Our frequent visitors have probably noticed that we no longer have our US posts or videos up. We’ve decided to put the posts up after we leave New York rather than on a day-to-day basis. This is so that our new viewers from New York can see our exciting Asian travel footage first.
We will resume posting our daily blogs of where we are once we leave New York around the 18th of February, and we will prepare a 30-60 minute video highlighting our favorite places in New York.
So subscribe to our site by email and you will automatically be notified when we start posting again.
Today was a day of firsts for us in Chicago. We came out on ABC 7 live news for the first time, we also saw it snowing - or something close - for the first time in our trip, we got to see our first museums of Chicago, and we got to see Lake Michigan for the first time. Yes, we’ve been in Chicago for a few days with a view of Lake Michigan from our window but we’ve never gotten around to going down to see it till today.
One good thing about the jetlag we still have, is that we sleep early and get up early almost every day now. This makes it easy for us to for example be at the ABC studio at 8am, or take a morning stroll down the loop on a Sunday morning. The loop is the business district in central Chicago, but I wouldn’t recommend taking an early stroll on the weekend. It is nearly deserted, and at times can be a bit creepy with shady characters walking around.
We had one such encounter with a shady character today, we were having a warm drink at a McDonald (the only thing we could find open) in the loop when someone came in asking everyone for money. After we got out to leave he followed us, and started shouting all kinds of obscenities in our direction. So we did what anyone sensible would, we avoided him completely and walked quickly in the opposite direction, ducking into the first shop that was open. It was a bit scary as here in the US you never know who might be carrying a gun, and if he was high - he seemed so by the way he was shouting - he might have used it for no good reason.
After that, we decided to leave the loop and head to the more crowded areas. We decided to see a few museums on the way, with most of them having free entrance at this time of year.
The “crowded” areas of Chicago on a Sunday morning
It then started snowing lightly - what they call “flurries” here - and we decided to walk through Millennium Park down to the lake. There we met the local population of gray squirrels that were busy prancing around looking for food. They seemed very used to humans as when we would put out our hands they would come close looking for food.
As night fell on our river cruise we switched our camera to night vision mode, and our guide got a spotlight out to search for crocs. It seems they are easier to spot at night since their eyes glow red when a spotlight reflects on them. Another thing that can be found in the rainforest by the river at night are fireflies, thousands of them. All of them are flashing their little tail lights trying to find a mate. Flash a light at them and they’ll flash back. Watch the video to see how one kept trying to get our camera to mate by flashing its light at the light on the camera.
We had just flown into Kota Kinabalu, Borneo from Sandakan at 6am that morning, and needless to say we were wiped. However, the person who picked us up at the airport told us that there was a Proboscis Monkey sighting river-cruise down the rainforest that afternoon and asked if we wanted to go. It was a tough decision: on the one hand we were exhausted, on the other we wanted to see wildlife. It took us all of 20 seconds to decide that we could sleep later and that we didn’t want to miss the wildlife
Fancy a house with a view? And the rent is cheap! Just look out for the crocs in high-tide or they might give you a nip
Our first thought when we piled into the van with the other “fresh off the plane” tourists who wanted to see “monkeys” was that this was a bit more touristy than just the two of us going down the Kinabatangan river in Sandakan with 1 guide and 1 boatman. This was all confirmed as around 15 of us were piled onto a motorboat with a roof and nice tourist seats. The roof helped against the rain but obstructed our visibility so I spent most of my time outside in the rain in a flimsy raincoat. All in all it was fun and we got soaked And we’ll show you more in our next episode of this river cruise!
Oh yeah, we’re flying to Chicago on the 9th on the first leg of our round-the-world adventure and we’re very excited!!!
