2009 Anniversary Trip - Day 1

We went for a short trip to Saint Louis over the weekend to celebrate our 1 year anniversary!! Happy 1st Anniversary!! =) We had intended to drive there on Friday morning but due to certain reasons we were unable to leave in the morning and only left in the late afternoon... =( Some stuff seem to happen only when you have things planned... Here's YH driving and is the start of our 4 hours plus journey to St. Louis... You can see corn fields in the background and we really passed lots of them!!

I had nothing to do so I started taking photos of the long straight road ahead and the many corn fields on both sides... The sky was also very pretty as it was lined with clouds... =)

Me attempting to take a photo of myself with the corn fields in the background... =p

We crossed the border into Illinois!

Interesting vehicles spotted on the road...

More corn fields plus a really cloudy sky...

After about 4 hours on the road we finally spotted the Gateway Arch, the icon of St. Louis!! Yeah!! We are approaching downtown St. Louis!! =) And the following are photos of the Arch at various angles as we drove towards downtown St. Louis...

Crossing the bridge into downtown St. Louis...

Our hotel suite at Renaissance Grand and Suites Hote!! We were in the Suites Tower! Actually we did not know we would staying in a suite until we checked in. We had booked our hotel room via Priceline and after getting the hotel we had requested to have a King bed and refrigerator in our room and they had noted our preference but could not guarantee it... And when we checked in at the hotel, the person at the reception told us that we were being given a suite! It was a really pleasant surprise to us!! =) The only thing was we had to cross a rather busy road to get to our room in the Suites Tower... =p
This is the living room area with its own TV and sofa...

The bedroom which is separated from the living room area by a door...

A mini pantry area with a mini fridge... =)

Later in the night we realised that we had a problem with the bathroom... It would not flush and upon investigation it was because there was no water in the tank... So we had to call housekeeping and they said they will send someone up... It was already late and I had already fell asleep when the person finally came up about 1 hr later... It was a very simple fix, probably a known problem to him and good thing YH saw how he fixed it cos this problem occurred a few more times throughout our stay and YH became the toilet repairman... =p Hehe... Nevertheless we still enjoyed our stay at the hotel and this was only a minor problem... =)

The Suites Tower which we stayed in...

The Grand Tower across the road...

Then we headed over to Imo's Pizza to try the St. Louis style pizza. The pizza is made with Provel cheese on a super thin crust... Provel cheese is a soft, white processed cheese made from cheddar, swiss and provolone...

Photos of us in the restaurant...

The pizza!! We ordered a medium (12") pizza with sausage topping... And our verdict was we like the pizza!! Yummy!! =)

Website: http://www.imospizza.com/

After dinner we went to Bailey's Chocolate Bar for drinks and dessert... This is a place for chocolate lovers!! They serve lots of chocolate-infused drinks, including Chocolate martinis, beers and hot chocolates... They also have chocolate desserts... Photos of us in the restaurant... They have dim lighting, red walls and roses at your table, which looks rather romantic except that it is rather noisy... And the place is really crowded!

We were served cookies and a bottle of chilled water when we were seated...

Me still reading the menu, undecided on what to get...

We ordered the Bailey's Chocolate Bar... It is a chocolate cake Layered with Bailey’s Butter Cream and covered with chocolate ganache... Its good!! =)

Our chocolate martinis! YH had the Cold Chocolate Bar Signature Martini (it is available in hot or cold) and I decided to try something else so I ordered the Mint... I expected it to be mint chocolate but to my disappointment it was not... =( I preferred YH's martini as mine was a little too strong... I prefer chocolate stuff! =p

Us with our drinks...

Both of us... =)

Me outside Bailey's Chocolate Bar... When we left, there was a group of gals outside holding drinks... Not sure if they started drinking while waiting for a table or they had given up waiting and decided to have their drinks out there...

Website: http://www.baileyschocolatebar.com/