Ciaran and Ruth's Worldwide Adventures

This is the end...

ciaranandruth — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:23:00 GMT

This evening we take to the skies on a 24 hour trip home that will take us from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi for four hours, then thirteen hours airborne towards Paris, where we sit tight for another four hours waiting for our two hour trip back to the Emerald Isle. Back to life in Ireland, back to work.

The guy above, Tran Hung Dao is a former commander of Vietnam's military forces, who, bacuse he kicked Mongolian ass some 800 years ago is honoured with a statue outside our hotel where every day he watches the boats pass by on the Saigon river. Cork people note that the smell on Patrick's Bridge is wicked, and wonder how does Fr Matthew stick it. I'm sure Fr Matthew would be happy with his lot if he were offered Tran Hung Dao's alternative.

Here's a few things you might like to know about Vietnam:

1. Small people with large personalities - very friendly and hospitable.

2. Water puppeting is an ancient and honoured part of local tradition. This doesn't mean it's worth a visit.

3. The smog does clear up now and again, and worryingly you actually get used to it.

4. Noise, noise, noise. Beep. Beep. Beep.

5. Safe streets - maybe the terrifying idea of prison here discourages crime, but you can pretty much walk the streets at any time without concern.

6. Leftovers from the American war are everywhere, and lots of replica army surplus for sale.

7. Every tourist has a Good Morning Vietnam t-shirt. No locals do.

8. Upon changing your first EUR 50 note you're immediately a millionaire.

9. Footpaths seem to be constantly under construction. This does serve to prevent the motorcyclists using them, which is good.

10. City children seem to work constantly selling postcards to tourists. Nice kids though, not pushy at all.

All said and done, we'd a great time here. The musical was right - we will Miss Saigon.

Shopping on Dong Khoi

ciaranandruth — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:01:00 GMT

First off to the Ben Thanh market - a chaotic indoor arrangement of shops and stalls. All senses take a hit here, perhaps the smells being the more noteworthy. Unable to find anything to tickle our fancy we resolved instead to hit the downtown Dong Khoi street, where we handed over our Vietnamese currency in exchange for all sorts of local goods, planning to decorate our un-purchased home.

After last night's catastrophe of a (long long) walk through town to find dinner, we've a bit more of an understanding of the layout of the city centre, which, with a bit of luck, will aid us tonight - on the last night of our trip.

War Remnants

ciaranandruth — Wed, 9 Jan 2008 15:54:00 GMT

It's all about the war. Well, maybe it's our obsession, but it seems that everything's about the war. Every government building has a remnant of the war at its front. Some are Vietnamese planes or weapons. More are American. Maybe they were careless, or maybe in their haste they forgot, but there's certainly a large amount of American hardware in Vietnam serving as a reminder of their defeat 30 years ago. Some is destroyed, which I suppose gives its own message. Much of it, particularly those in the forecourts of the museums, appears to be in sufficiently good repair to serve some cause or other if called into action tomorrow.

Most museums here treat the war in one way or other. Some, like the Museum of Vietnamese History give a more complete view of the ancient history of this troubled country, while others like the War Remnants Museum focus clearly on the American war. Previouly named the War Crimes Museum it serves as a blatant reminder of the methods used by the Americans in their time here. We're no fools, and we know that there's more than one side to any war. Every side does tell its own story. The Americans in their Pearl Harbour Memorial make no reference that I could find to their war crimes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Similarly the Vietnamese say nothing here of their treatment of the Americans. However, the war was faught here, and as happens in time of war, the majority of the casualties were civilian. Two million civilians perished, twice the number of Vietnamese military to die. Many, many more civilians suffered a sickening fate, and their story is told through captioned photographs in the War Remnants Museum. By some distance the starkest exhibit is the pair of jars containing mutated foetuses, their mutations a result of the infamous Agent Orange - a vicious concoction of chemicals which harmed as many Americans as others. The photographs of napalm burns and bodies punctured by pellets turn the stomach. The war, unsurprisingly, made psychopaths of men. Pictures of laughing soldiers in front of the heads of the conquered hang on the walls alongside strips of photographs showing bodies dragged behind truck and dropped from helicopters. Pulitzer Prize winning snaps and others feature, including one of a group of women holding children photographed before their execution. The photographer's caption read that he called to ask the soldiers to wait, took his picture, then turned and didn't look back. Maybe it's all propaganda. Hardly all.

