It's a whole nü way to travel!

The first time we visited Chicago's Chinatown I had a tough time getting around. I'm not very familiar with the Chicago area and the urban sprawl mixed with native taxi drivers makes travel difficult for me. I vowed that if I went back I would be armed with a GPS device so I wouldn't have to be overwhelmed by the lack of local knowledge.

Last week when we made the plan to visit Chicago again to see the Dragon Boat Festival I purchased a GARMIN nüvi 200W to assist me in my travel. This thing is worth every cent I paid for it! It is large enough to see clearly from anywhere in the car and small enough to take with you when walking thanks to the internal battery.

Sarah posted about our trip to Giordano's Pizza... What she didn't tell you was the location we had planned to visit on South Wabash Avenue was closed for refurbishment. We had just parked the car nearby for a $12.00 fee and we wern't happy that pizza wasn't on the menu. I had the nüvi in my pocket so I looked up Giordano's and it was able to direct me to another location in walking distance right in the shadow of the Sears Tower.

Before we went to Giordano's, we visited Millenium Park. On the way there Sarah found a Poster Plus store. Inside she purchased a "Midsummer Light" but we were unable to carry it with us so the store held it for us until sunday morning. Sunday morning, a large section of Michigan Avenue was closed to traffic for a bicycle race so the nüvi was able to route us around the congestion and find an alternate route to the Museum of Science and Industry since most of the traffic that normally occupied Michigan Avenue was using Lake Shore Drive.

Upon returning home I got the chance to hook the nüvi up to my computer and I downloaded both English and Mandarin labeled maps of Taiwan to the unit. Now when we hit Taiwan we'll know if our taxi driver is taking us on an undocumented scenic route! The unit can even be configured to speak in Mandarin!