This was a much needed holiday for me, away from the winter cold, get to see the ocean and beach again. Most importantly get to meet my family (cousin at LA) and friend (bestfriend from SYD), yes both of them flew to Miami.

 

I fly to Miami on the 28th Feb with Virgin Atlantic, I have to say this was one of the best flying experience I had. Their entertainment system was very good. You get to chose from 30 movies (all very new). I watched "Dream Girls", "The Prestige", "Happy Feet" and "Maria Antoinette", on the way back home "Superman Return" and "A night at Musem". The food is also very nice.

 

We stayed at Best Western South Beach, meant to be 3 star hotel, but the room is more like a motel room or worse. We even got charged for using the safe in the room. But it was peak season that was the best we could get. At least they have a tiny pool, which I get to swim around at night, I really enjoy swimming, something I don't get to do that often at London.

 

First night after meeting up with Rebecca, we went for a walk on the Ocean drive (the main beach front road at South Beach), we had Lobster paelle, I got tonsilitis on that day, so didn't enjoy the food as much.

 

1st March - We signed up for a Everglades airboat tour for the morning. Sitting on the airboat, it reminds me one eposiode of CSI Miami when they trying to find the alligator that swollen part of a dead body. Heehee I like CSI Miami. We had gator tail meat for lunch. In the afternoon we spend some time on the beach working on my tan. This girl slept about 10 meters away from us didn't move for a long time, the lifeguard called the Beach Rescue to check up on her, her nose was bleeding after they woke her up, and the ambulance and more beach rescuer came, it was very dramatic. She is 22, very pretty and poshy with nice body look a bit like Jennifer Garner. At the night we went around Collins Street shopping, spend hips at Armani Exchange.

 

2nd March - More shopping in the morning, got two pairs of shoes. My cousin arrived around lunch, we went to Joe's Stone Crab for lunch, we were a bit late, the restaurant closed, but the takeaway is still open, even though it was not fine dinning but the crab still taste very good, Bec and Nina loved the stone crab, while I prefered coconuts shrimp. Remember to order the stone crab craw, not the atlantic ocean crab craw, they both nice, but stone crab is their specialty, also recommend the key lime pie for dessert. More shopping in the afternoon, since Nina lost her luggage, we trying to shop for a swimwear for her. At night, while I am getting ready to sleep, Nina and Bec are putting their makeup on getting ready to do some night clubbing. After 5 hours of dancing and 2 clubs, they came home 4 o'clock in the morning, fully excited and with Nina's lost luggage. The bad news is Nina can not find her camera in the luggage, it got stolen.

 

3rd March - Nina and Bec only had 3 hrs sleep before we got on the tour bus for a day tour to Key West, the most southen point of US, only 90 miles from Cuba. It was a 4 hrs drive. The town look a bit too touristy, Bec and I signed up for snokeling, while Nina decide to catch up with some sleep on the beach. The boat toke us to the only living coral barrier reef at Northen hermisphere for snokeling, the reef is nothing compare to our greater barrier reef at Aus, it is not as colorful and not as many fish. But the highlight was that I saw a more than 2 meters long tiger shark (at least I think it is tiger shark, look like the one in finding nemo). At night we had dinner at this very nice Italian restaurant, but don't remember the name, but if you walk down Eleven Ave towards Ocean drive, turn left at Ocean drive, it is about 100 - 200 meters, you cannot miss it, it has red light, red and white checked tablecloths, very Italaian with live music.

 

4th March - Forgot to mention, another highlight of the trip is that I have dinned at a true American dinner, you know those you seen in the tv series and movie, where people have their breakfast, or couple goes to at night after a movie. We had breakfast there twice. It was very nice, it is at the coner of eleven ave and washington road opposite to best western. This was the end of my Miami visit, after breakfast we said goodbye to Nina, and started our jounery to the Disney World.