Friday 12/3/04 -
Philadelphia PA Layover
Jenn and I met up at Logan Airport in Boston at around 6:30pm, and with our eticket there was pretty much NO line at all. For some reason a ton of people were in a long line waiting for real humans. I highly recommend etickets to everyone! A quick trip through security, and suddenly we were at our gate with lots of time to kill before our 8:30 departure. We had a lovely dinner at the Legal Seafoods, with a pink sangria recipe to add to my wine website. There was in fact a 7:30 flight to Philly, so we asked if we could get on that. The airline woman was sort of short with us and said we'd have to go to the main desk. Since the lines were so short at security and the eticket gate, we happily walked the short distance back to the main desk and asked. They said that they couldn't do it there - that it had to be done at the actual gate. OK, so we went back through the short security line and asked the woman again. She said nope, it's too late now :) I sense a plot.
The photos on this page are all from Jenn's camera-phone.
I spent the time calling hotels in Philly but there was an Army-Navy game in town and literally EVERY one except the $300-a-night one by the hotel was full.
Soon enough we were on our plane, and landing in Philly at about 10pm. Now came the decision. We didn't leave again until 7:50am! We tried to call Steve - a Mensan who I'd been emailing with - but he wasn't answering the phone. We called around to the various hotels left on my list and all were full up. So we called Hertz and they said they still had cars. We took the shuttle to the Hertz office and it turns out the only car they had was a Taurus with a GPS for $90/night. Yikes! Well, it was better than nothing. We took it and programmed in the address for the Miramoto restaurant.
An easy 15 minutes later, we were pulling into a lot by the marked address, although we didn't see the restaurant there. We got out and walked down the street. The only way we knew it was the right spot was by the address, that it fell between two other buildings with bracketing numbers. There was only a tiny sign, big wooden doors, and no windows on this building. Talk about secret!
In we go, and what a cool restaurant! The ceiling was undulating wooden planks. The walls were carved in stucco. The booths had waist-high plastic dividers between them that cycled through various colors as the evening progressed. It was CHOCK full with people in sleek black outfits and we had to wait, even at 11pm at night, for a table to become free. Soon Steve showed up to join us.
in blue phase
the carved walls
tables had plastic candles and chopsticks on a crystal sphere holder
elegant sashimi offerings
the black container is soy sauce
Jenn's came on a wooden tray
the chopstick holder is in the background here
This restaurant is run by the famous Miramoto Iron Chef from the Food Network's Iron Chef program. The food was delicious! And the wait staff was very friendly and helpful. They even let us put a quick order in at midnight, right before the kitchen closed.
Miramoto Sushi Website
Then Steve drove us around town showing us the Liberty Bell, the area that Rocky ran through, the Italian farmer's market, and all sorts of other cool stuff. It was great! By 1:30 we were back in our car and driving back towards the airport. We pulled into a hotel parking lot and - even though the temperatures were dropping to around 30F - piled on the clothes and took a nap in the car. It seemed safer to sleep in a locked car than to try to sleep in the reception area of the airport. The windows became frosty, but we were relatively snuggly under our piles of clothes. Keep this in mind when you hear how we slept tomorrow night :)
Our alarm woke us up at 5am, we returned the car, went back to the airport, and checked in our bags. By 8am we were on a plane flying towards Costa Rica!
Saturday - The Arenal Volcano
Costa Rica Travelogue Main Page
Lisa's Travelogue Pages