Teacher Wanderer: New Jersey- New York- Philadelphia- Canada Trip (Part 2)

Wednesday, June 06, 2018

New Jersey- New York- Philadelphia- Canada Trip (Part 2)

At the Liberty State Park where we had a good view of the iconic Statue of Liberty.

All geared up after being well-rested the night before, we drove on the way to Liberty State Park where we planned to ride a ferry and see the iconic Statue of Liberty. However, when I realized that the view of the statue from the park was good enough, I told David we didn’t need to ride a ferry to get a closer look. It’s known for a long queue and we knew that we won’t have enough time to see other places if we stayed there for so long. Visit to New York was limited since we needed to head back to Philadelphia in the afternoon to meet my friend who would be arriving from Italy.

The drive to New York was crazy. Traffic was bad and tolls were confusing. Instead of stressing ourselves of missing the turns and paying several times in the same toll, we chose to just enjoy the ride. I also find it ridiculous to pay $15 in Lincoln tunnel. It was worth the drive though because we were able to enjoy the beautiful day at Central Park.

We were surprised that we easily found a free parking area right in front of the park. Interestingly, Central Park is bigger than Vatican City. It contains several lakes, theaters, ice rinks, fountains, tennis courts, many playgrounds, and baseball fields. It was so amazing being surrounded with trees and giant sculptures of rocks amidst the city with skyscraper buildings. Central Park makes New York such a nice place to live knowing that you could just walk there and breathe some fresh air. Of course, David enjoyed playing with the pigeons and he ended up having a bird poop on his shirt.

The next stop was back in New Jersey for some taste of Filipino cuisine. Jollibee makes the visit in different states complete. As always, it was full packed mostly with Filipinos.

After enjoying the delicious lunch comprised with palabok, chicken, peach mango pie, halo- halo, and hotdog, we headed to the two-hour-drive to Philadelphia. Unfortunately, I booked the wrong hotel. Hilton has several hotels and I chose the one about thirty-minutes from where Mich was staying. King of Prussia where our hotel was located was breathtakingly beautiful though. We were so near the King of Prussia Mall known for being the largest mall in the U.S. in terms of leasable space. Mich and I decided to just meet the following day since our hotel was not as near to hers as we initially thought.

We ended the day shopping and enjoying the rest of our Hilton complimentary cookies in the comfort of our room.