Posted by Paul Aman | 2024-02-19 | 5:30pm CST

On Sunday, February 18, Chicago celebrated the Chinese Lunar New Year in Chinatown. This was a sunny day with the temperature in hitting about 40-degrees. It was not too old nor too warm.

The trip there to Chinatown was decent, as we took the wretched Chicago Red Line (you never know what would happen to you on that line. I was lucky enough to squeeze myself next to my BFF and an unsuspecting young woman...she was reading a book, but did not complain. As the train more stops moving south, the more the train filled with people.

Once we reached the stop at Carmack, we exited the entire train (just about exited out, but not without some drama as the train staff was trying to kick someone off the train as he was being too verbal to fellow riders, demanding that they step beck (ummm, he has no clue as to what day this is and why the train was so packed?)

As we made it over to the location of the parade, there were a sea of people already in place, lined up for the parade; almost 4 rows of people deep. After a review of the area to see where we might stand to see the parade, it was evident we needed to arrive up to 1-1/2 hour prior if we wanted ANY chance to see the parade. Obviously, this was not going to happen and cut our losses and decided to grab lunch NOW rather than wait.

We basically high-tailed it to the mall area of Chinatown where just about every restaurant known to man is located! We were lucky enough to get into Joy Yee Noodles before the crowd hit. The place was jumping, and the service was wonderful! The food was perfectly made, you could easily share it if you wanted, but I don't share (LOL). Overpriced? Maybe a few dollars, but you can't seem to go out anywhere for Chinese these days and NOT pay $17-18 a dish. More on a full review of that, later.

After much, we ended up just walking around as we could not get into many stores. We did manage to squeeze into a beauty store, though. Lots and lots of products...however, they do not believe is testers!

Overall - a decent trip, most likely I will try again when the weather is better and it's not so crazy (perhaps a weekday).

Please check out my images (3).

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