I meant to spend Sunday, December 19, 2010, through Sunday, December 26, in Chicago with my parents, my grandma, and (for some of the time) my aunt S. We were there to celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday (!) and Christmas. Thus, we spent most days hanging around the condo, not doing much other than being in each others' presence. At times I tried to work remotely using my cell phone as a modem--this worked surprisingly well.
I stayed in Chicago two extra days, through Tuesday, December 28. A blizzard on the east coast on the 26th caused our flight to the east coast (to Boston) to be cancelled.
The weather in Chicago was gentle during our entire stay: various minor snowstorms, mild cold (30s).
We generally ate either in the condo or at whatever restaurants my grandma was willing to tolerate. Here's the list:
19th dinner: Macaroni Grill (also with grandma's nephews and nieces) (I had the pasta milano, which was so garlicky I could barely eat it)
20th dinner: Outback Steakhouse
21nd lunch: Cheesecake Factory (the usual eggplant mozzarella sandwich and kobe beef burger)
22nd lunch: Pita Inn (without grandma) (the usual lamb pita)
23rd lunch: Portillo's (I had a grilled vegetable sandwich)
23rd dinner: Thai takeout and Chinese takeout (forgot the names of the restaurants, and what we ate isn't important)
24th: didn't leave the condo
25th (Christmas dinner): Johnny's (I had ribs)
26th dinner: India House (vegetables!: spinach and mustard greens, cabbage and spices, tandoori roti)
27th lunch: a Chicago-style pizza place (I forget the name). It was okay. Even my parents admit that it wasn't as good as it should be. They've ordered from this place before and thought it was good before.
28th lunch: Kentucky Fried Chicken
Flying east on Tuesday, December 28, was easier than I expected. Grandma drove us to the train station. We took a train to the dedicated airport bus to the airport tram to our terminal. Our flight's airplane was changed at the last minute to a 777 that just arrived from Shanghai! That meant there were many more seats than originally allocated, and we got upgraded to premium economy. :) I bet you I know why they used a larger plane: due to the numerous cancelled flights to the east coast, 150 people flew stand-by on the flight!
Once in Boston, baggage claim took a while so we missed the bus we wanted to take and had to wait for the next one an hour later. That bus--a pleasant ride on C&J--dropped us off at the bus station in Maine around midnight. We were anxious about cleaning off the car from the large east coast snowstorm, but I guess it didn't hit Maine much--there was nothing to clean! :) We were relieved.
Incidentally, in the Chicago airport, I discovered I like the smoothies I make better than Jamba Juice's--Jamba Juice's smoothies taste too sweet for me nowadays.
Chicago December 2010
Chicago: Saturday: The Gold Coast and more
I had Saturday morning to do with what I pleased. After thinking about what activity to choose--there were a number of museums and other sights I contemplated squeezing into the morning--, I decided instead to begin with a walking tour of the Gold Coast, Chicago's ritziest residential neighborhood. I generally followed the route in my Frommer's guidebook, walking this path (as recorded by my cell phone's GPS).
As I began walking, I remembered why people call Chicago the windy city. The wind removed any heat my body generated. I wouldn't describe the temperature as brisk, nor would I choose the word chilly. It was simply cold. And it got colder near the lake. I now understand why weatherpeople comment on the temperature by the lake. Meanwhile, as I walked, freezing, dressed in the warmest clothes I brought on the trip--clothes that usually served me well in Boston's winters--, I'm being overtaken by nutcases out jogging.
My walking tour is documented by these pictures.
On the way back from my tour, I tried to stop by a small gallery, the City Gallery, but it was inexplicably closed. Then I met Di Yin for lunch. We went to Frontera Grill, a Mexican restaurant known for authentic food, and that's run by the guy who wrote a Mexican cookbook that I've cooked many recipes from. It was interesting and fairly decent, a reaction I elaborate on in my picture captions. Di Yin, in a comment that can be taken in multiple ways, said the chef "does interesting, creative things with Goya" (referring to the canned goods company). Also, I liked the feel of the restaurant. Di Yin's pictures from this day include one of the decor. (In fact, it's the first picture in the day's set--the picture I linked to above.)
After lunch, we tried to visit the Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum, but it turned out to be closed for the season. Instead, we found our way to a large, fancy gourmet market, Fox & Obel. Di Yin's pictures document aspects of the market.
