"You are beautiful," says the cabbie from Chicago

Day 1

The cold blast of air hitting my face as I exited the Van Galder bus confirmed my suspicions - that Chicago was just as determined to freeze my privates off as Madison. I was sitting in Starbucks on that post-Christmas Sunday, being one of those people who would hog a table and read for hours on end, when I was struck by the most ingenious idea that has ever occurred to mankind since the hands-free vibrator. Wouldn't it be lovely, I thought to myself (vanilla latte halfway to my lips), to run away to Chicago for a couple of days and soak up all the city-ness of it all? That very night, after scouring through WikiTravel and making a few reservations for a cheap hotel, I was packed and ready to rumble. 

A four-hour bus ride (could have been quicker, but someone had inconsiderately chosen to crash his car and die along my highway that day) brought me to the biggest city I'd seen since leaving for Madison four months ago. I don't know what kind of hick-town experience Madison has forcibly implanted into my cranium, but the sight of Chicago's towering phallic structures thrilled me to the core. I was like Dorothy visiting the Emerald City - all these wondrous sights... is it for real? I had been so deprived of buildings taller than ten stories that I was ready to drop to my knees and worship a simple rectangular block of skyscraper-concrete. Sights, sounds, people, cars, noises, dirty looks, leering looks were coming at me at all directions, and it was utterly fantastic. Walking the isolated snowy streets of Madison makes one feel as if every move you made was being watched. Among the craziness of Chicago, I've never been so relieved to feel insignificant.

Every turn reveals another incredible sight, and just as I was reeling from the much-ness and sheer immensitrosity, I came face to face with the skyscraper of all skyscrapers (in the US, at least), the Sears Tower. At one point, it held the record of the world's tallest building for 22 years until it was surpassed by Taiwan's Taipei 101, and with the help of its two needlessly long antennas, it desperately hung on to another title for some period of time. The two hours spent standing in line for admission to the SkyDeck was either filled with the joyful sounds of babies screaming or the repetitive roll of Sears Tower's 'fun facts'. "Did you know.. the Sears Tower weights a fucking lot?" Do they honetly expect us to be very impressed by this? It's a huge-ass building, and I know it's not made out of marshmallows, so I'd be more amazed if they told me it only weighed as much as Beyonce's left butt cheek.

With a breezy whizz and a cheerful ding, the elevator proudly announced that it had brought us up a hundred-and-three-stories-high using only 60 seconds. I was duly impressed that one could see clouds floating by far beneath the SkyDeck. I knew it was an unbelievably tall building, but I never expected it to rise above the clouds. For a mad moment I wondered if a plane might come flying into the building, and then I remembered...

The Sears Tower is actually now renamed to the Willis Tower, which made me wonder why with a name like Willis did they not go buy a more phallic, and hence more appropriate building to suit that magnificent name. The basic architecture of the Sears Tower is nothing very spectacular, to be honest. Since when has a few asymmetrically-stacked rectangular blocks been very aesthetically pleasing? You'd think if they had wanted to build the world's tallest building, they would invest a little more time with the actual look of the place, rather than to trust a simple analogy using a roll of cigarettes placed at different heights (which was how the architect pitched his idea, originally.) 

I don't know if it's because I don't have a fear of heights, but trips up skyscrapers never really did much for me. Like many things that I do, I only stood in line and went up because it was the 'thing' people haaad to do when they visited Chicago. I didn't want to disappoint people when they so excitedly go 'oh you went to Chicago!? Did you go up Sears Tower? Wasn't it awwwesoooome?" So up I went, and around I looked, and within half an hour I was ready to beat the crowds heading towards the exit elevator. Hey I had my photos, I had the experience, and most importantly, I had earned my bragging rights, so hell if I was gonna let them trap me up here in a prime terrorist target zone.

