A long awaited trip in the US with my parents

After having to postpone the Visa appointment for a year due to the pandemic situation, my parents have now got their first ever US Visa! A month right after they received their passports, now with the US Visa attached to, they flew from Thailand to the US to visit me in Illinois. To be more accurate, WE flew together from Thailand to Chicago, though on different flights. Our itinerary was to visit Chicago, Washington DC, NYC, and, of course, my beloved corn field city, Champaign. (That’s why I put a picture of my dad and I with Foellinger auditorium in the thumbnail.)

June 24, 2023:

Okay, so let’s start with the closest big city to my school, Chicago. I booked the Congress Plaza hotel for two nights as it was the only place available on booking.com that was affordable. Still, the price was not really that good, but it’s Chicago so I just had to accept the price. However, the hotel room was pretty nice and the interior decoration of the hotel looked very much like in the Great Gasby. In fact, we took a detour on the first day to my apartment in Champaign to drop our stuff. Then we went up to Chicago by train on the day after. Since it took almost 3 hours from Champaign to Chicago, we arrived at the hotel just about the check-in time. Once we dropped off our luggage in our room, we went straigt to Ming Hin, a famous dimsum place near the Milllenium park. Unfortunately, the AC was broken on that day, but the dimsum and stir fried noodle with BBQ pork were a blast!

We didn’t do anything much on the first day in Chicago except strolling around, seeing the bean and Navy Pier, and going up to Skydeck at Willis tower. I had been to Willis tower once prior to this time and I liked it a lot. The view up there was still amazing, especially on a (almost) sunny day. In the evening we grabbed Shake Shack on the first floor of Willis tower before going back to our place.

June 25, 2023:

On the next day, we started with a hearty breakfast at Wild berry. I ordered only two dishes: one savory omelette and hashbrown and a deck of signature berry bliss pancakes. Both of them were super delicious but impossible to finish! After that, we went to Dusable bridge to get on the Architecture boat tour. It was my first time on a cruise in Chicago. The guide of our cruise was very active and full of energy, plus the river was so gorgeous on that day. We did get a lot of architectural knowledge; moreover, now I know why there are so many awe-inspiring buildings along the river. (Please find the answer yourself by booking a tour if you haven’t known the answer already.)

For lunch, I booked Purple pig just to let them try some fancy food (Just kidding, it wasn’t that fancy but of high quality, I would say.) The crispy pig’s ears and half duck were tasteful, but the 3 way mushrooms wasn’t our favorite. In the evening, we went to Shedd aquarium to vist my Beluga friends, which are also known as beefy whales. We also remembered to get a cone of ice cream from the Original rainbow cone’s truck in front of Shedd. It was worth every penny in the opinion of an ice cream lover like me. We made a stop at Nordstorm racks to buy pairs of sun glasses for my aunties before going back to the hotel. We didn’t have a full meal dinner that night as we were still quite full from the “half” duck.

June 26, 2023:

In the morning, we were headed to Midway International Airport since 9 AM. We bought big city chicken at the airport as breakfast, and I must say that I would not recommend it at all. The fried chicken was so dry and cold despite the fact that we were there in the early morning. Anyway, we flew to DC via Southwest airline. It was my first time using their service. There were no seats assigned for the passenger, but we were assigned the order in the line to get on the plane. For example, we were at B5, B6, B7, meaning that we were in group B and would be the 5th, 6th, and 7th passengers who get on the plane to select our seats. It was quite a new experience, so we named their service “flying bus.” We finally arrived at the District hotel in Washington DC around 1 PM. The plan for today was to go to the US capitol and the national botanic garden. We had to book the timed tickets to the capitol in advance because of the high demand. We visited three rooms inside the capitol, the Crypt (the room full of roman pillars underneath the Rotunda), the Rotunda (the dome), and the Statuary rooms (where located the statue of each state’s important people). We had a quick dinner at the food court in the US capitol. My dad got mac and cheese with stewed beef, and my mom got a pepperoni pizza. The food was not very flavorful but definitely filling our hunger. We walked around the US capitol a bit more and stopped at the botanic garden to take some pictures, and that concludes our first day in DC.