Of course, we had a plane to catch. We picked up our luggage from our hotel and headed to the airport. The first rain of this trip began as we left the hotel toward the subway in order to leave town. By the time we made it to the airport, we could see it pouring outside the subway windows. Luckily, our planes left before the storm turned into a thunderstorm and the snow predicted in the evening. We each had our own dinners from items we picked up over the course of the trip: in my case, Indian leftovers, the mochi dish I made with Di Yin's mom that we brought from New York to Chicago, the Indian dessert, and a pretzel I picked up at the gourmet market.
Chicago: Friday: Grandma Day
Di Yin was presenting at the conference, so I had the day to myself. I took the opportunity and rented a car to drive out to the northwest suburbs to visit my grandmother. (Chicago's public transit system in the suburbs, like most cities, is pretty bad.) I got to spend a good six or so hours with her. We talked (her more than me, naturally). I did a few tasks around her condo. We had lunch at Hackney's in Wheeling, where I had a traditional reuben (mmmmmm), some industrial/standardized fries, and a tiny bowl of coleslaw. Given that it was (pleasant) family time, I don't have anything to say.
I took only two pictures this day.
Di Yin and I had dinner of leftovers in our room (Indian food, the mochi stir-fry we brought from New York), along with fruit we picked up at an Indian market the day before, as well as wine we picked up two days before from Trader Joe's. The wine, a Barefoot Winery Zinfandel, paired surprisingly well with the blood oranges from the market.
Chicago: Thursday: Downtown Chicago, The Art Institute, and an Indian Neighborhood
Thursday was mostly devoted to exploring the Art Institute of Chicago, but we also manage to discover a pretty cool Indian neighborhood. In the morning, we walked down the magnificent mile (Michigan Avenue) and through Millennium Park, taking pictures all the way. I took many pictures, especially of the art institute, and Di Yin also took many as well, including of our food, but practically none of the institute. When you see a picture of Di Yin meeting someone for lunch, you've finished her pictures for this day.
After a morning of sightseeing, we had a tasty lunch at Russian Tea Time restaurant. I'd certainly be happy to return.
We allocated the afternoon for the Art Institute of Chicago. It's a first-rate museum with an extensive collection. I must've spent at least four hours there and that was barely enough. Although I did get to see everything, I had to hurry near the end more than I would've liked. (Well, actually I consciously skipped the children's section--a shame, as I was told later it had some displays worthy of adult visitors.)
The institute's wide-ranging collections contain exhibits from all over the planet and from a variety of time periods. And it's not just paintings; exhibits also include ancient artifacts, sculpture, pottery, jewelry, furniture, and functional art, as examples. As I walked through the Indian galleries, I recognized the stuff in a display and realized they were items (mostly weapons) native to Rajasthan that I'd seen in museums there.
Of course, the bulk of the museum was devoted to European art. In terms of impressionism, it had at least a couple of paintings from every major artist (e.g., van Gogh, Gaugain, Seurat, Manet, Corot, Renoir, Pisarro). It even had a room full of Monets.
In the newer American galleries, I found surrealists and modernists, and many O'Keeffes. In the older one, I was happy to find Cole and Bierstadt, and, in the process, discovered Sanford Robinson Gifford and learned in general that I like an offshoot of the Hudson River school called luminism.
Although my pictures generally document what I liked in the museum, I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures of the exhibit that impressed me the most: the exhibit of portrait photographs by Yousuf Karsh. Karsh's photographs are striking. They're crisp black-and-white noir-esque prints of famous people, with the focus on the person's face. You really feel their presence. He photographed many people from a variety of different public roles, including Queen Elizabeth, Eisenhower, Churchill, H. G. Wells, Fitzgerald, George Bernard Shaw, Martin Luther King Jr., Bogart (complete with smoke wisping out of a cigarette), Clark Gable, Robert Frost, Einstein, Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright, Norman Rockwell, Walt Disney, Edward R. Murrow, Vonnegut, Muhammad Ali. You can tell Karsh is an excellent portraitist because both politicians and well-respected other artists--people with taste--asked him to take their pictures. From this exhibit alone, I could name twice as many people as I did that Karsh photographed and you'd still recognize the names. The uniformly high level of quality is extraordinary.
