before hand what all you want to visit and plan  your trip accordingly as they are not close to each other and if you are short of time then  you need to plan well.  Whether you take Bus or own car, please be prepared to walk a lot as just from parking lot to the main building in most cases would be a good walk.

Check this website for more information on Philly:   http://www.visitphilly.com