Travelogue: Chicago Trip

We went to USA in March, 2011. The week before returning back to India, we made a trip to Chicago which is about 270 miles of distance from Perrysburg where we were staying in US. Chicago is the largest city of the state of Illinois and indeed, it stands true to its name "the Wind city" because due to frequent gusts of wind it's almost impossible to keep your hair neat and combed and since we made our trip just when Winter has started receding, chilliness was still strongly felt in the air. From May till September, the weather in Chicago remains salubrious but from October onwards, it gets covered beneath thick layers of snow.

Like any other big city of USA, Chicago too is replete with buildings towering over you. Its fascination with skyscrapers is prominently manifested in the view of downtown Chicago where most of the buildings seem to be more than 60 storied high and I litreally had to stretch my neck back to catch a good view of the topmost point of those monumental buildings.

On reaching Chicago first we went to the Willis Tower popularly known as Skydeck for this 108 storied edifice has a skydeck at its 103rd floor offering breathtaking view of Chicago downtown from about 1,300 feet above. But since there was a huge queue waiting outside, we preferred to catch other attractions of Chicago and make our trip back to Willis Tower the next day early in the morning when the rush of tourists visiting the skydeck is expected to be thinner.

We then bought tickets of Chicago Trolley and Double decker company for multiple day downtown tour at the price of $35 per person.This tour is specially designed for tourists with a guide providing comprehensive view of the Chicago downtown and its growth over the years. The buses are available at the gap of every 15 minutes and so you can alight from the bus to see the attractions at your own leisure and then catch the bus again to drop by the next attraction. The tickets we bought were valid for 7 days. Since parking in Chicago is inconvenient and a costly affair,it's advisable to park your car at some place and opt for the public transit system.

Chase Bank..World's tallest bank building

Millennium Park located on Michigan Avenue was the first attraction we paid a visit to in Chicago. This park is one of the most popular haunts for tourists and locals alike. Its appeal lies in its four major features - the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Cloud Gate, the Crown Fountain, and the Lurie Garden. Cloud Gate is an attractive structure made of steel and because of its legume like shape, it has earned the sobriquet "The Bean". Its glass-like reflective surface provides distorted images of Chicago skyline and visitors feel amused to see their warped reflections on "The Bean".

Crown Fountain is an artful video sculpture composed of two translucent glass brick towers facing each other. Various human faces appear on the surface of each tower with lips slightly puckered to ooze out water from the nozzle set on the front face of each tower.Water spouting through the lips of the images reflecting on the towers is a fascinating sight.

The Jay Pritzker Pavilion is the cynosure of Millennium Park. With the facility of 4,000 fixed seats and a huge lawn accomodating an additional 8,000 people, this pavilion has been a host to a series of musical shows including symphony, orchestra, classical music and so on.

On completing our tour around Millennium Park, we headed towards Michigan Lake. It's a huge lake almost as big as some of the seas of the world like Caspian Sea and Red sea. Lake Michigan has a significant role to play behind Chicago earning its popular name "the wind city".

After that we took another ride in Double Decker bus and roamed around the downtown of Chicago city. The guide poured out information regarding the development of Chicago familiarizing us with the buildings found in Chicago downtown. The pic below is of Trump Tower which was originally meant to be the tallest building in USA but post 9/11 attack Donald Trump revised the design and made it the second tallest building of US.The Trump Tower is a hotel cum condominium, only second of its kind to Burj Khalifa located in Dubai.

The skyscraper below is the head office of Wrigley Chewing Gum Company. Built way back in 1920, interestingly, it was the first office building of Chicago that was equipped with air-conditioning facility.

The pic below is of Marina City,a luxurious residential/commercial building complex.The corncob shaped 65 story tall towers were the tallest residential buildings in the world when built way back in 1964, but in 1977 they have been transformed into condominiums.

The snap below captures "Thompson Center" that boasts of a stupendous collection of arts. The bizarre-looking modern sculpture displayed at the entrance reflects the artistic heritage of the building.

