On my trip to Chicago in September I did a guided food tour with Tastebud Tours which takes you to 5-7 food locations in the historic Chicago Loop and Millennium Park. Bring your stomach to this tour because the food tastings are enough for lunch and are included in the Tastebud ticket price (US $44.00 for the Millennium Loop Tour)

Be sure to wear comfortable clothes and shoes because you’ll be going to each spot on foot! This was good to ease the digestion of all the food you’re gonna eat. Haha.

The tour always starts at Pizano’s Pizza which is Vince Vaughn and Oprah’s favourite pizza restaurant! At 11am, there was already a line outside this restaurant!

Pizano’s is located at 864 North State Street, Chicago

This is the VIP room – where Oprah & Vince Vaughn would sit to hide away from the public.

At Pizano’s we got to try regular pizza and their famous Deep Dish pizza. In my opinion, this was much better than the Deep Dish pizza I had at Uno’s.

The next place we went to is Sarah’s Candies.

So many chocolates!!

Heart candies! Awww.

And various other sweets and cakes :) We came here and we got to try her famous brownie.

Next stop was The Drake Hotel on Lake Shore Drive.

The Drake Hotel is so pretty that this bathroom was voted the best bathroom! Never knew there was such a thing.. hahaha.

Our next location was Downtown Dogs at 804 North Rush Street, Chicago which is famous for the Chicago-style hot dog!

Heaven on Seven is a authentic cajun restaurant right in the heart of the city! That’s the most fantastic thing about Chicago is that you can find almost every food right in the city.

It has amazing atmosphere.

Here we got served some yummy rice with chicken and gumbo.

Look at all this hot sauce! Heaven on Seven recently had a promotion where if you brought in a bottle of hot sauce that they didn’t already have that dinner was on them! This is what led them to this awesome hot sauce collection. So cool!

Hahaha don’t you love the name of these sauces! Cracker.

The Billy Goat Tavern was our second last stop. Enter at Your Own Risk!

Do you recall the Saturday Night Live sketch in which a short order cook would yell out to incoming patrons? Cheezborger, Cheezborger, Cheezborger, No pepsi.. Coke!

Finally – our last stop was Candyality! This store has a variety of candy and is really unique because once you choose a bunch of candy in this store and checkout, they will give you a personalized analysis of your personality depending on the type of candy you’ve chosen!

I don’t remember my personality analysis at all but it sure was interesting! Haha

The store also has some interesting types of chocolate. No weight gain chocolate? Really? Hahaha. Lies.

Candyality can be found at 520 N. Michigan Ave, Chicago where all the other great shopping resides.

If you go to Chicago, you must do a food tour because you get to do a taste test of different restaurants and types of foods in the one day. You needn’t worry about getting your stomach too full though I was pretty stuffed after this tour. Tastebud Tours was great because it they really offered quite a unique experience.

When I booked my flight to Chicago, I had no idea what I was going to do there. Even 2 days before going to Chicago – I had no idea what to do! I did a quick search on Tripadvisor, my all time favourite online travel advisor and the number #1 thing to do was Bobby’s Bike Hikes. Knowing that I would probably be doing a lot of eating in Chicago, I knew I needed to do something that required a great deal of exercise so the bike tour seemed like a good idea.

On the website was a 3 hour Lakefront Neighbourhood Tour which is the tour that made Bobby’s Bike Hikes famous. They promised to take you to quiet neighborhood streets, city parks, and packed beaches of the North Side of Chicago. The highlights of the tour are Gold Coast Mansions, Oprah’s House, the Playboy Mansion, Lincoln Park Zoo, Old Town Historic District, North Avenue Beach, and the Lakefront. I love cycling and haven’t done it in a long time so I signed up right away!

The morning after I arrived I woke up early, had my breakfast and walked over to the River East Docks which was only about a 10 minute walk from my hotel. The tour started at 9:30am and it was already a bright and sunny day!

Sammylicious TV: Bobby’s Bike Hike Tour Video

If you watch the clip above, you can see how we ride along the beach to this even more amazing spot where you can view the Chicago skyline in full view. So awesome!

I was a bit over ambitious and wanted to record a video with one hand and steer my bike with another. You’ll see how I end up riding through a puddle of dirt which I get completely splattered with. Lucky I cut the video just before that!

 Bobby’s Bike Hike Tour Photos

I don’t recall my tour guide’s name but he was extremely enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the city of Chicago and all its neighbourhoods. He was also very mindful of all the riders in the pack and made sure everyone was safe and having a good time.