Planning for a dinner in Chicago takes a cunning and careful manipulation not many are capable of. The entire city floods into every nook and cranny that has a table and menu set up, so naturally, without any reservations,  or expectations really, that I'd be battling the entire population of Chicago for a decent bite to eat, I was left freezing, desolate and hungry while roaming the bustling streets. The initial naive idea was to dine at The Cheesecake Factory, one heard very often mentioned in The Big Bang Theory, but a table there comes with a 1.5 hour waiting time. To make myself feel better about missing out on Sheldon and Leonard's favourite restaurant, I vengefully looked up negative reviews about The Cheesecake Factory on my BlackBerry and wasn't disappointed. *Read the next line in a childish, whining tone* Yeah, who wants to eat at a countlessly reproduced chain of identical restaurants that served typical, cliched American food with no local identity anyways?  (The Cheesecake Factory shown in The Big Bang Theory is perhaps ten times more lit-up than the actual ones. The almost pitch-dark restaurant gave me a very creeped-out feeling, till I identified the source: every table was filled with couples nauseatingly gazing into each other's dimmed faces. I suspect the nonexistent lighting is to make everyone's lovers a little bit more bearable to look at.)

I eventually settled into the Saloon Steakhouse, and was served a piece of New York Strip steak by a guy who looks amazingly like Sawyer from Lost. Guess we know now that those troubled castaways did manage to find footing in the real world after all. Perhaps I was hallucinating from the hunger, or the dim lighting at work again (is there a light-bulb shortage in Chicago?), but my steak looked exactly like a penis, complete with two balls at the thicker end. It was by far the best tasting thing I've ever put in my mouth for months, and perhaps pursuing whether or not that has anything to do with how it looks isn't the best idea. 

Day 2

The original crazy idea that I had was to wake up insanely early, catch the bus and reach Chicago at 9.30am, giving myself a full day to roam and perform 'Chicago' song-and-dance numbers on the streets before catching the last bus home. The logical, and lazy, side of my brain caught up later on and I convinced myself that it was going to be too ambitious and I was too confident in my body's ability to handle fatigue. Hence here I was, waking up in my cheap hotel off the Magnificent Mile, and ready to tackle The Field Museum. 

True to Chicago's style, there was an insane queue that wriggles round and round before it reaches the ticketing booth. The family that lined up after me, however, provided a spectacle which made that entire trip worthwhile. The kid-leash, something I had only seen on TV and regarded completely ridiculous, was securely fastened onto their littlest son of perhaps 2. The kid was scrambling "away" with his short little legs while being pulled backwards by his dad, and I just thought, man they're gonna start implementing those things for bad boyfriends next. It was a very adorable yet tragic sight to behold. All things that involve little children and inhumane methods give me a thrill of delight deep in the pit of my stomach, but yet I cannot help but wonder if this was where parenthood was headed. Cattle prods were creative, leashing is really just crude.

Being a dinosaur fanatic (I've always insisted that my lifelong dream is to be the hero of Jurassic Park), I was completely blown away when I found out that the T-Rex fossil in the main foyer of the Field Museum is the largest and most complete T-Rex skeleton ever uncovered on Earth. I was in the presence of a majestic beast that once terrorized unworthy creatures, inflicted chaos and unleashed utter desolation onto the land it ruled. Just picturing how those piercing sharp teeth and fiercely powerful jaws crunched into hundreds of helpless prey struck me down with awe. I was, without a doubt, standing before my biggest (literally) influence in life. 

To call the Field Museum cavernous is akin saying that Chris Brown has a slight temper. A wrong turn brought me into the land of Native Americans, and try as I might, I just could not figure out how to get the hell out of this maze. At every turn, I was assaulted by tedious facts even Native Americans would not find interesting, and confronted by bowls and cutlery no more interesting than the ones I have stacked at home. If they wanted to make their culture look the slightest bit engaging, they should have just put up gigantic high-def pictures of Taylor Lautner and showed us how he magically turns into a wolf.

