Weekend in Philadelphia
Saturday Erci drove us up to Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia to stay at the posh Rittenhouse Hotel for a couple of nights. We’ll be visiting with Tasha (she took us to a restaurant Jim recommended).
This hotel is posh. We were welcomed with champaign and strawberries. Our suite is like a small apartment. They brought fresh fruit when they turned down the bedding while we walked around the square. The bedding is very nice, and there is a spa we probably will not have time to enjoy, but the idea is pleasant enough. The alarm clock/radio is also a dock for iPods, and you can play your iPod through the thing if you prefer. The TV has a DVD player.
When we walked in the square, we passed a bunch of people practicing with plastic light sabres. The little bit of Western martial arts training I have has ruined the fun of seeing this sort of thing because now I can’t help but see flaws in the fighting styles I witness.
The Mexican restaurant, Cantina Los Caballitos, is very, very yummy (Thanks Jim!). We ordered too much because it all sounded so good, and Tasha got stuck with some take-home left-overs. Fabulous conversation outside on a perfect night with just a slight breeze.
Sunday morning Tasha picked us up and took us to a Zen tea ceremony, liturgy chanting (Heart Sutra) and Dharma discussion in New Jersey at Pine Wind Zen Center. It was very different from our normal Soka Gakkai meetings, but interesting. The discussion was excellent, and focused on extending the compassion parents have for children to other human beings. We had much to talk about on the way back to Philadelphia.
Erci had to study for her MBA class a little, and Tasha had to do some child-care duties, so I was left to walk over to Philadelphia’s beautiful Rodin Museum on my own, which turned out to be splendid as I had plenty of time to contemplate the sculptures that inspired me, and was also free to rush by the ones I was not interested in. There were several that inspired me, including: “The Man with the Broken Nose,” “The Hand of God,” “Shame (Absolution),” and “Kneeling Fauness.” The thing that continues to strike me about Rodin’s work is the hands. So alive, so expressive, so much energy and tension. Amazing. Awesome. Wow…
Wow, just wow. If you are at all interested in dance, you need to get to a local showing of the live traveling show “So You Think You Can Dance” with the top dancers from the TV show of the same name. We saw a lot of the same routines we saw during the competition on TV, but the dancers have had time to refine the routines and polish their performances. Also they added a few new routines. The show was fantastic.
Thank you Erci, for scoring tickets and making us go to Philadelphia to see the show!
Monday was a vacation day for me, and we came back from Philadelphia, and then I caught a couple dance lessons and an episode of season 1 Heroes.
