Over the Fall Break, we escaped the cold by travelling to Orlanda and Miami, southwards from North Carolina!
As economical exchange students on a tight budget, we took the train down instead of a flight. After 13 hours of struggling to find a comfortable spot to sleep at, we finally arrive at our first destination!!!
We took a bus to the hotel and reached at about 12pm-ish? And we couldn't check in yet, which was a horror to me because this means that I cannot properly wash up and doll up before going out. :( Sooooo we had to make do with the lobby toilet. And changed into shorts because of the relentless heat!!
Sunny Orlando.
Our hotel: La Quinta Inn.
Digression: My chio USD 8.60 turquoise shorts I absolutely love!!!
We explored Universal Studios City Walk and Downtown Disney on the first day. Nothing hapz!
Crazy large hands!!!
No money to buy so take picture can already.
Fiddling with the merchandises.
This nemo is TOO cute!!!
I just had to take a picture w it!
Impressed by what Lego can do!
Walked across the road just to take a photo of this retarded-looking dino on the rooftop.
Harley, Harley everywhere.
Our snack break. Freaking dip costs $3!
The weather was mad horrendous. I think it's about Singapore's temperature at bout 30-32 degree Celsius. We were perspiring the moment we step out of the shade. And we went into almost every single merchandise shop only before we needed some aircon. Lol.
And on the second day, we went to ISLANDS OF ADVENTURES!!!! Love theme parks <3333
I'm not a fan but this place is beautiful!!
Even though snow caps in this hot weather didn't make sense.
Harry Potter world!
And you just have to have some Butter Beer!! You can only taste the goodness for yourself.
It's essentially just root beer float except that it is so good!
Giant turkey leg which was just dry and salty...
Lack of photos because the main point of a theme park are THE RIDES!!! It was so awesome and my favourite's gotta be the Hulk roller coaster!! So good that we took it 3 times! Hahaha.
That was pretty much for our trip to Orlando. And again, as economical exchange students who do not have all the time in the world, we took an over night bus to Miami. We didn't get a proper shower (again) except that this time we were all sweaty and sticky from the day at the theme park. Not forgetting that we were drenched during 2 of the water rides.......... I should probably take it as an experience to live a life of a soldier with the 4 guys I'm travelling with.
So, next destination: MIAMI!
DAY 1
Greyhound is like the cheapest transport you can get to travel to places.
We took a bus to the hostel and we couldn't check in till 3pm(still unshowered!!!). I think I would've stunk like a walking corpse but thank god the guy at the hostel let us use the common toilet to shower since we couldn't check in yet. It was the best shower I had in awhile just cuz I was so deprived of fresh smelling clothes and clean-feeling skin!
Headed out for breakfast near South Beach, which is about 15-20 mins walk from the hostel.
Strolled over to South Beach to take a look at how breath-taking it is before the start of our itinerary!
It's even more beautiful than Myrtle Beach in my opinion! There were like 50 shades of blue or something. (Can't think of a better description. Lolol.)
And then our first stop: Vizcaya!
Basically an extremely rich business man in the 1800s designed and built a grand mansion for himself. The mansion had uncountable guest rooms and idk how many living rooms/halls, even the ceilings had intricate designs and there was also a designated breakfast room for him to have breakfast. (What the hell, cannot have breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same place -_-) Outside of the mansion was full of decorations like statues, fountains, a dock and so onz. He was practically living in a palace already.
Btw, this part of Vizcaya was featured in Iron Man 3!!
Never knew Tiffany & Co does things like this?
This structure was made this way to break the water flow or something like that.
No pictures on the interior of the mansion because photography wasn't allowed.
Next stop: East Little Havana
Police here rides on horses!!! Apparently it's the same in NYC. So interesting!!
This is place where the old folks gather and play dominoes, which really resembles mahjong imo except that it's not so complicated!
I guess East Little Havana is like equivalent to Singapore's Haji Lane/Little India/Chinatown. It's populated with Cuban immigrant residents and the streets are filled with Latin music. (Little Havana is named after the capital of Cuba, Havana.)
This is the Walk of Fame, which is one of the highlights of Little Havana.
There were also statues related to Confederacy in America, which is an interesting part of America history I've never know about. I did not read up in detail but it is basically about the slavery history of America and how the lower southern states (NC included btw) wanted to break away from America.
Bay of Pigs' Invasion!! I vaguely remember this from my Sec 4 history textbook. History is really interesting idk why I didn't spend more time reading my history textbook back then. -_-
As the night falls, we headed back to the hostel for shower and change of clothes before heading out again! This time, the 4 guys went to catch a pre-season basketball game at American Airlines Arena. It was Miami Heat vs San Antonio Bulls. And as unsporty as I am, who cannot appreciate basketball (or in fact any kind of sports) gave it a miss and went to the Bayside Marketplace instead!
The market place was pretty much just a touristy shopping area. I didn't get anything at all. Pretty much just spent my night at a quiet Starbucks with a cup of Hot Chocolate.
DAY 2
We headed to Everglades State Park!
Absolutely beautiful place!!
Took a boat ride to explore the river!
No filter for these photos at all! Look at how the sky is perfectly reflected by the river!
Also, the river is popular because of the presence to alligators.
The driver of the boat kept calling out to them (yes they had names) and the alligators would just be circling about boat! I was near edge and I did fear that the alligator was going to jump out of the water suddenly and attack me. HAHA.
Some pictures of the site of alligator show before my battery died.
The stuntman told us some history about how these alligators come about. In the past, alligators used to be massively hunted for their skins and meat. These alligator hunters's job involves life and death everyday. When they eventually built a road alongside the river called Tamiami Trail, these people did the same thing except that tourists will now stop by and watch the whole process of people catching the alligators. It was pretty much like a stunt show and tourists were so in awe that they started throwing money into the river to these 'stuntmen'. It was then the hunters realise that they didn't have to kill and alligators to make money. Instead, the money they got from people who love watching the wrestling between the two was way more than selling parts of these creatures. And so came about these protection of alligators and gator shows!
Upon hearing this story, we drove to Tamiami Trail to take some pictures!
The last stop: Bill Baggs State Park
Intended to watch the sunset at Bill Baggs but it was too cloudy and so our sunset plan wasn't really successful. But we still found the lighthouse which was their landmark!
DAY 3:
After days of rushing to catch the train/bus and intense travelling to the aforementioned places, we decided that the last day in Miami was just for us to NUA (aka slack) at the beach. And I'm thankful we did!!! It is just a good feeling being able to sit by the beach and take in the beauty of it!
A random guy feeding junk food to the seagulls and made the WHOLE BUNCH OF SEAGULLS COME SWOOPING IN OUR DIRECTION!! It was quite overwhelming when the seagulls came together and chirped so loudly. They were also swooping really low that I was so afraid that they will eventually bump into me. Glad that didn't happened!
A half naked girl who was in the middle of sun-bathing couldn't accept what this guy was doing and came straight to his face and yell at him..................with bare boobs.
Needless to say, the 4 guys felt like they were in the first row seats watching a jaw-dropping play.
And that wraps up my trip to the Southern Coast! Definitely a place to revisit in the future because it was so beautiful! :)
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