Jen's Updates: Final Day in Philadelphia

I loved our last day in Philadelphia! Tabbi and I walked all over the city and found so many new hidden treasures!

The first place we visited isn't really a hidden treasure. I'm sure lots of people know about it - "Your Move" park. It's a park - across the street from City Hall. "Your Move" is comprised of oversized game pieces including dominoes, Monopoly, Parcheesi, checkers, chessman and bingo chips. Scattered around the plaza the whimsical artwork installation is intended to function as a catalyst for memory between childhood memory and adult responsibility. We spent a good chunk of time here playing around and having fun! Definitely one of the highlights of the trip!

Some nice old lady on her lunch break passed us and offered to take a couple pictures. Tabbi is known by all of our friends for being completely crazy! However, after taking a couple pictures the lady says nodding her head towards me, "Oh she's the crazy one isn't she?" LoL. Tabbi and I both laughed, but I took it as a compliment. :0)

We had heard so much about the famous Philly Cheese steak sandwiches namely from Pat's and from Geno's. They are right across the street from each other so we figured that the best thing to do is get one sandwich from each shop. Probably the best thing to do if you really want to compare is to get the exact same sandwich from each place. Our orders were a little different, but eh, I think we got the jist.

I really liked my sandwich from Geno's.

Tabbi really liked her sandwich from Pat's.

So I think it's a draw. I think that either way you go, you will be happy.
(On a side note, I actually got a Cheese Steak Sandwich our first day in Old Town Philadelphia. I think it was better than both of them (cheaper too) - but hey - it's about visiting the famous spots sometimes right!?)

Tabbi and I discovered something in Philadelphia called the Mural Mile. There are 17 murals painted on buildings throughout the city. You can walk from mural to mural and see artwork as well as different areas of the city. With our cell phones we were able to listen to the artists talk about the inspiration of their murals. Many times, the history of the neighborhood that we were in influenced what the painting was about. I really loved that aspect of it. History is so fun when you get to see the place that you are learning about instead of just reading about it from a book. I did take pictures of all the murals, but here are just a few ;0)
Autumn

Crystal Snowscape

The Theatre of Life

I really wish that the pictures could be larger. There is so much detail on the murals that is lost in the image and I wish I could point out all my favorite parts of each!
Taste of Summer

Building the City

Finding Home

One of the hidden treasures that we found is Philadelphia's Magic Gardens.

I pulled this little bit of information from their website:
Philadelphia's Magic Gardens is a folk art environment, gallery space, and nonprofit organization that showcases the work of mosaicist Isaiah Zagar. Located at the site of Zagar's largest public mosaic installation, the Magic Gardens includes a fully mosaiced indoor gallery and a massive outdoor labyrinthine mosaic sculpture. The installation, primarily consisting of found objects and contributions from the community, covers half a city block with myriads of tile, texture, and color. A walk through the labyrinth will reveal sculptures from Latin America and Asia, bicycle wheels from local South Street shop Via Bicycles, Zagar's hand-made tiles, and mirrors of every shape and size.
You should really check out their site because it has an awesome aerial view of the place. Tabbi and I sure enjoyed it though!

We ended our tour in the city back where we started - City Hall.

What's a protest without a little street music?

A popular east coast city activity in the fall is to leave the city, find an orchard and go fruit picking! We decided to go to Boyertown and visit Frecon Orchards to do some apple picking of our own. We didn't actually get to pick apples because it was a holiday and they closed early :0/ but we played around in the orchard and then went to their fruit stand and bought some apples to eat. I can't believe how many kinds they had! I loved it! It was a fun evening and I enjoyed being out in the country. Great ending to the trip!