On my way to be successful.: 2018

Sup guys, I have been quite busy with my summer job and finally got some time to write a travel diary after I have officially done with the summer job! Let me start the post with how we decide to hang out, I went with another 3 friends and we split our ways at Milwaukee as their final destination was Chicago while me and another friend would love to stay at Milwaukee as I have just been to Chicago 2 months ago. Here we go, we depart at 8 in the early morning and arrived Milwaukee at 11.30 am. My friends and I had a wonderful Chinese cuisine as our lunch at a restaurant that named Asian Fusion. I noticed all the customers there were the mainland Chinese students who are studying abroad because it was located right next to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. We ordered a plate of sliced beef in chili sauce (夫妻肺片） , a signature of SzeChuan cuisine which is called Mr and Mrs Smith in America, you can read more about the name at here. Not only that, we have fried garlic spareribs (蒜香排骨） and home-style tofu （家常豆腐）to go with our steamy white rice. All of us ended up our meal with a flavored bubble tea. Unfortunately, I have forgotten to take the last portrait of the food. Overall, I would rate a 9.5 out of 10 as it taste exactly like how it should be in Asia instead of cater the dishes for Americans.

We headed to Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory (The Domes), there are 3 bee-hive shaped domes that display a variety of plants with different category. Dessert dome, Tropical dome and Show dome are connected at the central lobby area where the guest pay for admission fee. The domes contains plant life that fits into their title depends on where their usual habitat is while the show dome changes from time to time with a theme such as seasonal (spring, summer, fall and winter), cultural (Japanese, Chinese, German and etc) also literary as well as historical interest. There is a bingo game that you could do at the lobby area, you will need to find the items that are written on the bingo paper in the specific dome and the one who found all in a shorter time period wins. It is a fun activity to do when you are there with friends. You can tell I had lots of fun there as I only have the spare time to take the one and only picture. Then, we dropped off our friends at the bus station and check in to our airbnb right after. I like the Indigo color of the house, the exterior looks fine and good but the interior was pretty old-fashioned. One thing I was unsatisfied was the cleanliness of the rooms, it was horrible as she does not clean the bathroom and the bedroom. I realized as there are yellowish stains on the bathtub and hairs are everywhere in the house except for the first floor which is the shared area. Definitely not a good memory, however, it doesn't stop me from booking accommodation from airbnb. It was too bad I didn't even bother to take pictures of it.

this is taken at the show dome

On the same evening, we went to the Swing park and the Public Market in the downtown Milwaukee. The river view from the swing park was amazing but sadly it was raining heavily on that day. There is a popular brewery at the side of the river attracting many people from around the world to try it out. Again, no pictures taken at the swing park as we were busy playing with it. On the other side, the interior of Milwaukee public market looks cozy and give a chilling vibes with the neon lights as their sign board. A wide variety of food can be found there, for examples, light snacks such as chocolates, cakes, ice-cream, beverages to heavy meal such as seafood and Mexican food to souvenirs like spices, Milwaukee merchandise and so on. I had fun walking around and look at what do they have there.

coffee/chocolate store

The dinner we had for our first day of the journey was Indian cuisine at India Garden which was recommended by our airbnb host. It was pretty good, I saw some similar dishes that we had back in Malaysia. For instance, they have chicken tandoori, chicken masala, cheese naan, briyani rice, roti prata and all kinds of curry. We ordered a dinner set for 2 that includes chicken 65 as the appetizer, chicken tandoori, lamb curry, chicken curry, plain naan, Indian long rice and kulfi which is a dessert that is pistachio flavored ice-cream. Chicken 65 is named after each kilogram of chicken needs 65 chilies to marinate. I personally thinks that rice was a little too dry, the meat of chicken curry was not tender enough and not a fan of the dessert. Overall, it was still a great meal with good company. We ended the night with going back to airbnb as we were tired from the long ride to Milwaukee.

the 3 different sauces were served with the salty chips

my favorite dish for that dinner (chicken 65)

chicken tandoori is not bad

naan was good

left shows lamb curry and chicken curry was on the right

The second day of our trip was very chilled because there is not much to do in Milwaukee HAHAHAH. We started our day at a French place called Le Reve Patisserie & Cafe, ordered 2 croissant with ham and smoked salmon with poached egg on top of each. I need a tea to refresh my mind after the bad experience living in the airbnb house, so I proceed in having a chamomile tea. It is my favorite type of tea as it is caffeine-free (if you know me enough, you will realize that I am weak in caffeine so I don't usually consume coffee or anything that contains caffeine). It has also several scientific proven benefits, well-known as helping in digestive system and improve sleep quality because it relieves anxiety and depression. The restaurant offers many different traditional French dessert but we were too full to order one. I enjoy a lot at this cafe so we decided to come back again the next day before leaving Milwaukee. Oh yeah, we got a ticket for parking wrongly, cost us 30 usd for that ugh.

