Come With Me To Chinatown!

Hey guys! So today was a very VERY fun day. I live in Chicago yet I've never been to Chinatown. Today was the day I got to explore more of my beautiful city! 

This is a candid of me and one of my best friends, Alyssa. I went with my little sister, my mom, and her friend as well!

 We walked into many souvenir shops around town and found many tiny treasures! I loved these little cats and all of the mini Buddhas they had. I bought a little jade one and Alyssa got some for her little sister, too.

While we headed to lunch, we found these awesome statues of the Chinese zodiacs and we were all reading the little plaques that tells us what each sign means. I'm the rabbit!

So we headed to this restaurant on South China Place in Chinatown and it was so delicious! My friend recommended this place and it is now one of my favorite Chinese restaurants in Chicago. I totally recommend it!

This restaurant had tons of choices: noodle dishes, soups, meat dishes, rice dishes, and a ton of bubble tea options on their menu! I love bubble tea so much! I feel like it's a hit or miss with some people but, I really enjoy the tapioca balls and the amazing range of flavors you can get!

We stopped in one of the small bakeries in town and I forgot the name of this one but, they had an awesome selection of Chinese pastries. I had this red bean sweet bun type thing. I have always wanted to try red bean. It kind of tasted like almonds or an almond paste in the middle. It was really good!

Another thing I bought was this really cute (fake) jade bracelet. Alyssa and I decided to get matching ones. I loved how it looked with my watch. 

There were a ton of stores filled with a ton of stuff. Sometimes it was just your basic needs like dishes, kitchenware, clothes etc. There was a lot of random stuff too. It was all really cute though. 

Here's my little sister being a little weirdo. Haha she loves me so much. She was like, "Nat, I want to model like you do in your blog!". Whelp, there's my sister for yuh. 

There were also some restaurants with live fish and tanks all over. It was kind of cool and kind of weird and unsettling at the same time. But, I managed to sneak a pic anyway. 

There was a ton of beautiful architecture around Chinatown. It all looked so detailed and someone really knew what they were doing with this building. 

You probably can tell that I am not that educated on the Chinese culture. I'd love to learn and know more about it. I loved experiencing this new part of my town that I'd never seen before. Chicago is so diverse and it made me happy that I got to explore and experience it all. Sure it's not actually China, but I met a lot of really nice people and I've seen a lot for what it's worth. 

Traveling and exploring for me is only going to continue due to my love and passion for learning about different cultures and meeting new people. I had a really fun day and I hope to come back another time!

Xoxo, Nat