Best Friend Friday No. 4

This past Friday, Lauren and I hopped on the subway and headed out to Old City. We haven't been to this area of the city since moving to Philadelphia in September. However, when we were visiting in May, the hotel we stayed at was in Old City and so we went a lot of our downtime walking around and touring this neighborhood.

One of the many places we went to in May was Old City T-Shirts. Between Lauren, Leti, my mom, and I, we picked up several t-shirts. This shop is pretty cool because you first pick out whichever color and style of t-shirt you want and then you get to pick out the design. They have a few dozen Philadelphia-ish designs and a variety of colors to choose from. The owner then takes your shirt downstairs and prints your chosen design on the shirt in less than five minutes, and best of all, the shirts are very affordable! Lauren and I picked two up this time, one for Abby and one for a birthday present.  

Afterwards, we walked from Old City to Rittenhouse Square. Although it was a chilly gloomy day, the walk was nice and didn't seem that long at all. A Japanese-based clothing store recently opened in Philadelphia, and Lauren has been wanting to check out their thermal heattech layers, so it seemed like the perfect time to do so. When we walked into Uniqlo I was a bit overwhelmed. The store is three floors, and because I wasn't familiar with their clothing or setup, we were browsing the men's section for awhile before we realized we were in the completely wrong area. Once we found the women's department and a nice employee gave us the "new customer talk-through", Uniqlo seemed much easier to navigate. I tried on two tops (the same top, different colors) and a pair of cords. All of the items were pretty comfortable, but the sleeves on the tops were just way too weird for me, and the cords weren't skinny enough at the ankles. Leaving the dressing room, I was expecting to go home empty handed and I was perfectly content with that. Then I found Lauren in the thermal layers section of the store and unexpectedly felt the need to purchase heattech layers as well. As I was waiting in line to buy my items, there was a wall display of tights and leggings (also heattech) that called my name and I realized how imperative it was to pick up a pair of tights as well. I ended up buying black cable knit tights, a long-sleeve striped thermal top, and a pair of gray thermal leggings. I obviously needed all of these things. I have to admit, this store is pretty cool and not so horribly priced.

Next it was lunch time, my favorite time! I scoured one of my newly favorite websites (vegphilly.com), and based on our whereabouts, chose to go to Mi Lah Vegetarian. As we were approaching the restaurant, the building looked oddly familiar, like I had been there before. We stopped to look at the menu before entering, and the menu seemed unfamiliar to me, so I thought the outside appearance was just a coincidence. But as soon as we set foot in the dining area, I knew I had been there before. More specifically, my dad and I had ordered take out from this restaurant two years ago. I remember exactly what my meal looked like and I wasn't that fond of it. But when we sat down to dine this time and I looked over the menu for the second time, I was pleasantly surprised that this menu was completely different from anything I ordered before. I ordered the marinated seitan burger with sweet potato fries; Lauren ordered creamy cauliflower soup and a black bean quesadilla with seitan taquitos. Everything was so delicious and I can't wait to go there again!

Unfortunately we didn't have my beloved pizza for Friday night pizza night. But we did indulge in some yummy homemade vegan pumpkin pie ice cream that I made the night before using Minimalist Baker's recipe. That's some serious good stuff right there!

Even though Friday was Halloween and the most festive thing we did was snack on pumpkin pie ice cream, that's perfect for me. I enjoy walking around the city like a tourist and spending all day with my bestie!