For dinner, we followed up on a tip that there are some good Indian restaurants on Devon Avenue near Western Avenue. As we planned our route, which involved a train then a bus, we realized how far from downtown this neighborhood is. Nevertheless, we followed through, arriving at our destination something like 45 minutes later. It was worth the trip. The area is the biggest Indian neighborhood I've seen in North America. We spotted lots of Indian clothing stores and assorted restaurants. We looked around one of the markets, by far the biggest Indian grocery store I've ever run into. I bought dessert (for later) from a sweet shop. And, after a bit of online and on-foot research, we decided to eat at Sabri Nihari. It was quite good.
Chicago Overview and Arrival Wednesday
As Di Yin had to give a talk at a conference in Chicago, I decide to tag along to see her, explore more of Chicago, and visit my grandmother. We were in Chicago from Wednesday, March 25, 2009, through Saturday, March 28, 2009.
This trip was the first time I'd spent significant amounts of time in downtown Chicago (i.e., more than a day) and lacked a car. Chicago's atmosphere--the street layout, the design of the skyscrapers, the architecture of the fancy buildings, the way people moved, the way people dressed, the transit system, the selection of stores--made it really feel like New York.
We arrived early Wednesday evening, took the subway to downtown, and checked into our hotel. We stayed in a nicer placer than I'd have chosen for myself--the joy of traveling on someone else's dime (in this case, some funding agency's). Indeed, this place was so nice they had a pillow menu. After dinner, we ordered some. I recall liking the buckwheat because it had a filling like that in a beanbag. It made a comforting white noise when I put my head on it. In contrast, I never could get used to memory foam, whether in pillows or mattresses. Also, the hotel supposedly had a rooftop bar with a pretty view that, sadly, we never got a chance to see.
Speaking of the niceness of the hotel reminded me, here's a link to the pictures I took this day and here's the first picture in the set Di Yin took over the trip. She took some pictures of the hotel room. (I did not.) Her set of pictures from this day ends when you see a picture with a caption that begins "the next morning." I generally left picture taking up to her this trip, so in the following entries I'll be linking to both of our sets of pictures but my set mostly only includes pictures of things I encountered when on my own. Please don't peek at the pictures before I discuss them / link to them.
After dropping our stuff in the hotel room and eating a tiny snack, we headed out to dinner. I wanted to make sure I had the true Chicago experience, and one thing that meant was real Chicago pizza at a place recognized for doing it well. Di Yin, though not much of a fan of Chicago pizza, was willing to go along, and off to Pizzeria Due we went.
The pizza we had was "meh." (For my future reference, on my 4-point scale, the joint gets a rating of 2.) If this is Chicago-style pizza, I prefer the slight Californian variant (cornmeal crust) done by a restaurant in San Francisco.
Chicago December 2008
I spent a number of days around Christmas visiting relatives in Chicago, partially for reasons which bear not repeating. (I was there from Monday, December 15, 2008, to Friday, December 26, 2008.) I'm not going to discuss relatives in this post.
This post begins boring and gradually gets more interesting.
Chicago was cold, but pretty. The highs most days were in the 20s. A few days had highs in the single digits, which, with wind chill, made it feel like -30. We heard predictions of heavy snowfall (6+ inches) at times, though most turned out to be somewhat less. We drove through slush, snow-gravel, flurrying (pretty, especially as it blew over the windshield), snow-mist (as my dad says, like you're in one of those snow globes that have been shaken), fine speckling, and puffy flurrying. We drove by one shopping mall's parking lot where the snow had been cleaned and moved into enormous mounds. I'd estimate the mounds were three or four car lengths long, two wide, and probably fifteen feet high! These mounds were much higher than any other piles left by snowplows, and dwarfed the cars around them. Also, I liked cleaning off the car, though it would've been more fun if I had waterproof shoes. Finally, one cousin showed me how to use an emergency brake to make cool turns on ice, and how to rock a car stuck in slush free without actually getting out of the car.
Also while in Chicago, I rediscovered the appeal of simple American food, ranging from Kentucky Fried Chicken to beef stroganoff to meatloaf to tuna salad sandwiches to American-Chinese. While I was familiar with Americanized Chinese (i.e., Chinese dishes altered to American tastes), I had forgotten there was another category with dishes such as egg foo young and chop suey that weren't directly derived from a particular Chinese dish.
For Christmas-day dinner, we cooked a large thanksgiving-like spread: turkey, home-made sage stuffing (actually cooked in the bird!), mashed (well, technically, whipped) potatoes, home-made gravy, cranberry sauce (canned), green beans with garlic, sweet potato-and-apple casserole (sweet, cinnamony, almost a dessert), dinner rolls, and an okay, weird ice-cream-like pie.
