Travelogue IV: Philadelphia and New Jersey
I knew Philadelphia was from a movie named Philadelphia. The story impressed me for decade. However, this time I indeed didn’t find anything fun to enjoy due to the tightening trip time. We kept on driving through the city. From Mr. White’s notes, we know that Philadelphia is well known for its sandwich, called Philip cheese steaks. Seafood they seem proud of is crab cakes. They also take pride in their Italian foods. If you are looking for asthenic foods at the area, those are dishes to try.
Going through Philadelphia, we arrived in New Jersey. The very first thing that we needed to do was to find a hotel near the Status of Liberty. We were going to visit there next day. The hotel there became much more expensive than in Baltimore. It took us four hours to find a decent hotel. Its price of $90/night was accepted. I couldn’t tell you how old the building was exactly. But, from its old facilities, I guessed it was built one century ago. The main reason for us to choose it was the room was clean and warm. The negative sides were the blanket looked like a fishing net spreading with many holes. The queen size bed narrowed than the standard one. We both had no chance to turn over the bodies. Anyway, our purpose was not enjoying the living in the hotel instead of visiting the Statue of Liberty on the Liberty Island and Ellis Island.
Liberty Island is the part of New Jersey and also the part of New York. The Island is an exclave of the New York City (Manhattan Island), surrounded by the waters of Jersey City, New Jersey [1].
The Statue of Liberty [1] is a copper statue, which situates on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York. It is a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States on October 28, 1886. The Statue of Liberty is a figure of Libertas. The statue became an icon of freedom of the United States, a national park tourism destination, and is a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from abroad.
Ellis Island is in Upper New York Bay, east of Liberty State Park and north of Liberty Island, in Jersey City, New Jersey, with a small section that is part of New York City. It was the gateway for over 12 million immigrants to the U.S. as the United States' busiest immigrant inspection station for over 60 years [2] from 1892 until 1954. Ellis Island was opened in January 1, 1892. The island was greatly expanded with land reclamation between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a naval magazine. The island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965 and has hosted a museum of immigration.
Visiting Liberty Island was one of the most impressed experiences of our entire trip to the east coast. Ferries provide transportation to both Liberty Island and Ellis Island. One ferry ticket provides access to both islands. The admission for transportation by ferry service was $18 /person. The parking fee was $7. The tickets include access to Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration and Statue of Liberty in one day. We took an early ferry departure. It was a sunny day, but chilly and windy. The temperature was too low to let us stay long. We only used three hours to finish the tour.
References
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty.
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Island
