A Summer Evening in Chicago

I’ve lived in St. Louis for three years now, yet I’ve only made the five-hour drive to Chicago twice.  My first trip two years ago was primarily a shopping spree at the Bolingbrook IKEA, with a few hours spent taking in the sights in Chicago.  On Saturday I found myself in the Windy City yet again, this time taking my girlfriend Megan to O’Hare as she set out for Haiti to spend a month working for Architecture for Humanity.  After dropping her off at 4pm I was faced with the decision whether to embark on my five-hour journey home and arrive at a reasonable hour, or enjoy being in another city for the evening and arrive…later.  I went with the latter—or my stomach did anyway.  It wouldn’t let me leave Chicago without a few slices of delicious “Chicago style” pizza.  So I headed for the Loop.

After stowing my car in the bowels of Millennium Park, I resurfaced and looked at my surroundings.  Inspired, I took out my trusty iPhone 4 and began filming.  This is what I saw:

Much of this I saw on my first trip to Chicago two years ago, but some of the buildings were still under construction then.  My favorite new addition is Aqua Tower, by Chicago architect Studio Gang.  The rippling effect created by the undulating balconies is quite breathtaking.  Some of my other favorites are the Tribune building, Marina City, Gehry’s amphitheater, and Piano’s modern wing at the Art Institute.  I look forward to seeing more on my next visit!

Reunioning

On Monday I returned from a 10-day vacation to Virginia and Maryland.  During those 10 days I managed to attend two family reunions, visit an architectural icon, and acquire a much-coveted iPhone 4, which I proceeded to use to document the latter half of my trip.

Here is a video documenting my time at the Elliott Family Reunion.  I shot and edited the entire film on my iPhone 4.  Watch in full screen mode at 720p for best possible viewing experience.

I must say that for someone with limited video expertise, the shooting and editing experience on the iPhone 4 is amazing.  You can looking forward to seeing more videos on this blog.

Hello, again

I’m thinking I need to start doing some blogging again.  There’s a chance it may motivate me to do something interesting with the rest of my summer.  Stay tuned, and enjoy the new look.

Traffic

One thing you get used to seeing a lot of in Seoul is traffic.  Not even traffic jams, per say (although, there are plenty of those), but just the sheer number of vehicles that pass you by as you stroll down any street.  Two Thursdays ago I spent part of the evening photographing passing vehicles that I found particularly interesting.  I’ve always been a fan of the small utility vehicles and anything with two (or three) wheels.  Here are some of the standouts:

LEARN KOREAN – traffic:

교통 (kyo·t’ong)