A room exclusively set aside to tell the story of the press has a picture of Larry Burrows, an American reporter with an uncanny resemblance to an unshaven Sam Smyth, on his last report two days before his death. That's next door to the room entitled Historic Truths - a typically Communist title, more photgraphs, more stories.

The zoo offers a bit of an escape from the war story. The picture outside the gate advertising it presents an image of a leafy savannah populated with jolly creatures, great and small. Upon (only a little) closer inspection it's clear that the photograph is badly altered - so much so that there's a slightly upside down deer just to the left of a pair of giraffes, all magically levitating over a lake. Not being certain that it was Photoshopped, we went in hoping to witness these mysteriously gifted animals. Sadly, we saw only a few lonely, sleepy and bored beasts - elephants, giraffes and some horned things. Not many visitors. Not much else.

We started the day by seeking out a temple. It has been our experience that this only ever leads to disappointment. And in this respect we were not disappointed. If you follow. The Jade Emperor Pagoda on the outskirts of the city took a good half hour walk over broken footpaths and through throngs of locals. No westerners to be seen - we mention this only because there's usually hoardes around the noteworthy tourist spots. No problem. Upon finding its incense smelling location we toured briefly, saw everything to be seen and left. I'm not sure what you're supposed to do in these places. Pray maybe. Once you see them though, what else is there to do? Apart from leave.

Back outside to the madness of crossing a road the width of a Boeing 747, hoping against hope that all the motorists are aware of the custom of not knocking down tourists. It seems widely accepted, but you can't be sure. We saw one American trying to explain in irate English to a grinning local the function of a zebra crossing. Not much impact.

Tomorrow is for shopping, but the rest of today requires only relaxation by the pool, finding a restaurant for dinner and leafing through the Quiet American - Graham Greene's tale of life in Vietnam. I'm not sure what will be more interesting - the story of Vietnam, or the story of a quiet American.

Reunification Hall

ciaranandruth — Tue, 8 Jan 2008 16:46:00 GMT

"Saigon, ...., I love the smell of a freshly made omlette in the morning." Sitting down for breakfast, you don't think there's likely to be an apocolypse any day now, not inside the hotel walls anyhow. And not up on the rooftop pool. Maybe outside. Maybe in the Saigon River which runs past the outside of the hotel. My god. Oh holy god it looks filthy. They do warn you about the Liffey back home, but even looking at the Saigon River you feel disease. How did the Americans think they could ever win a war in this country when they couldn't have known anything about the surprises in store for them in such natural features. Apparently the country is a lot nicer outside the cities. Maybe we're being unfair.

The press organ of the Vietnam Youth Federation was left outside our door after breakfast this morning. The paper, entitled Thanh Nien, reveals following a cursory glance, an unlikely symmetry in content with our own press, but perhaps fitting in this socialist republic, an asymmetry in perspective. For example, an article written with a bouncy, joyous tone in Thanh Nien spoke of Vietnam's rising to 91st in the world in some UN report on E-Government Readiness, while at the same time, the Breaking News section on Ireland.com contained a note of harsh criticism from the Irish opposition on our having fallen to 19th. Other articles in the paper were read with familiarity. Property prices and queues for unbuilt apartments are covered in detail. Apparently they're changing the law here to allow foreigners to buy property. Thus, locals are buying up everything they can with the expectation of selling it on to cash-rich westerners. They didn't say anything about stamp-duty.

The paper doesn't seem as upbeat as the Chinese communist papers. Typically Chinese news is 100% positive or 100% bland or a bit of both. Very little, if anything, is written in crticism of the government. Maybe it's a north-south thing, or some regional rivalry, but the Ho Chi Minh City press do seem to like having a go at their Hanoi cousins - 1000km to the north. An article headlined "More Diarrhea (sic) Outbreaks in Hanoi Despite Ministry Claims" didn't require much reading. Some Cambodian militants have kidnapped a few Vietnamese fishermen and got a bit of a roasting in a two inch article. Didn't make the front page though, which seemed to be written especially for us tourists - maybe in anticipation of our property investments. "Vietnam, Hidden Charm" it read. We'll see.

