Saturday with Ffej

In elementary school it was fun to say everyone’s name backwards. Ffej, an Adelaide schoolmate, is now at the University of Chicago and is the only one whose name stuck.

Ffej is also a Korean-American and since “all Koreans look alike,” he used his Korean buddy’s Chicago Shedd Aquarium membership to get us in for free – one of many cheap tricks used by poor college students.

I peered into a huge tank of Caribbean coral saltwater fish and it occurred to me that I was snacking on some of their distant friends earlier for an all-you-can-eat lunch at Sushi Para Too on Clark Street.

We watched the dolphin show at the Oceanarium that is designed to look like the Pacific Northwest – I suppose that explains the scattered evergreens, which stay green in the Midwest because they are synthetic.

The Shedd Aquarium is right on Lake Michigan. The venue takes advantage of this location with a near 5-story window sized view of the water; the oceanarium seemingly flows into the lake while you watch the dolphins sail synchronized 15-feet into the air.

The penguins downstairs were entertaining; bullying one another into the water and playing “king of the rock.” When the wobbling creatures would return to shore from a dip, they bent over and shot feces with unusual velocity and without care of what unfortunate wobbling creature that was hit. I dubbed those the Unhappy feet.

The beluga whales, or what I like to call the albino melon-heads of the sea, had their own exhibition that has become recently popular after the birth of baby Bella.



Ffej’s studio has a sweet landscape view of Lake Shore Drive and Lake Michigan.



Seven miles South of Chicago in Hyde Park and right off Lakeshore Drive is a Chicago must see: The University of Chicago, a top-ten school, smack between Columbia and Cornell, in US News “America’s Best Colleges 2007.

It’s a private institution founded in 1890 by Rockefeller. The gothic architecture buildings were swarmed with ivy vines and one of the libraries belonged at Hogwartz. At the core of campus I walked through the gargoyle gate where Harry met Sally.

Driving Northbound on LSD at sunset, the downtown Chicago skyline is unreal.