Chicago!

I started this blog primarily for my China travels; I usually blog on Xanga but I was consternated ;p to find the Great Firewall blocked it. Not one to be easily deterred, I threw up a random Blogspot site and picked the first name that came to mind. It's corny, but I figured it would work.

Well, it does work; I've decided to make it my travel blog instead of dedicating it exclusively to teh Commies. So here goes. As you can tell, I was in Chicago for a week for the 2008 UNITY journalism convention. Thanks to Will and Ken being gracious enough to host me, I was able to stay an extra few days to prowl the city on my own. I love traveling that way.

The next big trip is Mexico [again] - this time for no particular journalistic purpose, but for pleasure. Whoo hoo! Tickets and hotels are booked for Cancun in early September. <3 style="text-align: center;">

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Older posts/pictures from Xanga:

Very loudly at the intersection of Madison and Wacker in downtown Chicago.

View from the kitchen (I sleep on that couch)

View at night (last night at this time)

This totally chance photo was shot through a passing bus window with a lowly point-and-shoot.

...has so much character.

I'm not sure I'd like to live here permanently, but I would definitely like to explore it. =] I think I would happily take six months downtown.

First impressions:

1) The airport looks very old and outdated. It's also clearly over capacity, since it's been a while since I last saw a terminal whose bathrooms were constantly overflowing with people.
2) The public transportation likewise looks very old. It gives me weird mental flashbacks to things I may have seen in either movies, or in previous travels, or just made-up dreams. It would make a fantastic photo shoot backdrop. However, it exists. I <3 city transit, even when it seems like a raping and mugging lurks around every dingy corner.
3) The brief glimpse of architectural details I saw downtown is amazing. Again, incredible photo shoot potential.
4) I think I'm going to fall in love with Millennium Park.
5) zomg the sky is so blueeeeeeeeee <3
6) Michigan Ave. shopping looks pretty fantastic. ;p I could see myself happily getting very poor here.
7) Housing seems super pricey.
8) The people seem a bit cold.
9) When bussing home around rush hour, there are more children on public transportation than I would otherwise expect.
10) Oh. My. Goodness. Lake shores. The end.

10a) I'm staying with friends from TiSA; Will and Ken's apartment is on the 25th floor, directly overlooking the lake beaches. The entire living room wall is a sheet of glass window overlooking an amazing lakescape. Grassy parks line the roads between the building and the shoreline. The weather is very slightly chilly from the little wind gusts. The temperature suggests a light sweatshirt and a cuddle buddy.

I wrote out a schedule for my next few days' events (picking and choosing seminars and panels to attend). There will be very little play time but more than enough bustle and commotion to make even wanderlust-happy me very pleased. I will meet impressive people, learn many new things, leap many hurdles, and accomplish many milestones. I will catch up with old friends and make new acquaintances. Hopefully I'll get a chance to explore as well - it would be a total waste if I didn't!

I think my photography has been my year's constant, and I feel an absurdly gleeful pleasure in looking over my memories, neatly catalogued into Flickr sets.

Here's Chicago.

Chicago: The Musical

Chicago: The Musical
The Street Musicians of Michigan Avenue

This photo essay celebrates a rich facet of downtown Chicago's character. From entrepreneurs to students, black to white, old to young, these performers transcend social, racial and age barriers to contribute to the tapestry of their city. Their collaboration provides a delightful treat for tourists and natives alike.

Joseph Taylor serenades passersby with oldies at the intersection of Michigan and Illinois Avenues. He has been playing the saxophone for as long as he can remember. "I picked [alto saxophone] back up about six years ago," he said. Taylor recently began his own pest control business, and his music "pays some of the bills I had to pay."

In his spare time, Taylor compiles a monthly newsletter, Holland Apartments News, for the residents of Roseland, an assisted living facility. "This month I want to start a new section featuring one resident every month to see what they do, and how they do it."

Lanceford Robbins drums at the south end of the Magnificent Mile "to beat out [his] adolescent frustration." Robbins is very proud of his college time spent at the Collective in New York. A recent resident of Chicago, Robbins displays a Star of David on his bass drum because he is "a Christian who supports the Jews. Plain and simple."

Chicago native Bobby McKay, 21, has been playing the drums since age 8. "I try to play here seven days a week," he said. Two hours of drumming on Michigan Ave. can earn him him $80 on an average day. "I really like rap," he said. "[In 10 years,] I want to produce."

"I do what I want to do," said alto saxophonist Traysee Leonard Thursday afternoon, pausing for a break at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Huron Street. A woman stops to compliment his "classy performance." The street musician brings his own speakers and accompanying CDs to enhance his sound. "Of course, there are bigger and better things I want to do, but at this moment, [performing here] is where I want to be."