And to find this hidden charm we hit the streets, rather than just viewing them from the 21st floor. First stop was the Rex Hotel, the venue from which US war correspondents wrote articles for the New York Times, Washington Post and others during the decade long war. The rooftop bar may not have the friendliest staff, but it gives a fine view of the City Hall, the Opera House, the Caravelle Hotel (all spectacular remnants of the French period) as well as the much photographed statue of Ho Chi Minh cradling a baby (not necessarily his own...).

Not much of a stroll away is the Ho Chi Minh City Museum, strangely the location visited by wedded couples on their special day, unusually for photographs against the none-so-pretty gray facade. There were a few couples there today, arriving in taxis and decked out in the finest of western-style garb. Inside, a whole section on the ground floor details the various traditions for local weddings. The traditions differ among the Viet, Hoa, Khemer and Islam traditions, but surely the most interesting of rituals must belong to the Khemer, for whom it is, apparently, typical upon engagement for neighbours to reward the couple with "4 banana hands, 4 wine bottles, 4 tea packets, 4 betel packs, 2 legs of pigs (why not 4 one wonders), 2 chickens, 2 ducks and (presumably to fund the building of an ark) some money". Other artefacts of interest in the sparse museum collection are canoes, carts and stuffed animals used during war to transport weapons from liberation zones to revolution zones (not knowing the use of a stuffed animal in time of war, we guess that the beasts met the taxidermist post treaty - this was not explained). The rest of the museum was decorated with some disturbing photographs from the war, one of which was of a Buddhist monk who set himself alight to protest against the treatment of his co-religious by the Americans and their "puppet" government.

On our way to the Reunification Hall we passed the Notre Dame Catedral and picked up some post-cards in the Central Post Office - inside which a giant painting of Ho Chi Minh overlooks the selling of stamps. However, the real highlight was the Reunification Hall. A spectacular palace from the outside (see Ruth from it's balcony above), the inside is decked out according to the opulence enjoyed by South Vietnamese President Van Thieu and his predecessors before they made their sudden exit when the North Vietnamese made their entrace. They - unlike us - used tanks to remove the gate. We found an easier entrance, just to the left, where you can be admitted for about 50 cent - it mustn't have been open that day. Maybe the current decorators are exaggerating a bit to demonstrate the counter-socialist ideals of the south before its liberation, or maybe its accurate, but this place is like a cross between the Playboy Mansion and a Bond villain's secret lair. The cinema, game room, snooker tables and piano co-exist with the Map Rooms and underground bunkers decked out with those old Telecom Eireann phones (though I don't think they were the actual suppliers) and enormous radios. It really has the feel of a place Dr. Evil would occupy while plotting his takeover of the world. Probably for more than 1 million dong. That wouldn't even cover the bill in a decent hotel. Or gifts for an engaged couple - though we don't know the price of a good pair of ducks in those days.

Our sightseeing in the (invisible) sun and (ever-present) smog was interrupted only for tea and cakes - more than once. The last of which were enjoyed in the famous Givral Restaurant - where you get a mean apple tart and Champions League football. Back to the hotel then for a spash in the pool.

On a final note, an item on BBC World detailed the misfortune of some Asian student who was ripped off by an Irish third-level college. Sweating, as we anticipated Ciarán's employer's logo splashed on screen, we were delighted instead to hear about the bogus Irish International University. Ah the Irish, we're making news everywhere.

Ho Chi Minh City

ciaranandruth — Mon, 7 Jan 2008 17:33:00 GMT

Where's the sun? Seriously, this is a bit ridiculous. It's 30 degrees, hot and humid, but no sign of the sun, moon, stars or even the sky. You feel the smog on your skin, in your lungs. Maybe it's just down to our mild irritation, a natural consequence of trans timezone travel.

The streets, if anything, are more crowded than Hanoi. Anyone in the moped industry could retire from a six month sabattical selling the little machines here. Everyone's got one.

Though the city seems to lack the beauty of Hanoi, the hotel is something else. It's a world apart from everything outside it's walls. This must be how it feels to be a colonial overlord. Not bad to be honest.

Today was for travel, tomorrow exploration.

