USA Holiday 2, October 05 (Californnnnnnnia)

Leaving Miami for San Diego. I've got mixed feelings about Miami overall, I can understand why it could be a great place to live, and I certainly liked the weather, but to holiday there's not so much to do outside of Miami Beach.

Had an airport stopover about halfway in Dallas thankfully, rather than going straight to San Diego. On the plane they read out the gates for connecting flights, we got off in terminal B and headed for C. As I arrived there I thought I'd better double check, and no, we have to go to terminal A - and due to it's size Dallas Fort Worth is one of the worst places to be in the wrong terminal. Luckily you can get to A from C without going through B, and they also had these awesome walking-escalators. Unlike the usual ones, these had a Dunlop logo on them and they were bouncy, it was like walking on a trampoline. That more than made up for going in the wrong direction and almost missing the flight.

San Diego was a little bit rainy, but we had just missed 2-3 days of storms. Didn't have much time left in the day, so just walked down to the central downtown and Horton Plaza area.

Horton Plaza. Looks like Dolphins Stadium.

It doesn't look any more organised from the top.

Old Santa Fe rail station.

Dr. Pepper.

USA Holiday 2, October 04 (The Wildcat)

Went across to Bayside again to hop on one of the walk-up bay tours - at least we got to do half of the planned tour still. The tour was pretty good, you get taken around a few of the islands including Star Island where all the celebrities live. The tour was narrated quite well also.

I'm on a boat.

Miami skyline.

Scarface house.

Shaq's old house.

American Airlines Arena.

I tracked down one of the visitor centres to get directions for the Monday night NFL game. As a bonus she even used to work at Sun Life Stadium aka Land Shark Stadium aka Dolphins Stadium. Unfortunately that didn't help. She took about half an hour to explain basically stuff I had already pieced together (painfully), which was that I needed to take a bus from South Beach to downtown, a train part of the way, then a bus to within walking distance from the stadium (but not actually to the stadium). Coming back I'd need to switch over about three buses (since they typically go either south or east and I need to go south east then over to the beach), but I could do it with about four or five different combination of buses. They used to have some special football service until a couple of years ago - something about a state/federal law being passed where they couldn't legally charge an additional cost for it meant they just shut it down instead.

The best alternative I worked out was if we left the game a few minutes early, ran for a bus not that close to the stadium (since the service takes a different route after 8pm, awesome) and get back just in time for the very last train of the night. From there I figured it would be easy to catch a bus from the downtown metro centre over to South Beach, so didn't bother to research exact times.

Back to the beach after that, for the second and final time. I didn't really deal any better with the perceived (or otherwise) sunburn this time than last. I forgot to mention in the pharmacies they were selling sunscreen up to I think SPF 80+, perhaps I should have tried some of that.

Left the hotel for the Dolphins game 2-3 hours early, but everything went smoothly on the way there. Except for getting to and from South Beach, the rest of the way would have been really easy to drive, since it's basically just a few long, wide roads - and like the Patriots, they put the stadium a long way from downtown (it's cheap, who cares how people actually get there). Some stupid Australian couple got on the bus with a full slab of beer and started drinking, despite the fact you aren't supposed to even drink or eat anything on the bus. I'm pretty sure everywhere in Australia you can't drink beer on a bus either, so don't know what they were thinking. Arrived at the stadium to a massive tailgating car park. To me it seems a little bit of a strange ritual to want to carry so much BBQ junk to a game and then just eat standing in the parking lot next to strangers for a couple of hours. Particularly when you consider people get to do this eight times a season at most, I'm not really sure why it has become such a tradition.

Tailgating.

And even more tailgating.

We were up in the top stand for the night game, which was actually kind of cold and windy which was a bit unusual. The view from the seats was pretty reasonable though, close to the halfway line. A pretty poor first half with Miami getting an early touchdown and then two field goals for New England, so the Dolphins were still up by one. The second half had much more action and variety, featuring a kickoff return touchdown to start the quarter, then later a blocked field goal return touchdown and an interception touchdown. It's very rare for the defense to get all three different types of touchdown.

Outside the stadium.

Half the fun is getting to your seat.

Miami at night.

View from the seats.

Dolphins pregame.

It's Tom Brady !

With New England having won the game we left a few minutes early to run for the bus. Made it with a couple of minutes to spare and also connected on time for the last train. Everything was going well until we made it to downtown. It's completely dead. Had to wait around 30 minutes for a bus to come along, in the dimly lit bus depot with the people sleeping in the shelters, good fun.

USA Holiday 2, October 03 (Vice Point)

We booked some tour to go out to the Everglades park and then some Biscayne Bay tour for the morning, but the tour never turned up. The tour company are closed on weekends, which is somewhat inconvenient. Their affiliate company where we actually made the booking online were contactable, but had no way to get in contact with this company either, so that was the end of that - took me almost a month after the trip to get a refund from them.

