Exploring Chicago, Illinois

Chicago have been on my travel list for quite some time and I am surprise that I hit it in a short period. It just happened that me and my friend are bored and he was like "do you want to go to Chicago", I did not show my excitement but I'm like "hell yeah" in the bottom of my heart. So there we are, we spent 5 days there and it was amazing! We drove from Menomonie to Chicago on the third Saturday of June, it took us about 6.5 hours as we stopped by Madison for lunch. He suggested for buying a Chicago city pass that cost $106 per pax which consists of 5 attractions of your choice out of 7, however, we decided (it's actually I decided *ahem*) to go for the Go Chicago card that I came across while looking up for the city pass. Both of us bought a 3-day pass, we could visit any attractions at any time within the 3 days choosing from 28 attractions for  $184 each adult. For that three days, we suppose to pay $250 with tax excluded as we went for 8 attractions. We saved a few bucks and spent it all on food instead HAHAHAHAH. I highly recommend to take public transport in the city area because the traffic is terrible there, you wouldn't want to stuck in the same place for hours right? Without further ado, let's get started.

We headed down to Madison, the ride took us 3 hours, p/s: its illegal for me to drive because I drove without a U.S. driving license and I did not have my Malaysian driving license with me. I had a clear soup ho fun while my friend ordered a stir-fry beef with ho fun at a Hong Kongese restaurant on our way to Chicago. It was located at the side of a lake. The lake view is stunning, look way better than Lake Menomin (the polluted one near where I live). I feel like we could do picnic there some day during summer. We also drove pass the State Capitol and it is my favorite building on the tour.

clean water clears my mind

photografail- tryin to reflect the view using my phone

this is the mascot of Madison I believe

the closer view of it

that chili paste is spicy and so damn good

what a gorgeous architecture

We arrived at the airbnb we have booked earlier in the evening and walk to Chinatown for dinner. It was a 15-mins walk through the alley and under the rail bridge. No surprise I took a lot of random photos with the dslr, please bear with me hahahaha. I had my eyes on the Thai ice-cream rolls when a stranger walked pass me holding one, yes, you are right, I went to get one right away. We had the Thai milk tea flavor for today, the sweetness is perfect but a little lack of milk tea flavor. We had char-siew, siew-yok rice at BBQ King, not gonna lie, it was the worst char-siew, siew-yok rice I have ever had. The rice is not the usual sticky oil rice, the char-siew with tons of fats were overcooked and not to mention the siew-yok's skin is not crispy at all. Sorry to say but I would rate this 2 out of 10.

help me get out of the prison (?)

yum!

the signature arch that exists in every Chinatown (?)

I look weird here but who cares

me tryin hard to get an artistic photo

turned out to be goth/depressed sort of pic?

I swear I was not trying to out focus him hahahhha

graffiti at the roadside

We basically walk pass Chinatown everyday to the light rail station, as I mentioned above, DO NOT DRIVE, or you will end up paying ridiculously high price to park your car just like parking in KLCC/Pavillion during the weekend. We have noticed a few dim sum restaurant at the Chinatown yesterday so we thought of having a try to kick start our second day in Chicago. I was like a 8 year old with no self-control ordered 7 dishes, forgot about the food came in U.S. size. So yeah, gotta swallow everything down the throat even though we were super full. Our first stop of the day is Navy Pier, guess what guys, your girl with minimal experience of bus riding hop on to the wrong bus and ended up going to the opposite direction. Well we are "smart" enough to realize it after 9/10 stops and took another bus to our destination. What an idiot AHHAHAHHA. At the least, we made it! I got on to the 196 feet ferris wheel which is 1 feet lesser than Eye On Malaysia. Yay, overcoming my fear of ferris wheel or heights in particular. It's strange that I enjoy thrill rides in amusement park but I am afraid of a slow pace ferris wheel. We went on the flying swing ride at the side of the ferris wheel too! The line is not bad at all, lucky us.

my long lost taste bud was activated by these mouth-watering xiao long bao

yup, for 2 pax

some street view of Chicago downtown

the bus stop we got off the wrong bus

 I would literally honk all the time then

best picture I got so far, its the official background of my latop

the famous tourists spot - Navy Pier

it was a little foggy that day

view from the ferris wheel

me being a hot mess (?)

no idea what the focus was...

would come back for this speed boat

so chubby...time to get fit (HA!)

There are 3 boat rides that is inclusive in the Go Chicago card, we decided to go for the Shoreline River Cruise that took 45 minutes. It was fun and relaxing on board, you are allowed to have boost and snacks during the boat ride. My friend did purchased a light beer before we even got on it (I am underage to drink in the States) and we also bought the cinnamon coated cashew nuts, its a little too sweet and get bored of the taste easily, good try though.

ooh illegal drinking HAHAHAH

bon voyage!