Mrs Macquarie's Chair

ciaranandruth — Sun, 6 Jan 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Mrs Macquarie's Chair is a seat cut into a rock at the end of the Botanic Gardens at Sydney Harbour. From the spot, named for the wife of one of New South Wales' early governers, you get the most stunning views of what must be among the most famous urban areas on the globe. We sat on the grass and watched speed-boats and sail boats thinking there could hardly be a better place to be.

Earlier we'd headed down to Darling Harbour, where you can catch the rays in the company of a few of the Royal Australian Navy's decommissioned battleships and submarines. The city's monorail system visits the area, and is a useful way of getting the whistle stop tour of the downtown sights.

That, for the second time in six months, is the end of our last day in Sydney. Saigon awaits.

Karaoke

ciaranandruth — Sat, 5 Jan 2008 22:36:00 GMT

Ciaran with the Bear Necessities from the Jungle Book again, Ruth saved from Bohemian Rhapsody but put in a group of women to sing about Raining Men, we saw everything from the sublime to the ridiculous, but as was fitting, we finished the evening with a rousing rendition of Devil in Disguise - sung (with conviction) by newly wed husband to his wife.

Big Day

ciaranandruth — Fri, 4 Jan 2008 19:10:00 GMT

Finally, after 4.5 years, Kathrina and Barry are man and wife. Great weather and amazing setting close to both the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. All good.

Preparation...

ciaranandruth — Thu, 3 Jan 2008 22:03:00 GMT

The last day before the wedding and all thoughts are on preparation. Nails. Hair. All that stuff. Australia itself is preparing for the Australian Tennis Open with a whole load of tournaments, so those who didn't spend the day shopping, or doing other stuff, got to chill out on sunny balconies and watch a bit of tennis. There's worse ways to spend a Thursday.

We also saw a cool Christmas tree. Nothing else though.

Queen Victoria Building

ciaranandruth — Wed, 2 Jan 2008 17:40:00 GMT

Shopping today. All day. The Queen Victoria Building in central Sydney is enormous, and required that all shops be visited. All. Night-time then at the Opera Bar at the Opera House.

Hyding in the Park

ciaranandruth — Tue, 1 Jan 2008 19:45:00 GMT

First day of the year and recovery is the order of the day. Luckily, the magnificent Hyde Park is no more than a few blocks away from us, and provides everything you'd need to do nothing. Grassy lawns. Bright sun. Utter quiet. Perfect.

Captain Cook even has a statue here commemorating his discovery of Australia - though presumably by discovery they meant that he first found it for Her Majesty. The locals didn't really need it to be discovered, not being in any doubt about it being here, I suppose. Cook, though, must be the most celebrated explorer of all time - certainly in terms of the attachment of his name to countries, seas, towns, buildings and islands. Granted, he was the first European to find Australia, but in fairness, it is quite big. Enormous in fact. Hard to miss even, if your boat got blown off course anywhere in the Pacific or Indian Oceans.

There's a fine view of Hyde Park, and indeed the rest of Sydney from the top of the Sky Tower - an almost identical building to its namesake in Auckland, though the latter stretches further towards the gods. The Auckland version, however, cannot claim to have the highest working postbox in the southern hemisphere, this is an honour reserved for Sydney's sky-scraper. One supposes that there'd need to be a pretty awful queue at your local post office to motivate a vertical journey of 260m to send a letter.

That was today. Not a productive one in any way. Not necessarily really a memorable one. Just a nice quiet day. Sshh.

Happy New Year!

ciaranandruth — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:59:00 GMT

We got to experience the earliest New Year of our lives, a full 11 hours before you folks back home in Ireland. Food, drink, friends and fireworks. What else could you ask for?

Earlier, we'd part-taken in the rehearsal for Kathrina and Barry's wedding. All fairly surreal, dressed in shorts with a priest in sandals. We followed this with a brief kickabout in Gladstone park with a rock of an Aussie football, then a couple of hours of pool in the Exchange Hotel, while the ladies went shopping.

All under a scalding sun in Balmain. Not a bad way to end the year. Not bad at all.