So, took a bus up to Aventura Mall in North Beach for something to do. For a while I was enjoying the bus ride, as it reminded me of GTA Vice City where you explore the South, Mid and North Beach areas. Some of the hotels might have even been copied in the game, but my memory wasn't quite that good. After about half an hour the bus ride got a bit boring though, in particular the amount of stops it keeps making. Got to Aventura and I was hoping it was going to be like the outdoor malls I remembered from Vice City, but it was actually indoor and nothing special - possibly I should have gotten off at Bal Harbour Shops in Mid Beach instead.

Had to take another bus back down south after that, which felt like it took twice as long. The thing that amazes me about Miami Beach is the amount of apartments and hotels that line the beach. Literally for an entire hour driving (in a bus) north-south along the beach, there is nothing but big apartment buildings all the way along the east side of the street. I'm not sure what the ratio of residential apartments to hotels is, but either way I'm surprised that there is enough people to fill them all.

Got back in time for some Sunday football then checked out some other places nearby like South Point Park and Flamingo Park (no flamingos).

Some Art Deco.

Majestic Hotel.

The car matches the building.

Beacon Hotel.

Johnny Rockets, the Scarface chainsaw scene place.

Same again.

Park Central hotel.

Barolo something.

South Point Park.

USA Holiday 2, October 02 (SoBe)

Finally went over to the beach after a day and a half - and it's literally across the street from the hotel. I didn't really enjoy the beach simply because it always feels like I'm getting sunburnt. I'm probably not, since I just put sunscreen on, but I don't like that feeling where your skin feels like it's about a thousand degrees and is kind of uncomfortable. It's annoying too, since I'd love to have summer and hot weather all the time, except for this one side effect.

Took the train (the actual train, not the metromover city loop) down to Coconut Grove. The train in Miami (they have exactly one line that runs north and south of downtown) is not really a mass transit option it seems, the stops are very far apart, and don't forget that there's only *one* line... Hard to describe Coconut Grove since it's a large neighbourhood rather than a small town or area, it's got some tropical parks, CocoWalk shops, and it runs along the coast so there's a lot of sea, beaches and boats. Some fun facts I later read about it: Dexter lives in Coconut Grove in the TV series of the same name and the set for Burn Notice is also there.

Somewhere in Coconut Grove.

Somewhere else in Coconut Grove.

Arrived back in downtown to find that everything shuts down by 4pm, so the streets were basically dead - everyone must be off to the beach. So I did that too.

USA Holiday 2, October 01 (The Heat)

First task of the day was to get tickets for an Everglades / Bay tour printed. By no surprise the hotel doesn't have a PC / printer available, so I had to find locations of internet cafes. The first one didn't exist, the second one had like 2 PCs inside some dodgy looking money exchange place and the third actually looked legitimate.

Then I had to find a place to buy a daily bus pass, there's only about 3 registered places in all of South Beach (there's more in Mid Beach and North Beach). The first was a different but equally dodgy looking money exchange place. The conversation with the guy behind a glass window (like a bank teller, and I hate trying to talk to people through those things) went like this: Do you sell bus passes ? No...waits for like 10 seconds...(I think he said) the computer's broken. So I walked out and went to the next place, a pharmacy so that's fine. Went to the front desk and they said go to the back. Up the back there's a sign that's like "Bus Pass --->". Now, there's a cash register and attendant literally right beneath this sign, there's then another queue a few metres to the right and around the corner. Naturally I think it would be pointless having a sign with an arrow *that* close to the desk where you go to buy the pass, but no, after waiting in the second wrong line, it turns out that the sign was that pointless after all. Damn you Miami.

Took a bus over to downtown Miami and walked across to the bay. Seems like it would be a good place to relax although the sun was really out in force. Got on the free metro mover train to try and find a tourist information place, to work out how the hell we are going to get to the Miami Dolphins game and back. Didn't find the place so gave up on that for the time being.

Downtown Miami.

The metro mover.

Went a bit further north to Bayside Marketplace, where I ordered a mojito but was a little disappointed, way too much mint and ice. Across the road was the home of the Miami Heat, the American Airlines Arena (not the American Airlines Centre). Took a bus over to Little Havana after that, some landmarks like the Tower Theatre and Gomez Park (lots of people playing dominoes) and many stores selling cigars.

The big two and Chris Bosh.

Gomez aka Domino Park.

Back to South Beach for some dinner, the restaurant was about 10 blocks or 20 minutes to walk from the hotel. Jason decided we should wait for the South Beach local bus loop that just services the South-to-Mid area of Miami Beach. I tried to point out that the bus was going the long way around and it didn't even stop that close to the place, but he was convinced. So we got on it, went north beyond where the restaurant was, went out east onto this island, returned to the beach...then the bus reached the end of the loop where the drivers get to take a break or change over. So we had to get off and wait for the bus to start over again, so I think it took about an hour to travel 1-2 kilometres. At least the place made a great burrito though.