June 27, 2023:

I don’t think I have mentioned this in the previous paragraph but this trip was my first time in DC! In the second day at Washington DC, we began our day with coffees at Slipstream cafe near the hotel. Their coffees and padtries were very nice and aromatic. After a warm breakfast, we went to the national mall by bus 52. We started at the Washington monument then riding circulator buses to other important stops, namely, Thomas Jefferson memorial and Lincoln memorial. We didn’t make a stop at most of the WW2 memorials due to the interest of time. We then headed to the Smithsonian Natural History museum to have lunch and to visit Woolly the Mammoth! We spent a good hour wanderinf around seeing bones and fossils of weird ancient creatures. After that, we went to the national air and space museum. To be honest, it didn’t impress me that much, but I could imagine there would be people who liked it a lot. The last place we visited was Hirshhorn modern art museum. Well, I know that most people would prefer the national gallery. I would too, but there was Yayoi Kusama’s exhibition at Hirshhorn so I had to go with the modernism. There were three pieces of her art displayed at the museum: her famous dotted pumpkin, the room filled with small red-dotted stuffed toy, and the infinity room. My dad and I had a great time! (Please allow half an hour in the queue.) For dinner, we had Thai food at Ammathar restaurant. The food was not 100% authentic, but we loved to have the Thai spiciness to clear out all the oiliness from American food we had all day.

June 28, 2023:

We went to Slipstream again (see, my parents love cafes). We then took a train from the Union station to New York city. It took us about 3 hours so we had to grab some fast food as lunch in the Union. We arrived at the Penn station around 3 PM, so we went to check in at the Herald right away. Luckily, the hotel’s location is beyond great. It’s in the middle of the town, near the Empire state building, Korea town, and Time Square. After dropping off our stuff, I brought my parents to BCD tofu. We ordered seafood pancake, assorted meat soondubu soup, and bibimbup. The food was as good as always. My mom even told me that the taste is better than Korean food in Thailand. We did some shopping for a bit before visiting the Empire State building. The last time I went on top of the building was 5 years ago, so there were a lot of changes at the exhibition floor. We took a lot of pictures even before going up to the 86th floor!

June 29, 2023:

After recharging our energy through 8 hours of sleep, we were ready to complete our mission in NYC which is to see the Statue of Liberty up close! We booked a ferry at 9 AM so we decided to have breakfast at a deli near Rector metro station. We then walked a bit to the Battery park to go through the security check before getting on board. The ferry then took us to the statue island. We were suggested to sit on the right side of the ferry so that we could have a better view of the Statue of Liberty when the ferry was getting close to the island. After taking millions of pictures with the Statue of Liberty, we were headed to Ellis island. We wandered around for a bit and took a ferry back to the battery park. While we were walking to a Thai food place, we also stopped by a couple of places like the charging bull and the 9/11 memorial. We then walked to Aroy Dee Thai to have lunch where we ordered Thai Esaan Zaab set and Panang curry. The food was a bit too sweet to my taste but much better than a lot of Thai restaurants near my school. (Poor Champaign)

We also made a stop at Brooklyn bridge, but it was almost too hot to walk on the bridge. We ended up shopping at the entrance of the bridge instead. After that, we went back to our hotel to take some rest. For dinner, we went to Dimsum Palace close to the hotel. The taste was good, but overall is a bit too pricey. The last stop of our trip in NYC was Time Square. My parents didn’t enjoy the liveliness of the square that much, but we caught the sunset there and that was the most beautiful sunset in this trip.

The journey didn’t end just that. We stayed in Champaign for a couple more days before I saw my parents off on the 4th of July. They will be back in the US again in the future, hopefully in 3 years from now! (Hints: cap and gown)