Philly: Day Three

I’m sure you’ve realized by now that I’m a little psycho obsessive when it comes to planning trips.  I like to cram stuff into every minute of the day and see as much as possible.  Luckily my husband only complains slightly about the millions of miles I make him walk each day.

We kicked off our third morning with a group breakfast at the B&B with the newlyweds, Julianne and P&E.  Afterwards, M and I checked out of our room and made our way to our hotel for the next night. 

view from room

We then met up with Christina and Mike (our friends who are new Philly residents themselves and still qualify as newlyweds themselves) for some touring of the historic district of the city.  We wandered around the National Historical Park to see the sights.  

visitors center

Ben Franklin's grave- covered in pennies

on a bench

liberty bell

Next up was our tour of Independence Hall.  We got a brief history lesson about the founding of America and saw the place where the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution were drafted and signed.  

independence hall

where the documents were signed- original chair george washington sat in up front

After we had appeased the boys with some history lessons, it was time to eat!  We had signed up for a walking food tour through Chinatown by Free Tours on Foot.  Our tour group ended up being just the four of us and our guide Jenn did an awesome job.    The tour incorporated lots of fun facts about the area, the people, and, of course, the food. 

The first stop was one of my favorites- a Chinese bakery.  I always love these shops full of gorgeous homemade pastries and sweets, all usually ringing in at less than $1.  We loaded up on pineapple and red bean (yum) moon cakes, steamed pork buns, egg custard, and bbq pork sandwich bun. 

 

Next up was an underground Asian market.  We explored a bit of the unique grocery items and randomly found one of C’s favorite drinks from her childhood trips to Taiwan- apple flavored soda. 

Our next couple of stops were a mix of fun foods and Chinatown landmarks.  

yummy waffle, bubble tea, avocado milkshake

As gross as it sounds, the avocado milkshake was incredibly delicious and I’ve thought about it at least daily since we tried it. 

1986- year of the tiger

We ended our tour at more of a sit-down café and crammed lots more food into our already full bellies.  We got to experience soup dumplings (favorite), more pork filled pastries, moon cakes, bok choy, and scallion pancakes.  All were very tasty!  

At this point we said our goodbyes to C&M and rested up a bit before our next food stop (yes, more food… this is the bonus to making us walk 20 miles a day on vacation).  We capped off our night with a fun Mexican meal at Lolita.  We were too full to take part in restaurant week but still managed to share and sample lots of amazing foods with Julianne, Alyssa, and Matt.  Dinner was the perfect time to recap all of the fun parts of the wedding and discuss all our favorite parts of Ocho Rios since they were headed to a honeymoon in Jamaica the next morning.