Re-cap of my trip to Kansas City, Missouri

Last weekend Dale took me on a trip to Kansas City mainly for baseball (see my post here if you like) and shopping (I'll get to that in a later post).

Here's just a short re-cap of what I thought of the city over the three days I spent there.

We stayed at the Westin Crown Center hotel and this was the beautiful view of downtown Kansas City from our hotel balcony

This other picture was also taken from our hotel balcony. It's of Union Station and the water fountain in front of it is the famous Henry Wollman Bloch Fountain.

Here is a river running through the city

Kansas City is known for good barbeque (BBQ).

Dale and I checked out two highly rated BBQ joints - one was Fiorella's Jack Stack BBQ and the other was Gates BBQ. At both places, Dale and I were very disappointed. I've had award winning BBQ ribs at the Toronto Ribs Festival so I have an idea what good BBQ is. But wanna know where my favourite place for ribs is? Swiss Chalet believe it or not.

Kansas City is also known for it's fountains!

Here's the famous J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain located at the outdoor shopping mall Country Club Plaza

This is the Neptune Fountain also located at the Country Club Plaza Mall

These carriages sort of reminded me of Cinderella :) Don't you think?

And look at the store behind the carriages. It's a Halls store. Does the logo look familiar? Kansas City is home of the head quarters for Hallmark greeting cards. And interestingly, Halls is a department store owned by Hallmark - and is exclusive to Kansas City!

Kansas City's famous home brewed beer is Boulevard. The wheat boulevard beer with a couple of lemon slices is the best....I wasn't as impressed with the pale ale version pictured below

A little side note about the people in Kansas City - wow, I haven't seen soooo many blonde Americans at any given place! I'm not talking about platinum bottled blondes either - I'm talking about natural blondes. I asked Dale right away if he noticed - of course he didn't because well, he's a guy and he's also blonde/blue eyed. In the whole three days I was there, I must have seen only 3-4 other Asian people. It felt a bit awkward especially for a few moments when I did not have Dale beside me. I got quite a few looks. Being born, raised and living in downtown Toronto I have never felt like a visible minority.

One thing I really admire about Americans though is how patriotic Americans are. It's just not the same here in Canada- it's something us Canadians have to work on.

That being said, have a lovely 4th of July to all the lovely neighbouring Americans :)

What was the highlight of your weekend?