Miami

The day after visiting Universal, Minho and I went on a 5 hour road trip to visit the one and only Nicolas Londono in Miami.  Minho doesn't have prescription sunglasses, but thankfully, Grandma had a great pair of shades that were more than big enough to fit over Minho's specs.  Very stylish as well.

After passing through a very prominent part of town, we decided to hit up Miami beach.  The water looked freezing, so we kept to the sand.  I think this is Minho's way of showing he's excited.

And here's Knuckles.  Fortunately it was cold, otherwise all the ladies would have come flocking.

I like this pic because I look taller than Minho.

Realized that chucks aren't a great option for the sand.

Looks great.  Too bad it was chilly.

This has got to be a distant cousin of my car.  I mean it has it all: tape holding various parts of the car together, a missing left turn signal, custom paint job, and lots and lots of junk in the back.  Reminds me of a time when one of my coworkers was living out of the back of his van.  It also reminded me of the old days as a kid where we would sit in the back of the station wagon looking backwards awkwardly at the drivers behind us while getting motion sickness.

Thanks to Nick for a great place to crash after doing it up in Miami.  We got back around 9 or 10 or something like that and Nick's mom immediately started apologizing that the beds weren't made yet.  I think she expected us to stay out a little bit later.  I felt really lame.

The next day, we did a boating tour of the everglades.

We had to go pretty early in the morning to catch the first ride so that we could be back in time for Grandma's church service.  When we said goodbye to Nick, he may have only been half awake.  The early morning sun on the water was great though.  Glad we did it.

That green jacket I got earlier really turned out to be useful.

Didn't see any alligators, but lots and lots of this particular white bird.

And they took a dump on my new jacket.

Shimmering light and spray from the boat.

Mangroves, which probably immigrated over from Africa.  They have special leaves that absorb salt from the water and then die sacrificially for the rest of the tree.  The dead leaves turn the water all brown.  As you can see, we went out at low tide.

Nice clear day.

Initially, I was pushing to go on one of those fan boats that they use a lot in the everglades, but I'm glad Minho convinced me to go on this calmer ride.  Good man.

Universal Resort

This is part 2 of my trip to Florida.  Because my fellow traveler really really really hates Sea World, we decided that Universal was the way to go.  Of course, there were about a billion people who had the same thought.

Fortunately, we arrived pretty early with the help of my GPS enabled phone, which was now working thanks to Grandma's Christmas gift of a car cellphone charger.  Over the course of 10 hours, we managed to get on 11 rides, which is slightly above average compared to Disney's resort.  We probably could have done 12 too, except one of them broke down after we were waiting in line for nearly 40 minutes.  One of our first rides, though, was Dr. Doom's fear fall.  Initially, I thought it would be a great ride for getting a high-up shot of the entire park.

It was a bit scary seeing all the warnings.  Fortunately, I'm not pregnant.  Unfortunately, I am a bit afraid of heights when traveling rapidly.

But I had no choice.  I was forced to ride it.

I took a shot at the bottom of the ride, and even though they said you weren't allowed to have loose articles with you, and even though there was a security camera staring right at me, I kept the camera to take a shot at the top.  I was determined to get a nice picture of the whole park, and with a name like "Fear Fall" I kinda assumed that I'd be dragged up to the top with plenty of time for snapping pics before being dropped.

But apparently you fly up at 50 or so miles an hour, and my fingers were too busy holding on for dear life to push the button on the camera.  Sorry everyone.  I let you down.  At least I didn't lose the camera.

Next we hit up the Jurassic Park section.  This was for sure one of my favorite movies growing up.

And I remember really really wanting the replica of this vehicle as well.

The main ride in the Jurassic Park section was a log ride type of deal, and because it's winter in Florida too, I decided I really didn't want to get soaking wet just yet.  That forced me to decide to purchase this lovely $8 poncho.  Prices were definitely more scary than the rides.  Don't even ask me how much we spent for lunch.

There's that blasted Fear Fall again.  The roller coaster next too it also does some tricky thing where you think you'll be pulled up to the top of the first hill really slow like, but then end up getting propelled at some insane speed to the top, experience weightlessness and loss of stomach, and then go plummeting down.

Finally, we got into the new Harry Potter exhibit.  This was kind of a huge deal for most people there.  As a result, you had to wait in line to get a time ticket so that you could wait in line to get into the exhibit area so that you could wait in line to get on the rides.  In fact, there were also people waiting in line to go to the store to pay exorbitant prices for Harry Potter gear.  Insane.

Actually though, this was definitely the best area in the park.  Surprisingly, we only had to wait 15 minutes to get on the roller coaster, so we did it twice, and it was pretty sweet.  This isn't the roller coaster, but everyone was taking a picture of it.  I present the Hogwarts train sans-josh.

And there's me.

