Well, that was quite a fun adventure into the city. We used public transportation and a little walking and saw/did quite a bit. I had my camera but didn't take too many pictures. First, it was cold and I didn't want take my gloves off. Second, it was better to be "in the moment" than behind the lens. I'll just pepper the few shots in with the story.
The day started off at about 8am when we stopped by the bank for cash and made our way to the train station.
We got on the train at around 9am...after standing on the platform with a bunch of other people freezing to death. The train ended up being quite crowded and some people were forced to stand. Luckily I found a seat up top. Turns out they were so full they canceled most other stops into Chicago and we became an express train into town. Nice! Only downside to the trip was the 2 teenage girls sitting next to me playing shitty music on the shitty speakers of their shitty cell phone. Its like, you know the music is mangled to sound like a Casio keyboard, right?
Random shot inside the Ogilvie station, looking up.
Decorations in the station.
Once in town we had to walk a little ways to the craft show place. It wasn't that far and it was warming up a bit so it wasn't so bad. Got a shot of a cool reflection:
The crafty show was cool. Everything was more arty than crafty, and priced like it too ($150 for a ring made of wood?). There were a couple cool booths like this guy that made awesome pewter animals, a lady that did tons of polymer clay jewelry, and one guy that had some amazing glass stuff. Just nothing we could afford. Though we saw lots of people lugging around quite a few bags of stuff...yeesh.
Next up, lunch! The place we wanted to eat was not within walking distance, so it was time to hit the L!
Pretty fun to ride, even if I had to stand. Took the brown line north to Fullerton Ave and then walked a short ways to the restaurant, Nan's. Great chinese place. My mom never got to eat there before so it was cool she got to come. We quickly went to th roof of the parking garage there to have a look at the skyline. Before going back to the train we stopped at the White Elephant store the childrens hospital owns. Mom got some jewelry, I got annoyed by some children.
Instead of going back to the Merchandise Mart (where the craft show was), we decided to head into the more downtown areas...see the shopping stuff and whatever. Got on the L again, red line south. This started above the road like the other L trains, but somehow ended up as a subway. Really cool, never been on a subway before.
We're not sure exactly what happened down there...we either simply passed the stop we were planning on or the map was wrong or something, but we ended up a few streets south of where we planned. Nothing really major, but it ended up being good for us. Dad suggested we walk over the Michigan Ave for shopping stuff, seems to be the "main" shopping road. Off we went.
Then we saw it.
The Bean.
Its a fairly new addition to Chicago, big giant bean with a mirror finish. I never expected it to be THAT large, though. Pretty amazing thing to see in person.
ZOMGIDOL
When heading back to the train station (several blocks west) we happened to pass by the Marshall Fields store (well...now Macys). Tons of people there. They had the decorated windows which are always a big deal, but I thought they were pretty lame. No inventiveness to them this year. Still is was damn near impossible to walk through the people crowding the windows.
Further down still we found Daily Plaza. You may remember this place from the end of the Blues Brothers movie when they drive the car into the building.
You probably recognize the statue. But whats all that other crap? Turns out there was some German fest thing going on. You could buy beer, pretzels, trinkets...all sorts of german stuff.
Also in the plaza was the giant christmas tree.
Once past all that stuff, the streets were pretty empty (of people). Walking back to the train station was no big deal. We had a little time to kill until the next one arrived, so we ordered some sundaes from the food court and chilled for a bit. One the train home we got our pick of seats and it was a leisurely ride.
So yeah, a cool day.