smoked salmon croissant

ham & bacon croissant

please deal with my bare face HAHAHA

The weather continues to be rainy all day long, but its fine, we do not have a visit plan anyway. Just hanging around the downtown. Paid a visit to the Pier Lighthouse, walked along the East Wisconsin Avenue as it has 21 sculptures designed by global artists down the street, passed through the art museum (we didn't get in because I do not understand and appreciate art hahaha), relax at the lake side of Lake Michigan that looked like a beach with a fried chicken burger as snack. We then went to a authentic Korean restaurant which is just 2 miles away from the lake side. It looks pretty old and small but trust me that is a legit good meal. The owner is Korean so the food taste exactly like Korean food. We had a grilled bulgogi (grilled sliced beef) and sondubu jigae (tofu stew). It comes with 5 refillable side dishes and white radish beef soup that is also free for refill. The 5 side dishes were kimchi (spicy fermented cabbage), ojingeochae muchim (spicy dried squid strips), fermented zucchini, salted cucumber, as well as gogi wanja gorim (meatballs). We had really good food on that trip so far. Before we head back to home, we went to a children arcade and spent quality 30 minutes there and visited an Asian market right next to it.

never will I forget this delicacy

hmm so good

As I mentioned above, we went back to the French restaurant for breakfast again. We wanted to try something else so we ate a savory crepe and a dessert crepe. It was finger licking good HAHAHHA, it was sunny that day therefore I decided to have the table set outside and ordered the same chamomile tea. Next, my friend drove to Devil's lake lavender farm for about 2 hours and of course I slept during the ride, pity my friend though hahahaha. We were the only one there and it's free entry so we bought a lavender essential oil at the farm not realizing that it was expensive (27 usd for 30ml). It was not the blooming season of lavender unfortunately, but we still took some great photos there. Followed by that, the Devil's lake state park in Baraboo was our destination, 13 usd per entry and 28 usd for annual admission. Wow, we should have bought the annual admission as it is much cheaper, however, it is 2 and a half hours away from Menomonie (where I live). People do a lot of water sports on the lake such as snorkeling, swimming, kayaking, canoeing, paddle boating, tubing and others. I saw a few groups of kids playing around the lake side and I believed it was their field trip. Couples of big family were there picnic and have fun at the park as well. I could come back just to stare at the beautiful view and enjoy the sunshine while I still can, it would be fantastic!

didn't know white lavender exists

cheese curds are my favorite snacks of the states

water are so clear you could see some small fishes swimming around your feet

We have also purchased tickets for a wild boat ride at Wisconsin Dells, I was very excited for it and guess what it was the highlight of the trip! The ride and the captain did not disappoint us, love it so much. And YES, you will get wet completely as it says on their website and brochure so make sure you got some clothes to change afterwards. We have to hang on tight on the metal bar infront of us when the captain shout HANG ON HANG ON HANG ON. It indicates he is going to do something cool for us to experience such as power stops (he fake some of it too, fun times!), 360 degree turns and others. All these tricks leads to spray of water splash on us which is super fun hehehe! Make sure you do not miss this attraction whenever you pass by or visit Dells. It combines of 50% fast pace and 50% slow pace showing around the upper Dells river. Here is a video if you are interested: wild thing jet. After receiving lots of vitamin D from the sunshine, we turn our schedule into indoor time. Top secret and Lost Temple is the similar kind of self-guided boring tour, it was decorated like a dim haunted house except that there is no one who will scare your soul out of you purposely. As you guys know I am timid to enter all these buildings but hey I did it. We then moved to a maze race where my friend and I were to compete who found all the lab rats in the maze and walk out of the maze quicker. I won guys!

On that exact evening, we drove to downtown for another 2 cool attractions. It was pretty crowded for Wizard Quest. It has nice decoration and the kids have fun HAHAHAHA. I got bored easily, because the clues we suppose to find were too difficult to look for (requires a lot of time and effort while you squeeze there with children). We left without playing the game hahahahah but I did walked through all the sections the building has and got 2 free butter popcorn from the popcorn store beside, it was the worst popcorn I have ever eaten, not a fan of popcorn anyway. Ripley's believe it or not museum was way better, because there are not so crowded, so I got my own time to wonder around. I went to the same thing that showcases something different in Thailand few years back. It is still cool as hell, would love to come back because you learnt some interesting facts from there. Spent like 1 and a half hours there and by the time we came out, it was already 8pm. Therefore, we decided to walk around and have a dinner before we drive to Madison which is 1 hour away from Dells. Mexican restaurant was our choice that night, ordered a Pina Colada (contains alcohol), burrito steak and a fajita. This is how we end our night!

my heavy dinner

yums

The last day there got nothing much to do. However, we found a brunch place named Bussett's Brunch Club and had the best brunch ever. I enjoyed it so much, we had arugula salad as our appetizer, a pot roast beef for the main and my favorite dessert was fried chicken on top of glazed donut. Holy moly, that's the best thing I ate in long time. Our next destination was a mustard museum, although it is small but it has everything it needs inside. Free entry though, I learnt something from there too. I didn't know that mustard could become medication oil and it has powdered form as well. Kinda mind blown hahahahaha. Last but not least, my friend and I sat on a bench facing Lake Monona and just chilled for an hour til it's time to pick my friends from the bus stop who went to Chicago. All of us had ramen as our late lunch and we drove back to Menomonie.