We had quite an adventure creating this dinner. At one point, we sent some peels (potato?) down the garbage disposal. They made it through the disposal fine. Yet, a short time later the sink backed up. The clog wasn't into the disposal. My handy aunt took the pipes under the sink apart, and, with the help of my ever-prepared grandmother's plumbers snake, we snaked the pipes. The clog wasn't in the U below the disposal. After much work, getting the snake around turns, we ended up feeding the whole snake--which was probably more than twenty feet long--into the pipes in the wall. I wonder where in the apartment building the other end was! We never really hit anything, but we wiggled it a lot, reassembled the pipes under the sink, played with water pressure in the sink itself, and eventually unclogged the pipes. What a relief to everyone, especially my mom (who was a nervous wreck). Lesson learned: even if you think the garbage disposal cuts things up well and you've never had a problem with it, those chopped bits can cause clogs elsewhere in the system.
Going home was horrible, and expensive. My Friday flight, and indeed all late afternoon and evening flights at Midway were canceled due to fog, and Southwest couldn't get me home Saturday, Sunday, or Monday! It took four hours to find/retrieve my bag from piles at Midway. Furthermore, I booked a replacement ticket and, misreading something during the process, paid much more than I thought I would.
Lessons for people on canceled flights:
- Call the airline's phone number as soon as possible. You can get in the physical rebooking line if you want. I was on hold on the phone for 50 minutes before my call was answered, but during that time I only advanced through perhaps a third of the line. The line wound through all of Southwest's rope barriers, then down to literally the other end of the terminal.
- Get on the internet as soon as possible. You can book things faster yourself than via the phone. Flights will fill up fast. If you see an acceptable flight, take it without hesitation. (This was the cause of my expensive mistake.)
- Retrieve your bags as soon as possible. When many flights are canceled, baggage claim is a mess. The handlers apparently began unloading all the planes as fast as possible, throwing the bags in the baggage claim area in whatever order the luggage got to the ramp. When the conveyor belts filled up, they unloaded the bags onto the terminal's floor, leaving a ten-foot gap for walking between all the bags and the conveyor belts. It was a sea of luggage. They still didn't have enough space to unload the remaining bags, so they stopped unloading. When I finally made it to the baggage claim, they couldn't tell me where my bag was ("if it was unloaded, it's somewhere in the vicinity of baggage carousel eight", the area used for bags on flights to the west-coast) or whether it was unloaded or even whether any bags from my flight were unloaded before the ran out of space in baggage claim! Soon after I arrived in baggage claim, the handlers started carting the bags away to store in a secure area. Bags would be retrieved when a passenger put in a search request. I couldn't find my bag--perhaps it was unloaded and removed, or maybe it wasn't unloaded at all--and so I put in a search request. Eventually (and I mean eventually) the handlers brought it out.
- screens of flights with every one marked canceled
- the rebooking line stretching from one end of the terminal to the other
- the sea of luggage in the baggage claim
Chicago Rest
After Atlanta, I stopped by Chicago for a day (March 30 to 31, 2007) to visit my parents and one set of grandparents. I don't have much to report; I didn't do any touristy things. I simply had a few quiet meals and conversations. It's nice to see relatives I don't visit often.
Chicago
I spent an unseasonably cold Thanksgiving in Chicago from November 23rd 2005 to November 27th 2005 with my parents and one set of grandparents. I attended a huge (more than two dozen people) and very high quality dinner at the house of one of my distant relatives. With my parents, we explored downtown Chicago, took a neat walking architectural tour from the Chicago Architecture Foundation (I believe this was the "Architecture of Culture and Commerce" tour, chosen mainly due to its convenient start time), wandered through Millennium Park (eh), and drove through IIT (where I first learned Mies van der Rohe architecture generally doesn't appeal to me), University of Chicago, and Northwestern (which has a nice gothic campus). Apparently I visited (or at least drove by) the Baha'i House of Worship, though I have no memory of it. And I worked hard writing a paper due the day I returned to school. Sadly, I never documented my experiences from this trip.
While downtown, we stopped to eat at Russian Tea Time. We shared a classic beef stroganoff, nicely creamy and with good quality meat. Well executed. We also had quite buttery pirogies (technically "dumpling combination" as listed on the menu). And, according to the receipt, we also had some form of meatballs. The restaurant is fairly fancy.
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