Miscellaneous Asiatown

Well, that's kinda what it is, though they call it Chinatown.

A bunch of us went there on Saturday, and we picked a lovely day for it, too--chilly, snowing, windy. Luckily we didn't have to do too much walking, since Chinatown extends over maybe 3 blocks.

We went to a Chinese restaurant. Not like the ones back home. The names for some of the dishes were strangely different, though vaguely recognizable from American TV. They only gave us plates, so Kate and I had to ask for rice bowls, and then when they came they weren't bowls so much as oversized cups. Talk about culture shock.

We also saw a sign advertising some sort of medication with the key ingredient of "Testo-gland". It didn't say what it was for.

Still, we plan to back sometime, for bubble tea if nothing else. (With the uncooperative weather, cold drinks didn't seem appropriate at the time.) It's not terribly far by bus and train.

About the train. Half the train stations seem to lack ceilings. There are heat lamps installed in places, but those areas aren't actually sheltered by, say, walls. I'm sure that makes them very useful on the 3 or 4 nights of the Chicago winter when it isn't windy, but Saturday night was not one of those nights.