tourist guide a friend of mine is visiting from michigan. she asked where her hotel is in terms of safety in the city. four email trades later, i ended up telling her that you can get a dry strawberry daquiri from the john hancock signature room that closes at 1 a.m. on sundays if you like. that way, you'll pay just $6 instead of $9 and still see the city from the second tallest building in chicago. ahaha.

but i got a kick out of her not knowing what bubble tea is. and so i go:

ooh, you have to try bubble tea. it's basically a fruit or dairy smoothie with tapioca. tapioca - sometimes called pearl - is coconut juice turned into jelly balls. it's called bubble tea because it's served with a wide-mouthed straw, when you sip, the dark tapioca forms gaps in the straw and they look like bubbles. yum - just thinking about it is making me happy. hehe. the most convenient place for you to get bubble tea would be in chinatown, which is i think about 15 minutes directly west of the shedd aquarium. if you're looking for it, you can't miss chinatown.

once inside chinatown, i know of three places that serve bubble tea: tea leaf cafe, seven treasures restaurant, and joy yee restaurant. uhh wait, i already told you about directions in chicago, right? the lake is always to your right hand. that's east. the direction you're facing is north, your back is south, and your left hand would be west. this is handy to know, pardon the pun, because chicago is a grid city (as opposed to boston, whose streets meander) and it's the easiest way for people to give you directions to the place you want to go. as a result, many people will tell you that you'll go (direction) to (the corner of) street A and street B.

anyways, i think there's a shuttle bus from the field museum that can take you directly to chinatown. (the shuttles are actually converted trolley cars, they're all in red and come coded, like a trolley sporting a green triangle will take you to the museum of science and industry... i forget what symbols they use, but it's easy to find out.) seven treasures restaurant is on archer and cermak with the yellow awning; and tea leaf cafe is on wentworth and 23rd streets, with the green sign. joy yee is popular among the young people because aside from bubble tea, they serve the best korean barbecue short ribs - you've got to try those. joy yee is on the other part of chinatown, inside chinatown plaza with the chinese zodiac sculptures, on cermak and archer streets.

bubble tea is invented in california, and the chicago asian american community's made it a must-need staple or reward dessert. if you frequent starbucks, they now have the green tea frappuccino that's been around for at least three years in asia now. i think starbucks wants to tap into the bubble tea market, that's why they released the green tea fraps, ahaha. bubble tea is called something else in asia, though, and it's only been around there for not too long.

goodness. nevermind that i could be wrong about sago. when you know so much about a city from memory, i think it is high time - way high time - high like a satellite around the 10th planet of the solar system - that you moved out of that city so you can memorize the facts of another. yay!  ¶ 8/22/2005 11:10:00 PM