South Street

South Street was said to be the edgiest street in Philadelphia. We took a stroll down the street from 12th and South down to Penns Landing. There are no shortage of restaurants, bars, gift shops and boutiques. The facade of many stores need some fresh paint. Part of South Street seem a bit desolate. Not a bad place to walk around if you have couple hours to kill, but definitely not worth the hype, IMHO.

Touring the City

Double deckers are not rare, but look at the Big Red Pedicycle, a 15-person bike! Isn’t it cool? I also read there is a Philly Cheesesteak Tour, which take guests to sample 5 different cheesesteaks in the city, including the Jim’s on South Street (see below).

Isaiah Zagar’s Mosaic Work

Philadelphia’s Magic Garden houses Isaiah Zagar’s mosaic artwork and his visionary environment. They offer very limited tickets each day, so we only got to see the public work around the garden on South Street. Isaiah Zagar started creating mosaic art since the 60s, so you can imagine there are lots of walls covered. As the saying “Beauty is in the eye of the beholders”, though the artwork is pretty impressive, I think not every piece was that pretty. They seem to look better in the pictures.

Jim’s Steak

Okay, this week, I did my homework. Almost every website about dining on South Street says the best cheesesteak on the Street, or Philly for that matter, would be Jim’s. We got there around 3:30. Can you believe the line?! However, the line did move quite quickly. It took about 40 minutes to get inside the store. There was more waiting inside, but then there was plenty to read. The guys were working non-stop, and were very pleasant. We got 3 sandwiches, 1 to go and 2 for the store. They wrapped the one for Alex and put it in a nice shopping bag. We went upstairs and was able to get a table by the window. Boy oh boy, the cheesesteak was so good! It definitely was worth the wait. I got cheese whiz and Jie got American Cheese. I think cheese whiz tasted better, more cheesy, creamy and flavorful.