Thanksgiving in Philly

Spent my thanksgiving in philly this year with Troy, Sandra, Tina, Sue and Papa. It was a very relaxing time.
We left for philly on Wed., 11/24, on an Amtrak train. In fear of crowded thanksgiving travel, we got to the dupont metro station at 6p for our 7:10 train. Getting to the station turned out to be just fine and we get two benches on the train facing each other. This setting was prone to talking and we of course chatted almost the whole way. Once we were in philly, we had to take the local Septa(?) train. Sue picked us up near Lansdale although her house was closer to Doyelstown.
Late when we arrived and we each went to bed almost right away. 2nd morning, local attractions seemed to demand a visit. We went to Rolling Rocks where we banged rocks to receive sudden pleasure of musical tones coming out of cold, green-tinted rocks. After a whole night of rain shower, the trails were wet and slippery. By the time we got back to Sue's house, it was around noon already. Together, we headed to Papa's house where we'd have our thanksgiving meal. One thing worth mentioning was that I SMSed with laurie a number of times on the way to papa's. It was not exactly fancy, but the small family talks were cozy and really felt like family. Only that thanksgiving dinners are supposed to be a little standout, a little different.

That evening, we played Scrabble and I won.

On Friday after thanksgiving, we all decided to go into Philly. But first, we stopped by in New Hope, a quintessential Philadelphia town that is also a local tourist attraction. Little stores that sell interesting artifacts dotted the main street and there were some cafes all along the way.
Tina was riding the train back to DC that day and we had to leave for Philly early. Once we got in, we went straight to South Street to get cheesesteak from Jim's. To our surprise, the line swung outside of the store around the corner and extended half block from there. Tina couldn't possibly wait for that and subsequently took a cab to the train station. We walked around the independence hall and came back to Jim's. The cheesesteak I had was good, but one hour of wait seemed long. Tom, troy's childhood friend, met up with us at Jim's. Then we went to Rittenhouse Square. The whole place felt like New York. The streets were lined up with brand names that we hear all the time and stores with similar decors that we'd see anywhere else in the nation. Tired and cold from the wind, we went into Cosi's to have some S'More.
Then we went to Regal's on the way back to Sue's house to catch a movie. The only thing we could see was Kinsey, a professor who taught the nation to explore human sexuality. Interesting film althought there were some apparent flaws.

Then we went back to Sue's house. It was late and before long everyone hit the sack. 2nd morning I had to get up at 5am to catch a flight at the local Allentown airport to go to Atlanta and spent a day there working.

That was my Thanksgiving of 2004.

Poem

I really liked this poem.

既不回头，何必不忘；既然无缘，何需誓言。
今日种种，似水无痕；明夕何夕，君已陌路。

Some updates

A lot of things happened in the last month and I will probably be a little slower than usual to update this blog. First, I started to work at McKinsey on 10/7. The first a couple of days, I went through office training and got a new laptop and a blackberry. On 10/10, I went to Palo Alto again for a week long training program. Saw Dan and Frank again. Three people I met at the BCR were really cool: They were Robert Gates, Russell Roenick and Will Shaffer. Then, I had a week of beach time where I learned Access and took care of some administrative details. I was subsequently staffed to this project at Cingular and have been working there ever since. The hours are really really long!

My own laptop broke. I think I screwed up the harddrive. Another memorable thing was that I dressed up as General Tzo for Halloween. I basically bought a box and painted it white, then drew Chinese characters on it. My box was named "Panda Express." Alright there are a lot of details I need to expand on, but this is not the time. I will come back to this in the future. Also, I've decided to apply to law schools this year. We will see how it works out. As of now, I plan to send everything out by Thanksgiving.