Thanksgiving Chicago and Mizzou!

Okay. I've been really lazy. Took so long to upload pictures of my Thanksgiving trip to Chicago. But it's finally done. So enjoy!

The whole trip was fine. Wish we had more time to explore the city though. But most importantly, I met my dearest Sister and got to spend some time with her. That's us on the streets of Chicago on Thanksgiving day.

After SY and friends picked me up from the airport, we went to Chinatown for dim sum brunch. The queue was incredibly long and we waited like 2 hours before we got to sit down. Food was not bad. Chicago's Chinatown isn't impressive at all. In fact, kind of sad looking. I couldn't even find a nice picture to put up here.
Anyway, after that we took the subway downtown. Chicago's subway system is antique. Old and dingy.. the stations look like they were built in WWII or something. But it's a pretty comprehensive system, covering many areas. But damn.. it's old. Sure could do with some sprucing up.
Went walking around downtown. First stop was Millenium Park with the impressive Bean sculpture. Really nice idea I must say. It reflects of the skyline of Chicago and of cos, people take pictures of their reflections (and we of cos did that too!)
From there we just went wandering around the streets, looking at the architecture and Christmas deco, before we headed back for steamboat dinner!
2nd day was shopping day. It's called Black Friday in US. Suppose to have crazy sales that start at 5am in the morning and people queueing up from the night before. We were checking out the stacks of newpaper ads on deals... Of cos we weren't that crazy. Went to a huge mall in the late morning. Deals weren't that great actually. We all didn't buy much stuff. In fact, think the others had a better time at IKEA, which we went later. Dinner was a potluck session. It was a university friends gathering for 2 of the people in our group. That's our Chicago gang at the potluck session. Yup, I was with other Asians for the trip.. essentially Taiwanese..
3rd day was spent walking around downtown again. It was really a lot of walking. But the weather was so good.. It was very enjoyable. And Michigan lake is so huge.. Makes you feel like you are looking at the sea.
The Art Insitute of Chicago is a pretty famous attraction and supposingly have great collections of artworks. But didn't had the time to go in. The other picture is a look of Chicago streets from the Art Institute. Oh.. I like the lampposts on the streets! They are so cute.. bit victorian style.

Passed by a mobile puppet theatre. It's pretty cute and u can see that it picks kids' interests.
Lunch was at Gino's East. It's rivaling a couple of other restaurants over who's the first to serve Chicago's famous Deep dish pizza. It's basically pizza with lots of cheese, tomato and toppings. So it's bit thicker than the common ones and with a biscuity crust around the side. Pretty good but of cos one slice fills you up!
We walked down Michigan Mile which is kind of like Orchard Rd, with lots of brands, and of cos lots of people.
Then went to Navy Pier in the evening. It's like an amusement park area for the kids. There were Christmas celebrations going on, and Santa popped by on a ship! Manage to capture the night skyline of Chicago. Pretty huh.
4th day was spent travelling back to Columbia, Missouri where SY's home/school is. It was a 6+hours drive. Long but bearable.
Columbia is a typical university town. Peaceful. It's autumn, so trees were almost bald with yellow/orange/brown/red leaves all over. Pretty in a way. Spent my 5th morning wandering around the school and capturing some pictures. Hee.. the students there must have thought me to be really odd, going around taking pictures of trees and buildings.
That's Thomas Jefferson. He was so kind to let me lean against his shoulder for a little rest. Hee.
The university has it's own power plant! Amazing huh. Not hard to see that the school consumes a lot of electricity. Haa.
And oh.. finally.. a picture of my crazy interest in plant photography. Haa.. pretty little red berry like fruits on a leafless tree!
That pretty much concluded my Thanksgiving trip. Journey back was long and ardous though. Left Mizzou (Unviersity of Missouri) at 12.30pm, got home only at 9.30pm! 2.5 hours bus to St Louis airport, 2 hours waiting for flight, 3 hours flight, 1.5 hours back home from airport. Yeesh. Still, all the effort and money was worth it, cos got to see another city of US and of cos got to see my dearest friend.