Photo reprinted with permission from Luke Allen, at lukeallen.blogspot.com Friday Night: 10 degrees outside, I was home by 5, in sweats, and spent most of the next 7 hours rotating between a good book, the laptop, stand-up comedy on TV...anything I could do that involved cuddling up under 2 blankets to keep warm. Sheer lounging.
Saturday: Housecleaning, a baby shower, drinks and appetizers with friends, with plans to duck out early and pick up another friend, Ilaiy, from the Champaign airport. A bit of a glitch in the plans, at 8:15 I got the word: flights from Chicago canceled due to cold weather; he's stranded for the night in O'Hare Airport.
Facing another evening staring at the boobtube is more than I can handle: ROAD TRIP!!!
I left my friends to their dinner (as originally planned) went to grab a cup of coffee before hitting the road, and ran into Atef, grabbing a smoke outside of Cafe Kopi.
"Hey, Lori, how are you?"
"Fine; you want to ride to Chicago with me right now?"
"Yes."
A tankful of gas, and we were on our way to Chi-town. We picked up a shivering Ilaiy (2 degrees there, his winter coat in my car) a little after 11, then headed downtown for dinner. Chinatown, we decided.
Photo from leehiphopshow.ipbhost.com
We sat at a great little place called Shui-Wah until 2 in the a.m. We passed up the fried pig intestines, went instead for hot 'n sour soup, seafood fried noodles, spicy beef, some odd oyster dish, and spicy egg tofu. Mountains of food and never-ending hot tea came to a grand total of $45. On top of that the waiters and host were very friendly and we chatted at length with them about their families; our waiter has a cousin that attends the Univ. of IL, and his son, age 12, hopes to come here too, in 5 or 6 years.
A diet-coke to go, and we headed back home; my head hit my pillow at 5:30 in the a.m.
When's the last time I pulled a stunt like this, I do-not-know!
It sure blew the cobwebs out of my head though! Winter doldrums disappeared, spring is around the corner, and I can stay up all night if I want to, yayyyyyy!!!
I need a nap.
Fantastic!!! I'm glad you guys had a blast!
ReplyDeleteI can only
:0(
because I wasn't there for the roadtrip. But, I'm seriously glad you guys had fun and that food looks delicioso.
Good for you for being so spontaneous and fun and helpful. How exciting!
Terrific photo of the city!
ReplyDeleteThat sounds fun .. I guess should do something of that kind more often ..
ReplyDelete./thanks
ilaiy
Sounds great! I love a good road trip! I'm headed for Chicago in a couple weeks - maybe I'll check out Shui-Wah... though I usually head straight to Greektown!
ReplyDeleteI've been to Greektown once for dinner, and I'm dying to go back and explore.
ReplyDeleteJoy-yee is supposed to be fantastic in Chinatown too; a noodle place that you'll stand in a long line for but it's apparently worth it. It as closed by the time we got there.
What is the dish in the last photo, I have got to have some! Thanks for the Chicago tips, planning a early summer trip up on the train!
ReplyDeleteWendy: Greek food :) I want some Domathes now too!
Jodie: that was a very soft spicy egg tofu. I'm pretty good with chopsticks, but these were impossible to pick up...we cheated and used the serving spoons to eat these things with. These places do NOT have forks!
ReplyDeleteWow, what a good time! I spent the weekend with Bren in NYC. She took me to Slava's SNOWSHOW. Very entertaining! Russian clowns!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.snowshowusa.com/
http://www.slavasnowshow.com/