Chicago skyline

not sure why did my face appears pink

ignore the bald on the left bottom

The self-guided walking tour along the lakeside as well as the central part of downtown was really fun, we got the different view of the Chicago skyline and stopped by Millenium Park. This is where the popular reflective Bean is. The area was very crowded due to there was an event going on that day, but I felt like its a must to visit. We then go back to Chinatown to have our cravings for hot pot fixed. It was okay, nothing special about it. We were energetic and excited in a new city so again we took the train to the downtown again after dinner. Unfortunately, it was super hazy at night, the receptionist told us that we could not see anything at all at the skyscraper -Willis Tower Skydeck Observatory. He even emphasize the word "zero visibility", thus, we choose to come again the next day and just look around downtown in the dark, adoring the night of Chicago city.

night lights (terrible quality because I'm bad at taking night photos with dslr)

We departed at 9.30-ish to get dim sum again from another restaurant. The fried yam dumplings are not as good as the one Malaysia have, they taste like whole lot of yam with very little seasonings. The others was alright and of course we cut downed the orders as we do not want to walk with a 100% full belly like what we did yesterday. Durian ice-cream rolls is not something you should miss when you visit the Chinatown, it has a pretty strong fragrance of artificial durian but I could tell there is real durian in there too. Try this if you are a durian lover! Willis tower is our first destination, we arrived at noon, the line was quite long and we did not have the fast pass for our Go Chicago Card. Therefore, we waited for like 50 minutes to get to the skydeck. There is a glass balcony extending 4.3 feet outside of 103rd floor of Willis Tower, you can see the what's at the bottom through the glass under your feet, sound scary and the line was way too long so we gave it a pass.

We took a bus to the Museum of Science and Industry next, spent a couple of hours there. It's all fun and games, yet you learn something from there. I truly recommend this place for first-time visitor as this is my favorite place of the day. We ate like a Siamese for dinner, it was pretty authentic. The papaya salad was the bomb, the clear tomyum noodle soup and green curry chicken rice were so good.

dream that will never turn into reality

a submarine tank model

tire that is taller than me

new born chicks

few days old chicks

spot the Seattle space needle

the miniatures of the buildings

More sightseeing to come, I really like the view in Navy Pier so yeah we went back there to take more skyline photos in the evening. There is a place suggested by every blogger who visited Chicago, the 360 Chicago Observatory Deck, it is several floors lower than the one in Willis Tower but it serves the same purpose. There is a so called "thrill ride" by the official website of 360 Chicago, the Tilt, an enclosed box that tilt you out over the Michigan Avenue. You could get a 4/5 minutes ride with an additional charge. I did not try it because it was too frightening to stand on that moving platform. This is where I broke the haze/uv filter of the dslr I borrowed from the library, bloody bad luck, was sleepy and exhausted I guess. Yeah, the reason of not much photo taken on top...

my face is darker than my soul

No doubt there is a lot to visit in the windy city, whether you are into architecture, food, city view, sciences, and many more. For a science person like me *ahem*, can't miss these spots, the Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, as well as Field Museum. We spent our last day of the Go Chicago card in the platetarium, aquarium and decided to skip the museum as my friend who has been there felt like it's not so worthy to stop by. It was golden hour when we head off to Navy Pier to catch the last Tall Ship Windy cruise that departs at 7pm. There was an expected thunderstorm but we were lucky because it was only pouring during that 45 minutes cruise. It is a huge boat that sails by the wind with a experienced captain having the control of directions. As the night has fallen, we felt like we need some good food to fill our empty stomach. Hence, we had a stuffed dinner at Gyu Kaku (Malaysia have several branches spread around the country too!) which he found this delectable cuisine on the first trip he came with his friend. Guess what, this was my best meal of the journey, would definitely be back just for Gyu Kaku <3

my weight in pounds at the space

such a poser

Chicago-style hotdog

shark that is composed by waste

penguin that is made up of recycle items

the lobby area

touching the fishes

beluga whale in real life (reminds me of the story we read about in high school)

what a fat ass hand?

crocodile looking fish??

yums

look kinda like loch ness monster?

giant lobster

gigantic crab

something to cool off the heat

bbq is one of my favs

can you believe its all beef

We didn't do much on the day we left, had a simple Hong Kongese breakfast at Chinatown, went to the biggest Asian market at the city for some grocery shopping and that's about it. Drove our way home and arrived at evening. Lots of fun and good company!

clear soup meehun with spam and egg!

Loves,
meLodyyap.