Last night, an aunt and uncle from California came to visit us as a part of their road trip across the United States.

I took a bunch of photos during the trip. The full album can be found on my Google+ profile in my “Trip to Chicago with Californian relatives” photo album, but I’ve picked out a few to highlight here in this blog post.

On our way to Chicago, we stopped by a restaurant. They had some ginger suspended in water on display in the corner.

Apparently my parents knew the owner of the restaurant. The food wasn’t exactly the best – my meat was a bit burnt when I usually like it cooked rare, and my soup was a bit bitter – but it was a decent-enough restaurant with good value for the price.

After we finished eating, we entered the heart of Chicago, and went to the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sear’s Tower). We went through the skydeck tour; on the path to the elevator, there was a lot of informational stations, one of which was a video.

The elevator ride up to the top took only about a minute, which meant that we were traveling at about 18 miles an hour.

Once we got to the top, I took a ton of photos looking out the windows. I uploaded these in higher-than-1080p resolution, so it’s definitely worth checking them out in full quality in the Google+ album.

The last time these relatives visited us, back several years ago, we went on a tour via boat. My dad managed to find out where it was, so I took a picture.

There were souvenirs at the top of the tower. I didn’t really want one, so instead of buying them, I just took pictures of them. These are wooden replicas of the Willis Tower.

After making our way back down, we went on to tour Millenium Park.

This was a stage near the exit to the parking garage where we parked.

Of course, we visited Cloud Gate, commonly referred to as “The Bean,” and widely accepted as the finest piece of art in Chicago.

There must’ve been a field trip going on, because while we were at Cloud Gate, a bunch of tiny children flooded around the sculpture and stood under it. This is another photo, this time from the opposite angle as the photo above.

Near Cloud Gate, there was a tree with white flowers; according to my dad, it’s the exact same tree that we have in our backyard.

On our walk to Crown Fountain, we encountered a bunch of art students drawing “1004 Portraits,” a series of sculptures by Jaume Plensa.

And finally, we made it to Crown Fountain, the last notable Chicagoan feature in our walk. Unfortunately, it wasn’t activated, but the shifting faces still worked.

Remember, these photo highlights are just that – highlights. Be sure to check out the complete album to see all the photos I took during our trip in 2048-pixel-width resolution.

http://plus.google.com/photos/+AdamParkzerOfficial/albums/6137739914489478305