Deja Vu in Sydney

ciaranandruth — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 17:12:00 GMT

We'd seen it before, not even too long ago, but nonetheless, the Sydney Harbour Bridge makes an impression. As does the Opera House. As before, we caught some fine views of these landmarks by taking a boat trip in the harbour, this time to go to Manly - an area seemingly well known for beaches and nightlife - for a dinner, the mere recollection of which brings water to the mouth. We ate in Ribs and Rumps, a diner which serves precisely what it says on the tin. They'll cook your meat any way you wish, but they do advise that if you select Well Done, then your meal will be "destroyed, but if that's the way you like it, we'll happily oblige". How nice.

The apartment we're staying in has us perched on the twenty-sixth floor of a downtown building, about 20 minute's walk from the harbour, and a mere stone's throw from several hostelleries. One of which, Paddy Mulligan's, served as a temporary home for us yesterday while our apartment was being prepared. We justified a few early morning drinks due to it being night-time back home. And our being on holidays. Whatever.

All said and done, an exhausting day, the exaustion exaggerated by the recurring theme of jetlag. Super to meet up with everyone again though, merry bunch that they are - as you can see above.

Last Day in Hanoi

ciaranandruth — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 17:08:00 GMT

Led by a tiny map we navigated through the labyrith of tiny streets and crowded alleyways of the Old Quarter in search of Bach Ma temple, the oldest of all the buildings in that quarter of Hanoi, apparently. Eventually, after much map gazing we gave up, unable to find it, that is until we actually looked up, out of the map, to see it standing right in front of us. After a minute or two exploring its tininess we left, thoroughly unimpressed.

Onwards then to the Dong Xuan market, an indoor market at the top end of the city and situated close to the Long Bien bridge, the only crossing of the Red River during the American War - which resulted in its being subjected to relentless bombing by the USAF. Stubborn structure that it is, it resisted all attacks and stood proudly through the decades of conflict. Not so stubborn however was the Dong Xuan market building, a fire at the end of the eighties gutted the building meaning that what stands there today is a recently rebuilt structure. Packed, literally jammers with stalls and hawkers. In fairness to them, the Vietnamese hawkers are much more polite than their Chinese counterparts. They're not really into haggling and are happy to let you walk away if you don't meet their prices. Which are probably a little inflated for us foreigners, but what the heck, you'd get a pair of shoes here for less than a warm can of coke in the Stephen's Green Shopping Centre.

It can be hard to take the crowds though, and they are everywhere, except it seems where admission prices are charged. To get away from it all a bit we paid the Euro or so needed to get into the Temple of Literature. An ancient place of learning, this place has accommodated scholars as far back as a millennium ago. The names of the graduates are etched on stone plaques carried, somewhat unusually, by stone tortoises, making, I suppose the job of the examinations office closer to that of stone mason than pen pusher. Impressive, however, this place is - really beautiful buildings housing, among other things, statues of the three kings who oversaw its development.

But that was pretty much the end of our exploration of Hanoi. After being ripped off by one dodgy taxi driver, we made our way to the airport and onwards through Ho Chi Minh City towards Sydney, where we'll arrive tomorrow morning. It will be good, we've got to tell you, to breathe clean air and get away from the incessant horn beeping on the streets, it will be fantastic to cross the road certain of the fact that when the pedestrian lights go green this is observed as a rule by motorists, rather than as a casual request, as seems to be the case in Hanoi, it will of course be great to meet up with friends in Sydney, but in truth we will miss Hanoi a little bit. It is a frantic but intriguing city (where else, for example, would the government mount a poster of a woman carrying a Kalashnikov - as shown above), which we are delighted to have visited, however briefly.

Hanoi Hilton

ciaranandruth — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:22:00 GMT

The Hanoi Hilton, so called by American prisoners of war, is a prison in downtown Hanoi, now serving as a museum to tell of all the ills inflicted on this country and her brave revolutionaries by the oppressive French colonialists, who built the prison as Maison Centrale (though it is called Hoa Lo in the local tongue). The museum is less clear about the discomforts meted out to those US pilots unfortunate enough to be felled from the skies over Hanoi, but leaves you in no doubt about the brutality of the French, with the tour of the prison culminating with a visit to the guillotine room, equipped of course with the eponymous device and decorated with images of servered heads in baskets. The only treatment provided to the American War (the name by which they refer to the Vietnam War) is a set of photographs of luminaries such as potential Republican nominee for the US presidency John McCain, who spent a few unplanned-for years as a guest of the Hanoi Hilton. Alongside these, photographs of anti-war protests in San-Francisco, Washington DC and elsewhere are presented a little misguidingly as demonstrations in favour of Vietnamese reunificaion, rather than as what they were - pleadings from American citizens to stop sending unwilling conscripts to their death in foreign jungles.