Drummer Charles Bryor takes a moment to reflect in the sunshine outside the Wrigley Building on Michigan Avenue Thursday afternoon.

Street musicians in downtown Chicago must acquire a permit from the city in order to perform for money. The $100 permit is good for two years.

Ingestables: Things we [should not?] put in our mouths

Start voting: Yes or no?

Dumpling stuff with the ovary and digestive glands of a crab. HOT. Vote = yes.

I hate, hate, HATE clumps of circles like this. *brrrrrrr* GROSSSSS. No. I think it's lotus root or something, btw, according to my mom. GROSS.

Yes. It was a great dinner. :D

Shanghai tiny wonton = YES, hell yes. I ate about 12 bowls of this in 3-4 days. ^^ It was my last meal in China!

Menu... prices range from 40 cents to beef noodles being the most expensive at $1.50 or so.

Beer... meh, not one of my favorites.

Empty glass full of rum... also not my favorite, but better than beer.

Tracy drinks the soup out of a steamed soup bun before eating it. Yes.

"Meatballs-on-a-stick" = yes. Very yumsome. Can be had ready-made at convenience stores. ^^

Candy store, anyone? Not my personal preference either, but yes.

I vote big-time yes. There's (left-to-right on the lazy susan) potato strips with green bell peppers, ma-po tofu (spicy), mu-xu vegetables (cabbage, wood-ear fungus, egg, pork strips), veggies with garlic, eggplant, and then in the middle, chicken in sweet and sour sauce, I think. Rice, of course. Yum.

I'm not a fan of sweets, but Oreos at the Great Wall = yes.

Reno and a "jenny Cola," which is what all my classmates called diet Coke. (It's "jian-yi kuh-luh," so they'd say it when they were ordering in restaurants, etc. Sounds like Jenny Cola, no?)

Watermelons = OK. I'm not a big fruit person either. Mostly carnivore if I can help it. ;P

Chicken = yes. ;p

Tea = yes

Breakfast is small fried buns and a green tea. Yes.

Drinks at the top of the Great Wall = yes, and they are worth their exorbitant prices because, I mean, she hauls all that weight up to the top. She deserves money!

Fried bun with egg and spicy saucy sauce = yes, although as an early breakfast, it might make your tummy rumbly

Meat-on-a-stick, as we liked calling it... lamb skewers, or "chuarr"(? Closest pronunciation, lol, in a Beijing accent) grilled over charcoal and topped with scrumptious spicy spices. I think I ate over 200 of them in China. :D They're not that filling.

Dim sum place in a food court = yes

Fancy opening banquet dinner = yes.

My ice within the Forbidden City = yes. Note the pen in my hand... my lucky pen died about 1/2way through the trip from lack of juice and I have not been the same woman since.

Chicken nugget justified with wasabi sauce from McD = yes, many yesses. Asian fast food has nice light batter. I can't say much for the taste of the rest of it, though.

Fries and nuggets + wasabi sauce = meh... I tried to avoid eating American food, but sometimes it wasn't worth putting up a fight when my friends got homesick for familiar food. =) It wasn't bad. I like the sauce a lot. KFC was atrocious.

Bacardi super sweet peach Asian breezer with no alcohol taste whatsoever = no.

Snake rice wine = one time yes, after that, never again, no. It tasted like licorice.

Beer again = meh. I like Tsingtao and that's it. (I probably had about 12 bottles of that in China... they have some huuuuge beer bottles, lol)

Coke? Sometimes yes. Mostly no.

Kitche with veggies = interesting? Maybe yes? With lots of garlic?

Tea = yes

Michelle's bakery = not bad. I like Taiwanese breads better. Food racist I am. ;p

Dog = yes.

Just kidding.

Bananas = I hate them. They are God's torment to toddlers. And big sisters who must clean them up.

Meat in a Muslim butcher shop on the main street = yes. I <3 meat. I know I will die an early death.

Xinjiang food = not bad... yes

Buns by the roadside with water? Yes!

Pearl milk tea? Don't get it in China; come to Taiwan for the real stuff. Again, food racist. ;p

Cleaning up the remains of baby's ingestables? Meh... not for me for many years, please please. ;p

Tea? Sure! Always! Yes!

Chrysanthemum tea in a portable bottle? OK. Yes.

Coffee in the Forbidden City? Yes.

Rice-wrapped-in-bamboo-leaves, randomly given to me by an old couple in the Forbidden City? Yes.