I have very firm beliefs that I was an ancient Egyptian in my past life (either that or a pterodactyl, I haven't decided which yet), and I was appropriately delighted to see a replica of an old Egyptian tomb. The fake pyramid was like a labyrinth, twisting about with sarcophagus and mummies placed at strategic points to scare the crap out of you. According to the free tour guide person, the whole point of an Egyptian's life was to prepare himself (or the pharaoh, rather) for a good eternity in his afterlife. All the pyramids, the offerings, mummification, murals and whatnot seemed like an elaborate way to convince themselves that death was not the end. (This, of course, was not said by the tour guide person. He wouldn't be that mean and ballsy to critique his station.) Their whole society revolved around the principle that proper burial procedures and praying to the right gods guaranteed a wonderful eternity in Egyptian heaven, so they spend their living days obsessed with the day they die. Pretty morbid way to spend a life, I'd say. I must have been a bad Egyptian back then if I didn't manage to spend a glorious eternity in my afterlife.

The exhibit that completely took my breath away was, of course, the paleontology section. Fossils of velociraptors, triceratops, stegosauruses, all poised and looking ready for action (of the hunting variety, nothing perverted). I was easily transported in my mind back to the Triassic/Jurassic/Cretaceous period, whatever you fancy, and roamed about the giants that ruled the Earth 65 million years ago. I had to cut it out cause my screeching and hiding behind the bushes was scaring little kids, but you get the idea - it was like Disneyland for the ferociously carnivorous. The only thing that stopped me from rearranging the exhibit to portray a Jurassic Park version of the Virgin Birth/Manger Scene was the presence of many security cameras. Can't you just picture it? A T-Rex Mary cradling a raptor baby, with the triceratops-Joseph going, "That's not my son!"

Perhaps the craziest part of the journey happened not at any tourist hotspot, but in a common cab. 

"Hey, how are you doing, enjoying Chicago?" The Turkish cab driver brightly inquired. 

"Oh yes, I love it here, I never realized how much I missed a city until I stepped into Chicago." 

"Where are you visiting from?" 

"I go to school in Madison, but I grew up in Singapore, you see, so I'm much more accustomed to cities"

"Ah Singapore! The people there are very beautiful." 

"Really? That is most nice of you to say..."

"Singapore.. Indonesia.. I don't know what it is about you guys, but your people are very beautiful"

Now at this point the warning bells are going off like crazy in my mind, but I thought perhaps he was just being very vocal in his appreciative of Asian features. I mentioned that I was leaving that evening for Madison, and things just got craizier:

"You are leaving today? Oh that is such a pity, can't take you out for lunch or something then. Hahaha, just kidding."

Keep in mind that this is a cabbie in his 50s. Sure, he kept saying I was "a beautiful boy" and that "'James' is a beautiful name", which I wholeheartedly agree with, but it was really pushing the boundaries of harassment. Besides, you've been in America for 20 years, learn another adjective other than 'beautiful'! For example, I respond extremely well to 'ravishing', 'spellbinding', 'bewitching' or 'enthralling'.

"You know what? Next time you're in Chicago, you should give me a call! It would be an honor to drive someone as beautiful as you around Chicago for free, show you the city. Here, this is my number." 

"Oh... Ah, yeah sure, I will most definitely do that." I didn't want to reject his offer right out front, it seemed very cruel to strike down someone so mesmerized by me. But naturally, that slip of paper with 'Jesse' and his number on it was magically lost in Gap sometime later. 

As I walked through the legendary Millennium Park and gazed upon the gigantic silvery structure nicknamed The Bean, I couldn't help but feel an incredible confidence surge through me. Disgusting as the situation was, it still felt wonderful to be bestowed such lavish praise in a part of the world where you're practically unknown. With the windy city living up to its name, I took one last walk down the streets of Chicago, looking up in awe as the week-old Christmas decorations all lit up at dusk. For the first time since I left, I could finally feel as if I was right where I needed to be.