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Spring is here! Don’t you just feel like hopping and singing with the birds and the beautiful flowers?.................................
Okay Firuz, stop your theatrical imagination already. ;p Our university’s spring break was in early March but my friend had planned this trip since January! She told me about the plan so early so that I would not give her any excuse anymore. Hihi. And actually I was glad that she ‘booked’ me since I had a wonderful spring break with my friends.
We had all planned beforehand including the transportation, accommodation, entrance tickets, and tour bus. Of course, as students, we practiced budget trip and my friend managed to grab awesome deals. When the day came, we took Megabus from Saint Louis to Chicago.
Oh no, staying true to its name: Windy City, Chicago was really windy and cold! There was no snow but we had to wrap ourselves with thick jackets, gloves and even snow caps. Our cheap budget hotel was situated at downtown Chicago but the room was so huge and comfortable. We, three girls had sound sleep every night.
We bought tickets for the best double decker tour bus in Chicago. To capture the best views, we chose to sit on the second floor but yeah…it was totally freezing! Who cares right? As long as you could get the best pictures and videos ;p
Chicago is definitely an iconic city. The buildings and monuments are sophisticated and amazing. It was like visiting a huge architectural museum.
Apparently, Chicago held Saint Patrick’s Day Parade on that Saturday. I didn’t know much about it but after a little research, it seems that it is a special day for Irish people in commemoration of Saint Patrick. But generally, the day is known for being drunk and wearing green ;p
Can you believe that they actually dyed the river green with food coloring just to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day? It was so cool to see a green river!
We watched the parade and learned many new things about Irish people. I just kept wondering how the girls and guys could stand the coldness just by wearing skirts?
On the next day, my friends planned to visit the pier but I really wanted to go to the sky deck of Willis Tower. Therefore, we went our separate ways and I walked all the way to Willis Tower alone by reading the instructions from the Google Map. I found it! (Proud of myself hihi)
Every tower has its own typical viewing deck but Willis Tour is different. There was a glass level on the 103rd floor and believe me, it was sooo scary! When you step on the glass, you would feel as if you were flying. I was so scared but I tried to act cool and finally I got a very nice shot on the glass floor! Yippee!
Who doesn’t love chocolate? I and my friends met each other again at Hershey’s Chicago Store. The various delicious chocolates displayed in the store really tempted me. Just the sight of the chocolates made me craving for more. I was so happy to get the chance drinking Hershey’s hot chocolate in the cold windy day of Chicago. The chocolate was so creamy and…no words could describe it. I felt ‘deliciously’ warm after having that hot chocolate.
On the final day in Chicago, we planned to have educational experience by visiting the museums. Lucky us, the Field Museum was having its free entrance day, so we saved almost 25 bucks! The museum was like any other museums, (different from the cool City Museum that I visited before) with exhibitions of animals and monuments. I had the chance to see Sue, the most completed and well preserved t-rex fossil in the world.
The final destination was the Art Institute of Chicago. For those who love art, this place would be a perfect place to indulge your passion. I enjoyed the miniature exhibition the most. The small rooms were made with neat and detailed hand work process. I felt as if I was watching marvelous doll houses and how I wish I could shrunk for a while so that I could visit all the rooms myself.
Now enough with the reading, here I present you the audio and visual experience of my trip. Enjoy!
Excitement:7/10 (I think if it was in summer, I would have given a 10 ;p)
Access to praying location: 5/10 (For zuhur and asar prayers, we prayed at corners in other buildings. No specific mosques nearby the attractions but you can still find mosques at other places)
Access to halal food: 8/10 (We were lucky enough because there was a halal restaurant just around the corner of our hotel. By the way, Chicago has way more halal restaurants compared to my place in Saint Louis)
Budget: About 250 USD including 3 nights stay in the hotel, transportation, tickets for transportation, building entrance, and food. Good deal right?
*THIS IS MY FIRST ENTRY FOR IMASTRAVEL CONTEST. PLEASE VOTE FOR ME BEFORE APRIL 1ST 2011. PLEASE VOTE FOR ME BY CLICKING THE LIKE BUTTON IN THE BOX BELOW. ONCE YOU ARE SENT TO THE PAGE, PLEASE CLICK THE LIKE BUTTON AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE. THANK YOU.