I was shivering in freezing cold seated at the top compartment of the Double Decker bus under open sky, more so because the weather was so windy that it seemed as if the breeze generated from Michigan Lake directly was hitting us and I was not at all prepared for such windy weather. The jacket I was wearing that day was of flimsy fabric, hardly insulating enough for warding off cold.I started feeling pretty dizzy by the time we finished our trip and got down from the bus near the parking lot where we had our car parked.But a misfortune as it seemed was awaiting us. To our utter astonishment and horror, when we reached the parking space, we saw our car vanished. Upon enquiry, we discovered that our car had been towed. None but Debu gets the entire credit for forgetting to put the parking ticket on the windshield. In the absence of a parking ticket glued to the windshield, they assumed that we had not paid for parking and hence our car was towed. I literally freaked out in frustration. Chicago was totally an unknown place and to retrieve our car from the towing people, we would have to shell out $250 as fine and that too when we had already paid for the parking ticket. I was on the verge of tears when a guy and a female security guard at the parking lot came for our help. That guy was an absolute angel who not only convinced the security guard to drive us to the towing office but called the people there requesting them to let us go as we were foreigners who unmindfully didnot go through the parking ticket properly and hence slipped putting it on the windshield.Only and solely for that godly person who appeared from nowhere to help us we got ourselves extricated from an ugly situation, which could have ruined our total trip, without paying any amercement.

Debu has innocence writ large on his face, may be due to the fact that he is a kind of person who would never harm a fly and so the towing people there took mercy on him (thanks to the phone call of that angelic person we met at the parking lot) and gave our vehicle back to us without charging a fine. After such miraculous escape (it's nothing short of a miracle that we were let go because in US, towing rules and regulations are very strict) we were definitely very happy though I was seething inside over Debu being so careless to miss reading the parking ticket carefully, but on reaching hotel my anger subsided and we decided to go for a night stroll after dinner. Our hotel was exactly located at Magnificent Mile in Chicago downtown and hence every restaurant or attraction were within walking distance. We chose a Japanese eatery named "Sliver Spoon" and consumed some very delectable Japanese dishes.

Post dinner we visited John Hancock Observatory which is a 100 storied tall skyscraper with a restaurant at its 95th floor providing a panoramic view of the Chicago skyline. The entire city illuminated at night looks dazzling and ornamental.The view is simply breathtaking and inexplicable in words.Unfortunately, the building shuts down at 11 o'clock and since we reached there few minutes before the closing time, we could linger for half an hour only.

Next day we started early in the morning for Willis Tower. As mentioned earlier Willis tower is a 108 storied high-rise building,which formerly known as 'Sears Tower',is popular among tourists and locals alike for its skydeck situated at 103rd floor of the tower. Skydeck is nothing but an observation deck which slightly protruded from the main frame of the building is made of glass boxes and hence standing upon the skydeck at 103rd floor, if you look through the glass below you may find the entire city sprawled beneath your feet some 1,400 feet below. The experience is quite scary and unnerving if you are height phobic, but super exciting.The skydeck apart, the astounding view of beautiful Chicago skyline meeting the Michingan Lake is a paradigm of nature juxtaposing with modern architecture.

Usually the glass balconies known as skydeck remain so crowded that you need to squeeze through the crowd to get inside the balcony and wait for your turn to take snaps. So just in case if you are unable to capture your family without a stranger appearing in the same frame, you may avail a facility of getting your snaps taken by some professional photographers at the pay of $25. The pic below featuring me and my hubby standing on skydeck is one such pic clicked by one of the professional camera men.

Buckingham Fountain, located at the heart of Grant Park of Chicago, is one of the largest fountains of the world, designed after the pattern of a three-tiered wedding cake.The fountain surrounded by a stream of seasonal plants and flower beds is a visual delight. Functional only through the months from April till October, this fountain hosts many water shows and evening color-light shows in order to attract tourists.

Navy Pier in Chicago is another sought-after tourist destination. Standing 150 feet tall, the Ferris Wheel so distinctly conspicuous from even farthest of skyscrapers is a popular attraction here. The ride in Ferris wheel will expose you to a beautiful scenic view. Besides, parks, gardens, shops, promenades and restaurants make this place throbbing with activity. Numerous entertaining shows arranged within the Navy Pier building are also huge crowd-pullers.