In the Military History Museum some distance away, the Vietnamese are less coy about the American War. Throughout the museum they showcase hardware, including heavy weapons, aircraft and tanks taken from the US forces during their intervention here. They also tell the story of nearly 40,000 US warplanes shot down during the war, including, interestingly, 30 shot down by militia women and 6 shot down by militia aged people.

Earlier in the day we tried to visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, home to the former revolutionary leader's embalmed corpse, and the adjacent Ho Chi Minh Museum. Unfortunately neither open on Fridays, so we only got to look at them from the outside and imagine, Night at the Museum style, the dead leader come to life and give Lenin and other past politicians who'd had a trip to the taxidermist a phone call.

Ho Chi Minh himself wanted neither the mausoleum nor the museum to be built, in fact he asked in his will that his ashes be scattered to the wind in north, central and south Vietnam - symbolic of national unity. Regardless, the Communist powers that be felt it more appropriate to build monoliths in his honour, and indeed in honour of many other things. Everywhere you go here you're remineded of the Communist regime. Red flags obviously. Much, much more military than police on the streets - almost all for show, guarding embassies and the like. Enormous monuments and gigantic buildings. Interesting functions as well for some buildings - The National Political Publishing House, for example.

Much of the city is quite attractive though - the Metropole Hotel is magnificent decked out, as it currently is, in Christmas lights. The Opera House and St. Joseph's Cathedral tell of the French period with their impressive architecture. The lakes in the city centre look amazing during the daytime or set against the night-time lights.

As a final word, if you ever get the opportunity to do so, you might like to visit the Water Puppets Theatre in the Old Quarter. Only do so, our advice is, if your height is that of an eight year old, or if you're not too bothered about squeezing your knees into the back of the person in front of you. We'd say the show, interesting as it is, is edge of the seat stuff, but the edge is certainly not the part of the seat we were sitting on.

Gallery: Christmas in the Sun

ciaranandruth — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 15:31:00 GMT

These are the photographs from our trip in December 2007 and January 2008 to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, and Sydney in Australia.

Old Quarter, Hanoi

ciaranandruth — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 23:30:00 GMT

That was some trip - hours in the air, madness on the streets, eventually we got to the hotel and recovered with 8 or 9 hours of the deepest sleep imaginable. We woke only to explore the Old Quarter, a wonderful but chaotic assortment of narrow streets, bustling markets and lunatic drivers. Tomorrow is for real exploration, today just gave us a taster for what is yet to come.

The lady above, Bridey I think her name was, sold us some fruit which we chose not to eat...

Dublin Airport at 4:00am

ciaranandruth — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 06:00:00 GMT

The madness of it all. Off we go again, this time taking in three cities rather than the monster trip of the summer. Hanoi first for a couple of days, then Sydney for Kathrina and Barry's wedding, then Ho Chi Minh city.

It all starts with a 6:30am flight to Paris, so here we are in the airport, with the sun bobbing on the other side of the globe, and nothing but a few festive but sleepy travellers to look at as we wait. And wait.

That's all folks

ciaranandruth — Sat, 1 Sep 2007 11:00:00 GMT

Journey's end. After 70 days, 18 hotels, 15 planes, bullet trains, slow trams, busses, taxis, walking, jogging, running, shopping, sightseeing, shouting, roaring, laughing, crying, rental cars, traffic fines, strange food, strange people, lovely people, great food, sunshine, rain, terrific brightness, terrifying darkness, killer animals, deadly plants and creepy insects, after all that we're on our way home to... credit card bills.

As a footnote, the picture above was taken on the one day that Ruth was behind the wheel.

Kidding.

So long, see you all soon.

Shopping in Chicago

ciaranandruth — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 23:10:00 GMT

The Magnificent Mile in Chicago is a stretch of ground populated only with shops. Lots of them. Today we went into every one of them. Some of them we went into twice. We saw / did nothing else. Just shopped. All day. ALL DAY!