Miami started turning up in our travel plans when a friend commented that the beach was a place that we should go and experience. After some headaches over how to factor Miami into the equation, a decision was made to drive down from Orlando, spend a day there, and take a train back to Raleigh from there. At least that was what we planned in our original itinerary.
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| On our drive down! |
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| We reached after a four hour drive. It had been a long time since we last saw high rise financial buildings. |
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| We headed straight for the beach! |
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| A common sight: small aircraft with advertisements in tow. |
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| We hung around a while at the beach, then went walking around the shopping belt for lunch... |
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| ...before we headed back to the beach haha. |
Dinner was at Joe's Stone Crab, a restaurant so famous for its crabs, we had to wait more than an hour for our table. It was a rather high class restaurant too, and we were very under dressed for it. Fortunately we were not chased out haha.
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| Nighttime Miami. Like D.C, police was everywhere. |
All our plans for a incident free Spring Break went down the hill when we missed our train the following morning. Several factors contributed to our missing of the train:
1) The train was originally scheduled to leave at 11.50am the following morning, but track works caused the train to be rescheduled to leave at 6.45am instead.
2) Because of the rescheduling, we had to wake up very early the next morning to catch it. But unsatisfied with spending so little time in Miami, we stayed out till pretty late, and woke up late as a result.
3) Made a couple of wrong decisions along the way.
4) Bad luck when we couldn't catch a taxi.
After considering all other available options, like drive back to Chapel Hill, take Greyhound bus, try to catch the train at the next station before it reached, our final decision was to stay in Miami for another two days to catch the next available train.
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| We had to resort to tapping on free WiFi on the metro to find last minute accommodation. |
We finally found the cheapest possible accommodation located next to the airport, and after a hellish morning rushing all over the place, we slept the entire afternoon away. At night, we decided to pay Downtown Miami a visit.
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| After some googling, we found the Bayside Marketplace a worthwhile place to visit and have our dinner there. |
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| While the front was a little shopping area, the rear was a rich man's place. Bars, clubs, yachts, and live music performances. |
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| The next morning, we checked out of our hotel, and with our bags in tow, we were back at, guess where, the beach again! However, unlike the previous day where we only spent a couple of hours there, our plan was to spend the entire day there that day. |
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| Again, the ridiculous amount of police there. Not that I was complaining, we felt safe there. |
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| Panorama of the beach. |
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| At night we decided to walk along the road closest to the beach, to get ourselves immersed in the famous Miami nightlife once more. |
As a classic example of 'once bitten, twice shy', this time round we were determined not to miss our train again. We spent our night at the airport instead, tried not to get too comfortable with ourselves, woke up early the following morning and cabbed down to the train station.
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| Finally on our elusive train. |
Miami is a place meant for the rich. Its so right in the face: the flashy cars, the hunky guys, the bikini girls, and the bars and clubs lining the streets. I don't exactly feel out of place there; but its not my kind of place either. A good place to visit and experience.
The end of our little adventure in Miami also marked the end of our Spring Break; the additional two days caused us to miss a day of lessons and blew our budgets completely. But I had a really great time in the state of Florida, and its okay, the money can be earned back next time.
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