Florida Trip

It was totally unexpected. Barely a week after coming back from Niagara, I was called to my boss’ office to discuss on a department meeting. I was basically just tasked to take care of some presentation issues for the meeting.

“Well, Wayne,” Betty said, “you are more than welcome to join us for the meeting."
“Sure. Is it in the conference room?
Betty and Liz laughed.
“Boca Raton is in Florida, Wayne. Do you think you can take a few days off school and join us?”

Are you kidding me?

Boca Raton

Before I knew it, I was already flying to Florida. Checking into my room at the Boca Raton Hotel & Resort, I was shocked. I was expecting either a shared or single standard room. Instead, I had a junior executive suite all to myself. StarCite really knows how to hold high-class meetings. At the 18^th floor, the view from my room was breath-taking.

The living room.....


...the sleeping room....


...the view



Our meeting area

It was a Thursday when I arrived. The meeting ended on a Friday. That’s when the real adventure begins

South Beach, Miami

After the meeting, I was all on my own. I was unrealistically optimistic here because there were still a lot of uncertainties in my plans. I put together an almost ridiculous travel and accommodations plan for the next 2 days with almost no buffer time in between. All the stars in the heavens need to be aligned for me to pull my plan off. Thankfully, I think they were. A colleague happened to be heading down to Miami to return his rental car so I happily hitched a ride and reached Miami 2 hours ahead of schedule. Getting to South Beach required another hour-long bus ride. Alighting at my stop, I was stunned for 5 seconds as I examined the surroundings – it looked exactly like Tanjung Rhu, Singapore!

Familiar surroundings

The whole of the following day was spent exploring the beach island. The beach was picture perfect, although I really thought it was kinda overrated. I rented a bike to explore the entire island.

Perfect sky, sea and sand

Proof of me at Miami Beach

Once again, thanks to the stars (and God for aligning the stars), I just bumped into a friendly stranger who was kind enough to take me around the happening places around the Miami Beach Island.

Lincoln Road is famous for its high-end fashion and occasional celebrity appearances. Antwon, my new host was telling me all the places where you might be able to spot celebrities. There were also quite a handful of shops that had works of famous painters.

Lincoln Road

Paintings of Britto



Antwon outside an art gallery

And of course, we visited the only StarBucks that had an in-store music collection.

Yes, this is StarBucks with a music shop in it

Taking one last look at the beach, I returned my bike and left South Beach to proceed with the next part of my plan.

NASA

I picked up a car in Miami International Airport. Interesting enough, I had given one of the latest Chevy models, probably a 2005 or 2006 one. Driving the red hot Chevy with Planetshakers blasting in the stereo, I headed down to Cape Canaveral, home of the NASA visitor center. Since it was an overnight drive, I pulled over at one of the rest stops and spent the night in the car.

What would I give to make you mine

Arriving at NASA was like a dream come true because I have always wanted to be here. Space had always been one of my key interests since young. Sitting through the tour, we went through the fascinating Apollo missions to the moon and the construction of the ISS (International Space Station). I ended my NASA trip by shaking hands with an actual astronaut.

Rocket garden


Beneath one of the shuttles


Replaying the Apollo mission launch


Awesome rocket boosters



Shaking hands with an astronaut

Niagara Falls

It was and early preview of autumn/winter. For the first time in 4 months, I had to don multiple layers of clothing again. With Jeff, Jamie, Scott (our only Caucasian-Korean friend) and his two ex-schoolmates, we headed up north to Niagara Falls.

The first thing we saw was the rainbow bridge, the bridge that connects USA and Canada.

Rainbow bridge got its name because you can frequently see a rainbow caused by the waterspray from the fountain.

Climbing on board the Maid of the Midst, the ship took us as close to the falls as we possibly could. I thought we looked a little silly in the bright blue ponchos. But then again, it probably the colour probably helps rescuers locate you in case you fall Thanks to the rain, none of us really dared to flourish our cameras so a lot of otherwise beautiful shots were missed. We could see the Canadian side of the falls on board.

sea of blue ponchos

The Bridal Veil behind me.

The rest of the gang.

Of course, we had time for other stuff, like visiting the aquarium and seeing some penguins.

Penguins.

Food was perhaps on of the best highlights. Staying a night at Buffalo, who would miss out Anchor Bar, where the original Buffalo wings came from?

Scott going strong at wing number

Scott was just out of control, downing almost 20 wings on his own. It was a short and wet trip, but it was generally good clean fun (except for the messy BBQ sauce).

The Niagara rapids