Chinatown

The Husband and I continued our tour of Chicago. We selected Chinatown out of our City Walks Chicago deck of cards.

We took the water taxi from Madison Street down the river. We had a coupon for buy one ride get one free so it ended up being less than taking the El to and from Chinatown. It was nice to see the city from a different view. I told The Husband that one sunny day I was going to pay my $6 to ride around on the boat all day, bring my bikini and towel, and pretend I owned an actual boat.

We started with Dim Sum at The Phoenix. It was our first Dim Sum experience. I enjoyed the food immensely, even though some of the things I had no clue what they were. The Husband was not a fan and ended up eating the fried chicken. He tried two things which I guess is a step in the right direction. And just to get him into the restaurant I had to promise that we could get a pizza for dinner. After that we walked around a little bit.

We took the water taxi home as well. On our walk home we saw somebody hit by a cab and fly through the air and over the cab. I thought he was dead. Luckily he started moving and it looked like he was just very bloody and had some serious cuts and scrapes.

Lincoln Karaoke

Lincoln Karaoke is a Korean Karaoke bar up in Lincoln Square. Korean Karaoke means you get a private room with all your friends to do your singing in.

I have nothing but good things to say about this place. Sure, it's quite far from downtown and where I live. But it's worth the $25 cab ride. Or convincing one of your friends to be sober enough to drive. Drinks are reasonable. You do pay a room rental fee per hour but that doesn't end up being too expensive either if there's a large group of you.

They also have a fabulous light-up tambourine that I love to shake.

A not to miss experience in my book.

The Fifty/50

We continued my birthday celebration at The Fifty/50. This bar was chosen because it featured several drinks on it's menu made with my favorite raspberry and peach lambics.

The bar is three floors. We were on the first one. Unfortunately they started clearing tables away while we were there to pack more people in. We lost one of our tables. So if you want a table for the night choose one of the booths on the side.

The wild berry shandy was awesome. It was made with bacardi razz with fresh berries and a blast of black cherry, raspberry lambic beers, wheat beer, lemon, and a hint of ginger. There were so many berries in my drink I thought I was being healthy by drinking.

Then for the first time in our lives, we ordered bottle service. We had a bunch of friends in town so we split it between 6 of us. A liter of Grey Goose was only $120 here and it came with all our mixers. Not too bad considering most places charge upwards of $200 and a vodka tonic is approaching $10 anyway. But hey it's my birthday and we're celebrating.

We did have a problem with our waitress. There had originally been another table sitting next to us that The Husband's cousin was sitting at. We knew no one else at that table. When we went to pay the waitress had put their tab with ours. Umm no. I don't think she was happy when we told her we weren't paying for drinks that weren't ours. I generally prefer to go up to the bar and order individual drinks to avoid this problem.

The Fifty/50 also serves a good looking menu including some late night food. I am highly disappointed I missed the cheese fries with bacon at 1 am though we did order some nachos at the next bar.

Enoteca Roma

We started at Enoteca Roma in Wicker Park for my birthday celebration the other week. We got to sit on the great little patio out back. Most of us started with wine flights. They also have an extensive beer selection considering they are known for their wine.

For dinner I had a tray from the bruschetteria. I chose the Emilia (tomato, garlic, basil, prosciutto), Vinnie (carmelized onion and gorgonzola cheese), Piemonte (brie, green apples, and honey), and Napoli (tomato, baby mozzarella, and pesto). All were delicious. The Husband and I also shared a cheese tray. And we split the Pera pasta. The Pera was pear ravioli, walnut-cream sauce, and gorgonzola. Very good as well. The pasta had a bit of a sweat flavor.

Our dinnermates all seemed happy with their meals as well. I was too busy shoving food and drink in my face to really notice what they got except for the polenta. I've never had polenta and it was very good. With all the other things on the menu I probably wouldn't order it next time though.

Service was a bit slow but all in all this was an excellent choice for dinner.

All This Can Be Yours...

...for only $30,0000.

Poseidon Undersea Resort is opening in 2010 in Fiji. They will have 24 underwater suites, 24 overwater bungalows, and 24 private beach bungalows available.

