We have been there!

[Day 1] Arrival
Where I stay in New Jersey is unlike Singapore, you cannot flag down a cab around my place, simply because there isn't any out there on the road. No demand thus no supply. Good thing there are taxi services out there, which you need to book in advance. A trip to Newark Liberty Airport is 50bucks (excluding tips).

Ever since my previous 12-hour flight delay experience, I have learned to accept the high possibility of flight delays in this country. And yes, our flight to Miami was delayed over 1 hour. This time, we flew American Airlines. For a 3 hr flight, only beverage is provided. They sell snacks and ear phones for 2bucks (if you didn't have your own ipod earphones). to save yourself 2 bucks to watch their often interrupted by announcement inflight movie. Clarence lent me his ipod ear phones to watch the on board movie. I saved 2 bucks!

From the sky, Miami is such a well lit city. On the aerobridge, we could feel the warmth and humidity! It felt like we were back in Singapore. Custom check for domestic flight arrival was a breeze. we were quick to get out of the airport as we hand carried on all our luggage. Most of the car rental companies are located within the airport terminal vicinity and they provide shuttle service to the car pick up location.

We reserved an economy car online. Upon arrival at the car rental company, there was quite a few customers before us. They ran out of economy cars and we received a free upgrade - to a KIA SUV. In terms of fuel consumption, Eric was not too keen, he would prefer a sedan Pontiac (which we would have to pay to upgrade to). But since this KIA was pretty spacious, new and clean, we decided to go for it. If we had not been so kan cheong and rushed to be ahead of the queue, thinking of beating the crowd, we might be getting the Pontiac for free. See what I mean? (^_*)

Miami! Looks very much like Singapore. I am referring to the architectures. As we were driving on the flyover, it was as if we were on Sheares Bridge overlooking Marina Bay- seeing the Marina Mandarin, Ritz Carlton, The Oriental and Pan Pacific. We were speculating that the urban planning team in Singapore might have gotten their ideas from Miami.

Parking was a major headache. The off street meter parking was in operation from 9am till midnight. A quarter buys you 15mins. I dug into my purse to get every cent I could find to feed the meter. Thank god my faithful purse kept enough coins for the first night parking. But we got to worry about the parking the next morning after 9am. My advice is to bring enough quarters if you plan to drive on SoBe (South Beach).

Hotels on SoBe, Miami are ridiculously expensive. We booked a budget hostel called Jazz on South Beach instead. 3 of us had a 4 bed dorm room, sharing with a stranger, who was deep asleep when we arrived. It was actually a room within a 8 bed dorm. Very basic. Air conditioned. No towels. No toiletries provided. 1 bedsheet for you to use as blanket. Can't complain for the price we are paying.

We headed to a nearby restaurant called BIG PINK for dinner. We were starving. Dinner (or should it be supper? it was already 11pm) was just so-so. Its an American style restaurant, which serves the usual pizza, chicken fingers, pasta, burgers.

That night, we went to bed without showering coz we didn't bring towels, except beach towel (which double up as my blanket). So? Just jumped into the bed and slept till the next morning. (*_^)

[Day 2] Miami, SoBe
We woke up just in time to move the car before 9am. Since SoBe is a party town, there were many empty parking lots in the morning. We got some loose change from the Mama shop but the amount could only last us for an hour. Let's see how it goes.


The hostel provides breakfast. Bagel or toast and coffee or tea. This was my first time eating a bagel in this country. It was not as dry and hard as I always thought. While we were hanging out at the lobby, we met this uncle who provides airport transfer service for the hostel. Eric asked him about garage parking around the hostel. Instead of telling us where to legally park out car, he offered to "lend" us his disabled parking permit. The proposal didn't sound very right for us. I mean, how could we park at handicap lots? This is so not right. He clarified our confusion. Having a disabled parking permit allows cars to park at meter parking for free.

The piece of permit Uncle lent us was old and torn. Very suspicious. Weren't certain if it would work. After much hesitation, we decided to risk it. "Borrow" from uncle for 5 bucks. We managed to move the car to the lot right outside the hostel. Uncle offered to keep an eye on our rental car while he waits for customers. Anyway, at the end of the day, the torn and dirty piece of permit worked out for us. At least till now as I blog about this matter, we didn't receive any parking fines from the rental car company.

OK!~ We began our SoBe walking tour! We walked from 4th to 15th street, then U turned. Where we stayed is called Art Decor district. Clarence said they looked like Tiong Bahru houses in Singapore, which I tend to agree. The buildings here are Miami's classic architecture.

Clarence: We started the day walking along Collins Ave, starting from 4th st, until 15th st. This area's call the Art Deco district, which characterized Miami's classic architecture. It is the largest collection of art deco architecture in the world and comprises hundreds of hotels, apartments and other structures erected between 1923 and 1943 (Wikipedia say one :P). To me, the buildings looked nice and nostalgic, just like the ones in Tiong Bahru. So actually, Singapore also got art deco district hahaha

(See, even the mannequin has outstanding boobs!)