Welcome to South Beach.

South Beach at night.

USA Holiday 2, September 30 (I'm In Miami B*tch)

Had to get up at 5:30am for the plane to Miami. Looking back, I probably booked some of these flights an hour or two early - not so much my fault as it is the amount of time the public transport and getting through the airport requires. We left for the same bus stop by 6:00am and no less than 5 taxi drivers pulled over as we were waiting, to ask if we needed a ride - what service! Actually it's probably because noone is on the street as 6:00am as you might have guessed.

Strangely we had to go through a whole bunch of custom checks at the Toronto end before even getting on the plane, and then at Miami simply walked off the plane, picked up luggage and were gone. A little strange how that worked, but I liked it.

The best option over to South Beach was a taxi, which didn't take too long. We got dropped off at the location I gave but it just looked like a restaurant. It seems they've gone and put a restaurant into the bottom of the hotel building, almost at the expense of the hotel check-in, it's just tucked away in one corner. I'm not sure if it's just this hotel or a common thing at the beach, but there's a mandatory-room-surcharge of $20 to cover beach towels, optional early check-in, bottled water each day, wireless internet and a couple of other things. To me it's just ridiculous you're allowed to do that, to make the room seem cheaper is the only reason I can see for it.

Up in the room this wireless internet I'm paying extra for was dropping out - that's Boston, Toronto and Miami all with crappy internet that keeps falling over. Also the mini-fridge had a lock on it?? so I went back to the reception later and asked about it. The guy told me it's a mini-bar not a fridge (it's still a fridge idiot) but he didn't have any keys left. Great.

Walked over to Washington Street and then up to Lincoln Mall. About every second store on Lincoln Street is a restaurant / cafe for about 8 blocks in a row - and they actually fill up at night. Came back down Ocean Grove and since it was evening all the restaurants along here were doing their dinner service too. Almost as bad as Las Vegas, maybe worse, every restaurant has someone out the front trying to hand you a menu and tell you about their specials. It's just too much. Thankfully you can just cross over, which is better anyway because it's the park/beach side and you can also see all the art deco style hotels too. Sadly I had not watched Jersey Shore (in Miami) before going on holiday, so I did not know all the good clubs to go to.

Washington Street.

Lincoln Mall.

Ocean Drive.

Ocean Beach.

Lincoln Mall at night.

USA Holiday 2, September 29 (Thank You Cito)

Only one day to have a look around Toronto, so couldn't really fit everything in. Went down to Yonge & Dundas street, just an intersection of two busy streets in the downtown area, also probably the centre of the retail district. Took the PATH through to the Eaton Centre, although I still don't know exactly what the PATH is. The claim is that it is 28 kilometres long and "the largest underground shopping complex in the world". Firstly, noone wants to live underground. Secondly, noone wants to walk for 28 kilometres. I actually think the PATH is a connection of underground malls/walkways linking the office buildings and subway stations together, and that you actually have to regularly come up to ground level between these underground sections, but I could be wrong.

Old City Hall, probably.

Somewhere around Yonge and Dundas.

Also Yonge and Dundas.

Walked down Yonge past the Air Canada Centre to the riverside. From there you can get a ferry across to Toronto Island. There's an amusement park over there, but only open during summer, the rest is mostly park land, a couple of small beaches, places to hire boats and canoes and stuff like that. Surprisingly people seem to live over here on this small island. If you could get proper TV and internet reception, and can overlook having no shops nearby, it actually might not be so bad.

Home of the 20 win Toronto Raptors.

I'm on a boat.

Toronto skyline. Can you spot CN Tower ?

The other end of Toronto Island.

Real beach.

Back across to Toronto to the Rogers Centre and CN Tower. The CN Tower is so much taller than I expected, and it has some nice light effects at night, but I've got no idea what they actually use it for. The tour to the top was like $40 and perhaps it would have been ok, but I kind of set myself for a no-observation-deck holiday this time around.

Fake beach back in Toronto.

The CN Tower.

So back across the street to the Rogers Centre for the NY Yankees vs Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre (the Buffalo Bills also play a few NFL games there). This was the last home game for Cito Gaston (manager that won the 1992 and 1993 world series for Toronto) so there was this long celebration thing before the game that went for about 45 minutes. It was fine, except it probably went about 15 minutes too long.

Cito Gaston night.

The Rogers Centre. I liked the stadium, seats were pretty old though.

Since the Yankees had already secured a playoff spot they had nothing much to play for, so they started one of their supposed-to-be-good-but-actually-not pitchers who gave up a 7-0 lead and they lost 8-4 in the end.

Javier Vazquez. Thankfully the last time he played all season.

The CN Tower at night.

Joba.