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Museum seems like a compulsory destination to be included in a travel plan especially if you want to experience an educational trip. However, let us just be honest here, okay? Who thinks museum is a boring place, please rise up your hand. Wow, almost no fingers remain on the keyboards as most of you put your hands up! ;p
Guess what? I have visited the coolest museum ever! When I say cool, I really mean it. This museum is not a typical museum with merely exhibitions. On contrast, it offers a unique way to learn new things. Sounds absurd? Well okay, hang on for a while because I will prove it to you now!
Situated faraway from the beloved Malaysia yet close to my current residence, this museum is located at downtown Saint Louis, Missouri state, United States of America. As a student, I used my budget trip strategy by going there with my friends with a small rented car. It was a Saturday, therefore parents brought their children along there. Nevertheless, I had never imagined that a museum could be crowded like that! People queued up to buy the entrance tickets as if it was for a movie premiere show.
From the entrance section, the interior design looked amazing. I could see ribbons hanging on the ceiling, slides and cages everywhere, and others. The first sight of the museum made me more eager to enter it.
Once we got the tickets, we went upstairs and beautiful wall ornaments greeted us. Museum is usually a quiet place but we were fed with cheerful music from a piano in the middle of the floor. Anyone could play their own piece on the piano freely. How cool was that! Visiting a museum had never been so relaxing without the urge of being silent.
A museum is not a museum without exhibitions. There were exhibitions of preserved animals, insects, bottles, marbles, architectural designs, weird stuffs, and others. At one corner, a few teenagers were doing acrobatic moves as if they were performing a circus show. Imagine watching acrobatic performance in a museum! Interesting, isn’t it?
Well, everyone knows what a typical museum would have. So let’s just move on to the interesting part. The main point that I want to highlight here is the difference that the museum offers us. A museum is such a quiet, ‘sophisticated’ place that you need to restrain yourself. On the contrary, you can just loosen yourself and enjoy to your heart’s content here. City Museum has many physical exhibitions that involves your participation.
There was an Egyptian section where you could find piles of sponges. Okay…why sponges? So that children could build a huge pyramid from the sponges! Such a creative way of learning, isn’t it?
The museum was literally a different world. You would see visitors regardless of ages and sexes having fun by sliding, crawling, jumping, and climbing around. Even babies enjoyed the slides with their parents! And when I was sitting on a high plank, I suddenly got a knock from beneath. An adult was crawling through a long small path beneath me! Of course I tried the slides with my friend and we had a clumsy fall. LOL! Nevertheless, it was so much fun!
How about a cave exploration? Checked! I couldn’t imagine that such a huge man made cave would be inside a building. It was dark accompanied with some scary music. Everyone explored the cave freely and it was 10 stories high. Of course climbing up the stairs was not easy but the fun part was the way down. We could slide 10 stories down! Awesome! :D
The ultimate surprise was the outdoor set. Wow, you should see with your own eyes! Totally amazing!!! It was so huge, high, and wide. For me it was like the fantasy wild land for everyone. You could crawl and climb everywhere, or even visit a bus and airplane on the trees!
My friends in front of the outdoor set
For more evidence of the museum coolness, here I want to share the audio and visual experience of my trip with you! Enjoy watching~
Now, will you agree with me? Isn’t this such a cool museum? I will never have a bad perspective of museums anymore since I found a cool one already!
Assalamualaikum and hello, friends! Like I promised before, here I present you a video of my journey in Chicago, the Windy City. Actually I have many inputs from this trip that I need to divide them into three videos! For now, I am just releasing one video. So do anticipate for the next two videos :D
Actually I am planning to join a travel blog contest sponsored by Malaysian Airlines. The judging is based on the amount of 'likes' on Facebook. I hope to get your support for this. Once I submit my entry, can you please like the entry for me, please....(pleading eyes) hehehe.
I will post the link for my entry once I finish it. I really appreciate your support. Thank you :D
This is my first video for my Chicago trip:
p/s: Saya dah siap letak sarikata Bahasa Melayu untuk video ni. Tapi Youtube buat hal pulak T__T. Dah beberapa kali saya publish tapi sarikata tu tak keluar-keluar juga. Harapnya masalah ni akan cepat selesai.
Today I went to the City Museum at downtown Saint Louis with my friend, Tazeen and her lovely sister, Adiba. We had a wonderful time visiting the coolest museum on earth! Watch the teaser first and wait for the release of the full video. :D
Assalamualaikum and hi everyone. Welcome to my blog! I write to express myself. From this blog, you can see various sides of me, a Malaysian girl who is always far from home. Hope you enjoy reading the colors of my life. :)