For only $15,000 per person you get 6 nights at the resort including 2 nights in an underwater suite and 4 nights in a bungalow. You also get to learn how to pilot a mini-submarine in the lagoon. I hope no one's piloting results in a crash into the resort. The underwater suites have a button you can push to release food into the water so you can watch the fish and other critters eat. This sounds a tad irresponsible to the fish in the lagoon. I mean who wouldn't want to push that button every 5 minutes?

This sounds like a cool idea if you're loaded with money and looking for something different. The rest of us non-trust fund and non-CEO travelers will be stuck on land though.

Cameras

The Husband and I are getting ready to spend a pretty penny on some new camera equipment. He wants an SLR camera, the Canon EOS Rebel XSi. Dropping $600+ on a camera makes me very nervous. Maybe because back for our first or second dating anniversary in college, I decided to buy The Husband his first digital camera. A huge expenditure back in the day when I was too poor to drink anything but the crappiest beer. And less than 24 hours after owning it, as The Husband is running across the street on a Saturday night, it either flies out of his pocket or he drops it, brand new, right in the middle of the street. Luckily it was only scratched up. Still it makes me nervous with an expensive camera. And nervous that I'll break it too.

Looks like both of us will be taking some photography lessons soon to figure out how to work all those buttons.

And for me, I will be getting a new point and shoot. My requirements were that it fits into a small purse or my pocket. Other than that I just needed a new camera since mine is from college. These are my two choices: http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-cameras/nikon-coolpix-s230-jet/4505-6501_7-33516777.html?tag=mncol;lst and http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-cameras/canon-powershot-sd1200-is/4505-6501_7-33529007.html?tag=box4505. Both recommended by The Husband.

I really can't wait to take our new cameras on vacation with us.

All over the place

I've been travelling a lot throughout June but unfortunately nothing too exciting. I've been gone four weekends in a row and I'm exhausted. Columbus and Dayton, Ohio to visit my family, Cleveland, Ohio for a bachelorette party, Ann Arbor and the Detroit area to visit The Husband's family, and out to the suburbs for a wedding.

A couple highlights - The Burgundy Room in Columbus, Ohio. The Burgundy Room is located in the Short North area of Columbus, not far from Ohio State's campus. The Short North is a very vibrant area with lots of shops, people walking on the streets, street performances, and restaurants. The Burgundy Room was a wine bar and tapas restaurant. I took my brother there for dinner and he asked me what a tapa was. Luckily I was able to introduce my college-age brother to the wonders of good tapas. If I ever moved back to Ohio, Columbus is where I'd be. It's a great town.

The next weekend it was on to Cleveland. Saturday night we went to a winery called Perennial Vineyards near Canton, Ohio for part of a bachelorette party. The wine was pretty decent (what can you expect, Ohio isn't exactly known as the Napa of the midwest). But the food was excellent. Really good and creative pizzas.

Weekend three was on to Michigan. We stopped in Ann Arbor on Friday night on the way in to see some old friends. I'd really been looking forward to stopping at Zingerman's Creamery for some cheese on Saturday morning but we got up early and left before it was open. We did have the pleasure of going to the dirtiest, nastiest, undergrad bar on University of Michigan's campus on Friday night. They actually made us pay cover. I boycott places that charge a cover but once in beers were only $1. And The Husband and I were able to get fairly intoxicated on only $16 total. And the bar made me feel extremely old. Pretty sure that me, The Husband, and The Husband's friend were the only ones in the whole place with a wedding ring on.

Last weekend was a wedding on Saturday night. The Marriott resort in Vernon Hills has a restaurant and bar decorated as a pirate ship. Awesome when you've been drinking. Wouldn't actually recommend this hotel to anyone as it seemed extremely outdated. Sunday we headed to the beach in Michigan with two other couples. We headed to Warren Dunes in Sawyer, Michigan which is less than 2 hours from downtown Chicago. I highly recommend heading there as a day trip or even an overnight. We laid on the beach all day, grilled out in the parking lot for lunch, went hiking to find the clay pits, and you can also climb and run down the huge dune if you'd like. We also had dinner at a great local restaurant down the road. There were some wineries nearby too. It really was the perfect summer outing (I write this as I'm sitting here on July 4th, it isn't even 70 degrees out, and it's raining).