Ah, Chicago! Surrounded by my familiar architectural wonders, artifacts and masterpieces. This is the massive and pyramidal John Hancock Tower (2nd highest in Chicago-96 stories), the historic Chicago Watertower (which helped save the rest of the city during the great fire), and then the not so beautiful Water Tower Place-a benign 70s structure that did break waves with having a high mix of apartments, condos, offices and filled the first 6 floors with heavy-hitter shopping. As a kid my family would take us there every year for Xmas and we'd beeline to the FAO Schwarz store. I was always anxious to see what new electric or gas kid car they had in the window next to the entrance, and I'd run around looking for the biggest lion stuffed animal (of which we could never afford :-( ). Today, it still has shops, but the big names have either entered other, newer high-rises, or they've made the super-investment and built their own retail space somewhere along the Magnificent Mile-Chicago's uber shopping district, where women wear down their fine shoes traipsing from store to store, a mile up, and a mile back down the other side. I've never seen so many taxis stuffed to the gills with shopping bags before. Gotta love this place!