Then is the beach! Wide sandy beach, with people sun bathing... spotted a lady tanning topless. This beach is not exactly a nude beach though.





The buildings behind looks so much like Singapore HDB flats.

People here are mostly not natives. So most of the times, we heard people conversing in Spanish.

Clarence: Lunch was along Ocean Dr, which was super touristy and soooooo many people. Maybe that's why the beach was not packed, 'cos everyone was busy shopping haha. I was one of them, a proud owner of a new pair of Diesel shoes

Strolling in the heat made me lethargic (or maybe coz I was 8 weeks pregnant). We actually went back hostel for an afternoon nap before heading to the beach, just in time to enjoy the sun set.

Clarence: After dinner at A Fish Called Avalon, the name of a restaurant (excellent food by the way), we took a stroll around the art deco district again, marveling at the neon lights. We stumbled upon Miami Ink, the famous tattoo studio that was featured as a reality series on Discovery Travel & Adventure channel, and one of my favorite programs! It's located along Washington Ave if you wanna pay them a visit

At "A fish called Avalon"

MIami Ink

[Day 3]Leaving for Florida Keys

Clarence: We woke up early today, 'cos we were going to Key West! Yeah!!!! What's Key West? At first I also dunno when Eric told me, but I do know about the Florida Keys, from the Beach Boys' famous song Kokomo.

We rented the car all because of our driving trip to Florida keys. But there is no such place called Kokomo. There is a Key Largo though. (^_*)

Clarence:The Florida Keys are basically a chain of small islands in the south of Florida. There are basically 5 main areas to visit in the Florida Keys: Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon, Big Pines, and finally at the end of the keys, Key West. We chose Key West because we can have a nice long road trip to the end of the Florida Keys, and soak in the culture of the most famous of them all: Key West. I'm not driving by the way hahahhaha :P

This is our driver!


The whole trip took us about 4 hours, with a distance of about 150 miles (240 km). It's a beautiful drive, with little islands which they call keys over here in Florida.



Stopover at Islamorada for some photo! The view is breathtaking!

Lunch was at KFC. It was interesting to know that the chickens are left running around on the street in Key West. We saw a group of them loitering outside KFC restaurant. Ahhh....are they on protest?

Clarence: We arrived at Key West slightly after 2 pm, and proceed to Duval st, where our hotel, Crowne Plaza La Concha was located. I very long din sleep in hotels liao!!!!! Hurhurhur very excited :P

We booked this hotel through priceline at the very last minute. Parking off street wasn't easy, we settled for the hotel parking lot in the end, per day is US$19. The hotel location is pretty centralized, and the happening places are accessible by foot.

Clarence: We spent the whole afternoon shopping along Duval st, soaking in the sights of the old colonial houses along the way. Got Coach outlet! Hehehe.

From Duval St we walked to Mallory Square....

Clarence: We tried the key lime pie, which is supposed to be famous. Wah lao it's super sour man! When I took the first bite from the pie, I thought I just drank concentrated lime juice...But hor, I think you guys need to try it lar, 'cos it's supposed to taste the best in Key West. I highly recommend you guys to share 1 pie first before you decided to buy 1 for yourselves.

Actually, there are many other shops selling key lime pie. And since we are not into it, we didn't bother to try the others. Every shop says they sell the best key lime pie of Key West.

Even the staff's attire blends with the shop decor

Try the Key lime pie. What so special about it?

Ohhhh!!! Sour!

We walked up and down the street - bars and restaurants, but in the end, we settled down at this restaurant called Jack's Seafood Shack in our hotel. We tried their seafood and spent a nice evening in this place.

[Day4] Leaving Key West
The shops and restaurants here open late. We had a hard time looking for a decent and most importantly cafes or restaurants open for business around 9 in the morning. A few cafes are selling take away coffees and bagels, but no table service. We finally found a restaurant bar which offered breakfast menu.

My french toast

The pillars are covered with dollar bills.

We checked out our room and drove the car to the southernmost point marker of USA. There was an orderly line formed, queuing up to take photo with the eh...the concrete structural monument. Quite sad, honestly. Coz the view there is just so-so. People basically queue, snap a photo with the marker and "next". We did the same thing!

Clarence: We visited the southernmost point of continental USA, which is in Key West, in the morning of our departure. It's only 90 miles to Cuba from this point!

Check out the broken bridge!

State prisoners at work! How interesting!

A group of people were doing parasurfing. They all have very flat abs! Wow!

We stopped over to watch a little while beside we head to Miami Airport. The rest of the journey, I switched seats with Clarence, so I could nap (^_^). When I woke up, we were at a gas station, refilling the gas before returning the rental car. My bladder was up to brim, I couldn't wait another min. I rushed to the nearest toilet I could find -the one at the gas station.
Clarence waited for me outside. When I came out, he peeped into the toilet and said, "Wah, you must be really urgent.The toilet is so dirty you still can use."
Yes, I was that urgent.
Our evening flight was surprisingly on schedule. By the time we arrived at our home in New Jersey, it was almost midnight.