Julie "home sweet home" A.'s Profile

If your goal is to take pics of Chicago's beautiful architecture, and lots of it, I definitely recommend taking the lake + river tour. The only caveat: Make sure the weather is a clear day the ENTIRE day, or you'll end up living a reenactment of the flooding scenes from Titanic, with the water deluging the steps from the top part of the boat. Lol.

Boy, did it rain! But that was only the first 30 minutes. So the lake part of the tour was just kaput. Fortunately, for the last hour, it was perfectly sunny skies, and we goto see the beautiful buildings up close and personal.

I decided on Wendella because they were the cheapest and we are not much of history or architecture buffs anyway. We were just there for the beautiful views.

What can I say, I'm a Bargain Hunter! We came here on one of its FREE days, saving $13 a pop, but unfortunately, the Harry Potter exhibit was going to be another $18 so we skipped that. ::sigh::

There were plenty of exhibits ranging from actual old skool classic cars and miniature models of classic ships, to the new technologies of the internet and such. There was a pretty cool one that demonstrated through the sound of music how network connections work together. And also a robot that interacted with you when you said certain phrases. Not too impressive, but still interesting.

There was also The Henry Crown Space Center, featuring a full scale replica of the Apollo 11 training module, and the actual Apollo 8 spacecraft. My son would have loved this section the best.

One of their big exhibits is the U-505 submarine. Unfortunately, it wasn't open for tours on the day we came. (Awww phooey!) But we got to watch the informative videos. I wish we didn't linger too long on this exhibit, however, because there were so many other cool things we didn't get to see at this museum.

For example, we did not have enough time to check out the first electric train, except for a quick picture in front of it. And there were many other exhibits we missed, as well. For example, the coal mine section, the giant pin ball machine, and the replica of the Wright Brothers' plane.

However, we did wander outside by accident out of curiosity about the Green House. And then we got locked out! Lol.

(shh... don't tell my buddies in the Bay Area.. these crepes tasted better than the ones I had in SF. I must have gone to the wrong crepery in SF. So sad, so sad...)

We were wandering around kind of lost. Juan was tired, and I was thirsty. Oddly enough, a bunch of the businesses in this area were not open on a Saturday afternoon around 6pm. (I thought this was supposed to be a city??) Crepe Bistro was like a mirage in the middle of the deserted streets. Lol.

I had originally wanted the Romeo y Julieta crepe, but sadly it was unavailable. So, I ordered the standard nutella and bananas crepe ($7.50), but they must make these with extra love or something, because the warm nutty nutella had melted evenly over the freshly sliced bananas. All wrapped with light and fluffy crepes still warm from the pan.

Juan washed his portion down with some Lithuanian beer.

It was the anime posters in the window that drew me to this place. Lol. Great stop for souvenirs, although we later discovered that most of Chinatown is pretty much souvenir-land.

I got my brother a souvenir spoon ($3.99) and a souvenir magnet ($2.99). Lol. He likes those tacky souvenir kinda things.

Juan said it was much cheaper here than at the overblown souvenir shops at Navy Pier.

Besides the tacky souvenir gifts, they also sell some cute anime stuff here and some beautiful Chinese dresses and traditional Chinese crafts and gifts, like wall scrolls, sculptures, car charms, etc.

If you are looking for quick one-stop shopping for affordable souvenirs, this place is great!

We all miss Super Yelper Steve M. =(
With the aid of his Super Yelper buddy Ed, he put lots of spark on the forums in my town.

Simply amazing what they do here. I had a busy month following my trip to Chicago but even a month sitting in the fridge (either my fridge is super duper cold or these buns are made of superdough!), the San Iro Pan I bought ("Three Colors Bread" a triple threat of bread with diff fillings: red bean paste, chocolate, and bavarian cream) still had the softest dough ever and tasted just as fresh as the day I bought it. http://www.hippobakery...

Same goes for the other item I bought. Very dense, but just barely sweet, brown bread that is perfect to dip in a cup of coffee or hot chocolate.

Before I left, I grabbed a canned hot green tea out of the hot drinks box (which also had hot coffee in a can).

All of this was pretty cheap. Only cost me $7.73

They have FREE Thursday (and Friday between Memorial and Labor Day) evenings from 5pm - 9pm and I made sure to stop by. (That was $18 each that we saved. Yay!!)

For even the $18, this place still would be worth it. I have never seen so many masterpieces in one place at one time.

My faves were the Renoir "Two Sisters (On the Terrace)" http://www.artic.edu/a..., Seurat's famous painting "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" http://www.artic.edu/a... which was featured in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," and some of those older highly detailed paintings where you can see the individual strokes detailing out the lace on someone's clothing.

I also found myself staring at Sue Williams "It's a New Age" http://www.artic.edu/a... for about 10 minutes. Kind of a crude piece but I liked it. She shows the different feelings a woman might go through if an abortion wasn't her personal choice.

Unfortunately, there were a few pieces I missed in our 3 hour race throughout the museum. I'm not even sure they were on display at the time, but it would have been nice to see these.
Mary Cassat - "The Child's Bath" http://www.artic.edu/a...
Grant Wood - "American Gothic" http://www.artic.edu/a...
Edward Hopper - "Nighthawks" http://www.artic.edu/a...

Still, it was a well spent visit. Definitely somewhere I'd visit again.

As Thomas C. says, "Crobar is a great place for people who LOVE loud ass, bass thumping, House music (electro, techno, progressive)."

The only downside is the wait to get in. It sucks! lol. We were waiting out there for an entire hour!

It was about 2:45 or so by the time we got in, and the music was bumping. No surprise that they played some Chicago House (ahahaa memories...) and of course the mainstream house music. This place was big, but not as big as some other places I've been to. Hella packed but not overcongested to the point that you can't move your arms. Definitely a spot for House heads to check out.

I like this place because it seems pretty organized (which is a definite plus for an airport) especially with security lines divided between simple expert travelers, the occasional travelers, and families. Which means a much shorter wait for those of us who don't need to tote along the little ones.

Smaller airport means much less walking between concourses (which comes in handy if the gate number ever changes). I needed to give my feet a badly needed rest after all that walking in the Windy City. (My toes had blisters!)

On the downside, there wasn't a lot of options to choose from for last-minute souvenir shopping or airport eats, but that's a small price to pay when your birthday bro is happily satisfied with a poster print of the photo you took of Michael Jordan (the statue, not the actual person.. ehehhe) at the United Center, and a coworker has already recommended the Potbelly for an Italian sandwich.

Not too big, not too much fuss, and satisfying enough. Great job, Midway!

Might have been the traveling blues or maybe the fried rice wasn't that great, but whatever it was, I found myself crying at the Happy Cafe. This was definitely no Happy Meal (har har). Juan got soy sauce in his pork fried rice and he was happy. Perhaps that was the secret?

Without soy sauce, the pork fried rice tasted pretty bland. Fresh, but lacking flavor. So sad.. so sad.... ::sniff::