While living in Chicago, I went on many small outings with my friends—I will sum up 3 of them in this article.

One of the first big things I did after moving back to Chicago was to visit Chinatown, which is just to the south of downtown.

I went there with 3 friends, and after reaching Chinatown, we walked around for a bit, mostly just checking out the architecture. We quickly found a square that had all the Zodiac signs, and in the effort to not bore you with showing you all of them, I’ll just show the best one (because it’s my Zodiac sign).

While window shopping, we went into an alcohol store that primarily sold sake. Most, if not all of us, were underage still, so we didn’t plan on buying anything and instead only wanted to look around.

My friend Nathon had a tendency to keep wearing shirts long after they were overdue for replacement, and that day happened to be one of those days. His shirt had more holes than Swiss cheese, and the lady in the alcohol store noticed it while walking around. She spoke in mildly broken English and she told us to wait.

We curiously did as she requested while she went into the back. Upon coming out a few moments later, she had a brand new T-shirt with her that had the brand of one of the sake bottles on it, obviously some freebie from the distillery or distributor. She presented it to Nathon, telling him that his shirt was full of holes, and he should have it. Nathon politely refused, explaining that he didn’t have enough money, but she insisted that he take it for free, even if we didn’t buy anything.

We thanked her, Nathon switched his shirts, and we left, baffled but humored by how Nathon was given a free shirt, just because his other one was little more than a rag. You don’t see simply selfless gestures like that too often.

Chicago’s Chinatown isn’t that big, but on our way back to the train station we did find some sort of cobblestone opening that had a circular pattern built into it. So, like any culturally insensitive tourists, we proceeded to have a Sumo wrestling match.

That was about it for Chinatown. I would highly recommend visiting it, as they also have quite good and affordable food there.

 

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Another adventure that I went on was to simply walk up the Mag(nificent) Mile with my friend Aaron. The Mag Mile is basically where all the shops are in downtown Chicago, and one finds it on the northern side of downtown, right along N Michigan Ave.

I didn’t take too many pictures because most of it is just stores you see anywhere else. We did see some neat people dressed up like statues, which was kind of neat.

 

One of the highlights for us, though, was the Lego store. It’s just plain fun going in there and seeing all the cool things that have been built.

 

 

We then continued walking up towards the beach at the end of the street. On the way, we also saw the historic Chicago Water Tower, which was one of the few buildings that remained after the great Chicago fire of 1871.

And then we got to the beach. We didn’t bring swim gear, so we didn’t go swimming, but we did see a pretty cool air show by the Blue Angels.

We watched the jets fly around for a while before turning to go back down the street toward the train station, but obviously not before we stopped at Hershey’s Chocolate World. Inside that store, you can find just about anything made by the Hershey’s company. There also happened to be a very entertaining show by one of the employees.

This gentleman had gotten everyone’s attention and we were observing him make the most epic cupcake of all time. He was very good at not only making a sugary coma on a plate, but he also talked and sang covers of Beatles songs that he altered the lyrics to match the theme of chocolate, candy, and anything else in that direction. It was entertaining, and I would recommend swinging by, if only to see him or someone as good as him do a little show.

After finishing, he told us that one lucky audience member would get the cupcake for free. There were about 10 kids and maybe 20 adults all huddled around watching his show, and he said that whoever could make the most noise proving that they wanted it would be rewarded with the cupcake. He encouraged yelling and waving arms, so right before the contest, so to speak, started, Aaron looked at me and told me very methodically, “Bridger, get on my back.”

Our brains were in sync I knew what to do. Aaron bent down, I leaped on his back like I was getting a piggyback ride, and I towered over everyone else (we are both over 6 Feet tall). With me looking down on everyone else I filled my lungs and wailed about how I wanted the cupcake so bad, it was the only thing I ever wanted in my life, I needed it and I really, really wanted it. My arms flailed and my face grew red from the effort.

The Hershey’s employee told us that we all did good enough and while he highly commended the effort Aaron and I had shown, he awarded the cupcake to one of the other younger children, which was totally okay. We figured he would give it to one of the kids, but we thought it was funny to try. While the crowd was dispersing, a few of the parents even told us that we should have got the cupcake and not the kids, which was a nice compliment I suppose, but we just shook our shoulders, understanding that the children should have gotten it. The guy who made and gave away the cupcake did come up to us, though, and thanked us for being good sports about still gave us a few free packs and various chocolates, so it was a win-win in my book.

The Mag Mile has tons of other shops, museums, and other attractions, and it warrants a walk up the street, and these were just a few of the things that we did on that day.

 

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And for the last part of this post, I will briefly mention the Brookfield Zoo, which is in the western suburbs of Chicago. A friend and I went there for the day, and it indeed took all day to see the Zoo as it is fairly good sized.

There were plenty of other animals, but I don’t see a reason to post all those pictures, as they are just like ones you would see in any zoo. The Brookfield Zoo was nice, although most of the enclosures had a similar, depressing look to them that made me feel a bit sorry for the animals that I was now looking through the pictures, which also contributed to me not feeling like posting too many pictures.

That aside, these were just a few of the things I did in Chicago, and many more adventures have yet to be told.