The roller coaster was the best ride, but what everyone really wanted to do was go on the ride/tour of Hogwarts.  The line looped around most of the exhibit area.  We were standing in it for about 40 minutes before we realized that the line was really to use the lockers, and since our stuff was already in another locker, we could just shoot straight to the real line.  Ridiculous.

That ride made me so nauseated though.  I can't deal with moving seats and motion-simulating screens.  It took both of us nearly 2 hours to recover from that ride, and so of course the next thing we did was do the same thing, only in 3D with Spiderman.  Ugh, my head.

Much to our delight, once we finished up, we found a great Korean restaurant nearby with much more appetizing food than lunch.  It put our stomachs back at ease.  We almost got alligator galbi (actually a menu item), but instead we settled for spicy soup.  Mmm mmm.  So good.

I realized that in the first couple posts I put the explanations after the images and now I'm doing it before.  Not sure which way is better, but if you have an opinion, leave a comment.

To be continued...

Florida trip

I'm wrapping up my day at work, which was surprisingly productive (mmm, maybe just active).  It's likely because most people are still away on vacation, so working is the best way to prevent boredom.  It may also be the fact that I spent most of today simulating stuff on the computer, which tends to work better than real life.  I got back yesterday from vacationing in Florida where my Grandma and Aunt live.  Minho as usual was an awesome travel companion, but I must say I'm glad to be back.  I can only take about a week's worth of excitement it seems.  This is the first installment of our travels, which begins in lovely Orlando, which despite it's relatively disappointing temperatures of only 60 degrees, at least did not have snow.

My travel bud suggested that we hit up an outlet mall right next to all the resorts, and it was great.  It was also probably more packed than Disneyland.  We spent about 20 minutes in line at Levi's just waiting to try on a pair of jeans.  

Initially, I wasn't going to buy a whole lot, but for once, there were actually some pretty sick sales.  It was a very nice welcome from Florida.

Like this jacket that cost only $50.  Originally it was something like $130.  If you're wondering if I got you something at the mall too, I wouldn't hold your breathe.  Notice the grinch-like color of the aforementioned jacket.  Don't expect anything from Minho either.  Lacoste overpriced his pants, putting him in a shopping slump.

After shopping, we headed to Grandma's place in the evening, and we quickly realized that Floridians take their Christmas decorating very seriously.  I haven't seen light displays like this in a while.  No good pics though.  I can't control exposure times directly with my point-and-shoot.  Somebody needs to get the CHDK for the Canon 940IS up and working soon - please!

This is a fountain.

This is a Josh in front of thousands of dollars' worth of lights.

Grandma's accommodations were great.  Here's Minho making his bed "American style".

The day after, we were pretty beat from traveling, so we took a two-hour nap in the afternoon and then went to see "downtown" Ocala.  They had a sweet ferris wheel.

Yes, we rode it.

Together.

Pretty much by ourselves.  Here's the great city of Ocala.

And here's our shoes.

And here's me again.  More to come soon.

Slopes!

 Just came back from an awesome weekend in Madison, WI, skiing at Cascade Mountain (http://www.cascademountain.com).  For the midwest, I'd say it was a pretty decent mountain, but the best thing was that they had a turbo lift, so we got more runs in than any other trip we've been on so far.  I also finally figured out how to get down a black diamond without flirting with death, which is my greatest achievement ever this year; passing my prelim comes in at a close second.

Also a great part of this trip was being able to stay at Paul T.'s place, although some found the temperature at his place bit nippy (60 F).  This poor lad below was too cold to get out of his blankets to turn off the lights.

Later, the same individual discovered that he was sleeping directly adjacent to a cold air vent, so this is where he migrated to by the morning: the entrance of the bathroom (see feet below).

Despite the arctic temperatures both indoor and out, we all had a great time.  At least those of us with face masks or jackets with hoods.  Here's Minho, Gids, and me.

The most miserable part of snowboarding: constantly unbinding and rebinding.

The boys with boards.

And sorry, I'm stickin to skis.

Halftime.

The one problem with the turbolift is that at 20 mph with complete exposure, you tend to lose feeling in your face rather quickly.

Danny catching some air on the terrain park/obstacle course.

Minho also catching some sick air.

Sick as in weak and frail.

The next time, he tried to go a bit higher and also to ride a rail.  Result: faceplant.

Looks tough though.  After going to ski patrol, the medic told him to just put a cold compress on it.  Cold compress? -- the medic went outside, took a handfull of snow and put it in a plastic baggy.

After a long day of braving the elements and overpriced microwavable cafeteria food, we hit up a thai place for a warm, healthyish dinner.

Finally, caught a great service this morning with PT.  I love seeing what kids do during prayers.  Also, prayer is the only time I could stand up and lift my camera above everyone's heads.

Tomorrow: Florida Baby!!!