Christmas time in the City!

I know its a bit late for a Christmas post, but anyways… who doesn’t want to have Christmas time in the city? Well that’s what I asked myself, and then my friends. I was someone who was born in the suburbs, so usually, there isn’t as much to do compared to a city. This makes sense, of course the place with more people will have more stuff to do, but that doesn’t discount Christmas time in the suburbs. Throughout this trip, I got to learn more about what Christmas time was like in the city, but also learned what not only made Christmas unique in the city, but also in my hometown too.

Before you continue, please play this song in the background. It’s a bit of a side tangent, but John Legends rendition of Silver Bells one of the most unique and beautiful take of the song, which I think fits the modern day vision of a “Christmas time city” vibe.

Morning / Lunch

On the way to Chicago, we had to stop by Albanese. If you don’t know they are a candy manufacture where they also claim to be the worlds best. If you doubt the claim, try it yourself, well because I think its true!

This is also where their factory is located, and where I ended up picking chocolates for my family for Christmas.

From there, we ended up on our first place, which was Chinatown. We stopped by Tour de Jours. They are a French-Asian inspired bakery, located in New Chinatown. With the pastries and location, we had to stop by. I ended up getting the Yuzu Pie, and after eating it, I could say that it was a flavor of yuzu, which was a bit bitter, but the whole pastry was covered in sugar crystals, balancing out the bitter, just leaving the tart flavor of yuzu and the delicious, but crumbling texture and flavor of the bread. (Watch out for the surprise Miku photo, we also stopped by MiniSo!)

After this, we ended up going eating at a Chinese buffet place called Triple Crown Restaurant.

I can’t reccomend this place enough! It has great dimsum, and main dishes, and being right in the middle of old Chinatown, you can soak in the vibes of old Asian American Chinatown, and if you get a window seat, can also look pretty cool looking outside! We ended up ordering fish in a clay pot for the main dish, and for dim sum… just look at the pictures, there was too much!

Afternoon/Dinner

After traveling around Chinatown, we took the L Train downtown to Millennium Park, where we ended up taking photos by the bean. From there we saw the ice skating, where I kept on telling my friends, “I can’t wait to skate in the big apple!” after seeing how Millennium Park ice skating looks kind of similar to the movies that depict ice skating in NYC. From this, We went to Maggie Daley Park, famous for the Ribbon Ice Skating rink. Even though we weren’t able to reserve any tickets, I thought it was nice at least seeing how cool the rink is.

Here’s some photos!

After this, we walked down to the Magnificant mile to see the whole street decorated for Christmas and to indulge in a bit of capitalism (aka spending even more money 😦 very sad). We stopped by the Harry Potter store, and then went to the Starbuck Reserve, where we got various coffees! See if you can guess what me and my friends got!

For dinner we went to Giordano’s. It may be a chain restaurant, but it is also one of the best places to get in downtown Chicago. I had a friend recommend a couple of places too that were local, but were way too far for us to make it. Unpopular opinion, I think that Chicago pizza is the best kind of pizza too! Deep dish has so much stuffed into it while having a very satisfying crust to eat! Also here are some extra photos of the old water tower in Chicago fire, which is the oldest building in Chicago, which was only build a couple years before the great Chicago fire.

Finally, the last place we went was the Lincoln Park Zoolights. For me, this was probably the most fun place we went to, where we got to walk around the zoo at night, talking, catching up with my friends, while being surrounded by Christmas lights in and out of the exhibits.

This also ended up being a reflection point for me in the trip. As a kid, there was this Christmas light show that I would go to every year, and you would be able to drive though the whole thing and well, enjoy the lights and vibes. It was similar to the vibes that Zoolights had, but I could feel the inspiration from the backgrounds of each place. At home, it was influenced by suburbia, so you could drive though this massive plot of land filled with lights. In Chicago, you were able to walk all around, and see lights all around. I got to spend more family time at home, and in the city, there was more things I can do with my friends. Ultimately, I enjoyed this experience and learned what Christmas feels like in the city, but also, I also felt like I noticed what Christmas time is like at home too, and I can appreciate both more now as unique experiences. I hope everyone reading this had a great Christmas and New Year, and to have a great next year!

Thank you all for reading today’s blog!