There were riders from all over the USA and of all different ages and fitness levels. It was really good that the tour wasn’t too difficult and was a comfortably easy ride that it was very enjoyable. It was so good to ride with the sun beaming on your face and arms and the wind in your hair.

Our first stop was the Museum of Contemporary Art which is also not far from where Oprah’s house is. I forgot to take a photo – sorry!

We then rode up to the Gold Coast, where many millionaire homes reside – thus why this neighbourhood is named the Gold Coast!

We rode up to Lincoln Park where there’s a lovely monument of Abraham Lincoln. It is said that this park used to be a graveyard and is thus now haunted. No one has been able to prove such a theory but no one has yet to prove the theory wrong either…..

We then stopped off at Old Town. Old Town is a beautiful little town with cute little bungalows. It’s a very quiet neighbourhood in Chicago.

See these cute houses in Old Town!

We paused for a break in Old Town by a church.

This church is the only surviving building from the Great Chicago Fire in 1871 which killed thousands of people and burnt down many buildings. While most of the char has been cleaned from the building, there are still some that remain in memory of the event.

Inside is a beautiful church.

This was one of my favourite parts of the tour – we got to visit Lincoln Park Zoo! Lincoln Park Zoo is not far from Lincoln Park and has free admission! Now just because it has free admission, doesn’t mean it’s a lousy zoo. It had some pretty awesome animals to check out. I didn’t have enough time to see the whole zoo but I still got to see plenty!

Deer!

Zebra!

Sichuan Takin

Alpaca!

Kangaroos!

Then, I bumped into a squirrel wondering around

From all the way at Lincoln Park Zoo – you get a pretty awesome view of the Chicago skyline!

Here’s me with my bike and Chicago!

After all of that, we were off to the beach. Look how amazing the sun was at this hour! Believe it was just 11am.

What a lovely peaceful beach. I love that you can ride along here. The path takes you all the way back downtown. Very cool!

Here’s the panorama I took from the spot. Chicago looks so nice. From here, we rode all along the water back to that black building situated on the very left. It looks far but it didn’t seem that far because it was such a lovely ride. There were a lot of people jogging and biking along the water as well.

Arrival back downtown! Here’s Chicago wasting water by spraying the harbour. Pretty though! Haha.

In all, I highly recommend Bobby’s Bike Hikes. I recommend all bike tours but in particular Bobby’s Bike Hikes! I recommend renting bikes! I recommend biking anywhere! I just love bikes now.. and I love Chicago!

One of the loveliest things about Toronto is that it sits on the beautiful Lake Ontario. You get lovely fresh gusts of wind (far from lovely in the winter) from the lake and the view is just great. But what is better than all of that is viewing Toronto from the other side, via boat, or via the Toronto Islands, of via plane – day or night – it is just magnificent!

Toronto Harbourfront reminds me of the Melbourne Docklands by 100x times better. It is more developed with more things to do. Let’s not forget that it is also better planned out (the planning of Melbourne Docklands was atrocious). But perhaps in a couple of years to come, the Melbourne Docklands will be bursting of life and energy just like the Harbourfront.

Toronto’s Harbourbront, like Melbourne’s Dockland did not get much attention when in its first developments. See that ugly square beige/grey building pictured above? Those are the first condominiums to be built at Toronto Harbourfront and they were going for $50,000 with free parking! In comparison to the value of the condominiums these days – $50,000 can just buy you parking!!!

But seriously – The Toronto Harbourfront in it’s first development was a pretty ugly site. It’s definitely gone a long way from what it used to be. This entire area used to be an industrial playground – full of dirty factories and grime. Toronto has cleaned itself up a lot since then and turned its city into one of the world’s most iconic cityscapes – home to the Rogers Centre and the CN Tower and many festivals (there’s one every weekend during the summer!)

One sunny arvo, we took a Toronto Harbour Tour which takes you around the lake and all the way to the Toronto Centre Islands too where you can also spend your day there. I got a one hour tour ride for just $8 off Groupon (normally $25)! So good! Here are some photos from the ride.

Above: Left is the CN tower and to the right is Sirius Centre where a lot of free concerts are played.

Above is the Rogers Centre (formally known as Skydome) and is home to the Toronto BlueJays (baseball). Last night the New York Yankees and the BlueJays played here. Also in this photo are boats, kayaks and canoes for rent.

 Here’s me on the boat tour.  HEHE!