It's been Far too Long

Well, its been quite a while.  Over a year in fact and quite a bit has happened.  Who knew lots of things happen in only a year?  I've been meaning to update this blog for months, since last August I think actually. How sad I never got around to it until now.  Anywhoo, here's a catch up of what I've been doing for the past year or so, in pictures, because what else would I post?

I graduated!!!!  We spent the day taking silly pictures.

 

I went to Japan!  Why? Why not?  Haha.  This is a temple whose name I cannot remember anymore. :( how sad.  There are quite a few temples and shrines in Japan.

 

We went to Mt. Fuji.  It did not occur to us that it would be cold up there.  

 

 Another temple. So many. So pretty.

You drink from two of the fountains for luck, money and I think happiness.  I haven't a clue which ones I drank from, but either way win.

There were school children everywhere.  I know Japan has the hardest working work force, but it seemed like these kids were always in school.  This particular day was a Saturday or Sunday and it was late in the day.  We were very confused.

 There are wild deer and you can feed them!  They actually bit my friend.  It was kind of hilarious.

 This is the famous Japanese garden.  It was gorgeous.  We sat in there just staring for hours (I think it was hours.  We were there a while.)  I now want every garden or green space to be turned into a Japanese garden.  They're just so lovely and peaceful. 

 Of course, you can't go to Japan and not get a Yukata (Summer Kimono).  My friend on the left there tied my bow.  It's quite perfect.

 So much bamboo!  This was a trail of basically a bamboo forest. It was really cool. 

 The Golden Temple.  Also gorgeous.  I swear, everything in Japan is gorgeous.

 These are all gates.  So many of them, we walked through quite a few.  It was raining that day, and our cheap American travel umbrellas stopped working.  Who knew that could happen?  I almost bought a Japanese umbrella.  We used some once, they were fantastic.

 Hiroshima.  The bomb dropped right above this building.  There is a memorial museum just down that walkway.  It was the hardest most heavy thing I've ever been too.

 This is the Yanai bridge.  Again, Japan knows beauty.  Just look at the reflection in the water!

 Miajima!  The floating temple!  There were deer here too.

 This picture, right here with all the flags, yeah, that's not Japan.  That's Rockefellar Center, in New York City.  Yeah, I also went there.  A week before I started my new full time job.

 One of the many views from the top of the Empire State Building.  Not gonna lie, when I was waiting in line for the elevator, I kept thinking of that HIMYM episode where Ted takes everybody to the Empire State Building and explains its architecture.  I decided they filmed it in the part that leads out of the building.

 What trip to New York would be complete without seeing the Statue of Liberty?  None.  So obviously we had to go.  It was cool, but then we had to wait in line for like two hours to get back to the mainland.  We couldn't go to Ellis Island because it was closed, so that was a bit of a bummer.  It opened a few weeks after we left. 

 Ground Zero.  Just as heavy as Hiroshima, would have been heavier if the museum was open.  I hear its very sobering.

 Times Square is the busiest place I've ever seen and I've been to Tokyo.  But it was a lot of fun walking around, there were street dancers.  We also saw The Lion King on Broadway!  It was super fantastic!

 This is in Central Park and this is the spot where John Lenin was shot.  Its just a mosaic on the ground.  I though the strawberry fields would be actual strawberries.  I was wrong.

 Oh, hey, that's not New York or Japan, where in the heck am I?  Charleston, South Carolina that's where.  It was warm this day, we were waiting for the boat to get to Fort Sumter.  Also, I saw dolphins.  It was pretty cool.

 Turns out, only a few things ever happened in Charleston.  The start of the Civil War and George Washington reading the Constitution.  Also, Fort Sumter was pretty interesting, the first time we heard the date and time the first shot rang out.

 What visit to the south is complete without a trip to a plantation?  Answer: none.  duh.  We were on a tram tour to see the grounds and it was quite cold.  We needed like six more blankets.

 But the trees were pretty!  I have a thing for Spanish Moss, so obviously I'm freaking out all over the moss in the south.  But also, look at that reflection in the water with the trees.  I also love swamps.

 It was slightly warmer in the sun.

 I signed it.

 There was a fountain.  We took silly pictures.

 This is what people used to use to find books, before there were computers.  My mom was flabbergasted that I had no idea what this was.

Miami Beach

In case you haven't noticed, I tend to do things in spurts.  I'll blog a lot all of a sudden and then it will be months before I blog again.  Most of this I like to say is because I got busy and I haven't been traveling a whole lot.  In any case, I never blogged about my trip to Miami back in January.  I just went through all the pictures and even though I was only there for a few days it appears that we did quite a bit.

Its easier to tell the story through pictures - mostly because I don't remember everything which is sad.

Prepare yourself for a lot of pictures.  Its my favorite thing to post.

So these first two pictures go together.  They're actually of a hotel where people like Marilyn Monroe and the President have stayed.  They stay in that very top room in that tall tower.  This huge hotel is right smack in the middle of a residential area.  It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  But, its a pretty sweet place to see.  We saw this on a city tour.

This is probably one of my favorite pictures ever.  EVER.  We are in Little Havana.  Before we even got to Miami we planned on getting to Little Havana.  We wanted to spend a whole day there, eating Cuban food and the like, but, we eventually realized that South Beach, where we stayed, was about a half hour away from Little Havana.  We were disappointed to say the least.  So, we are in Little Havana now, we either just got a Cuban sandwich or were about to get one.

So, what the heck is going on in this picture?  I'm posing with a cigar and the man who made it that's what.  This shop is the "only" hand rolled cigar shop legal in the United States and supposedly makes its cigars as close to Cuban cigars as possible.  I put only in quotes because you can only believe so much a tour guide tells you.  This man was hand rolling the cigars right in the front of the shop.  I asked him politely for a picture in Spanish and we took one, then he handed me the hugest cigar I've ever seen.   Overall, it was pretty sweet.  We did not buy any.  I don't smoke cigars so I have no reason to buy one.

This is after the whole city and boat tour we did.  We had some time to kill before the bus picked us back up again.  So what do we do?  Drink cocktails.  Actually, that had been our plan all along.  When in Miami...These drinks were quite delicious, and mine at least was very strong.  That little test tube you see in there, poking out?  That was filled with dark rum.  I'm not a fan of dark rum, it has a very strong flavor.  Anyways, there was a boat tour attached to our city tour.  I was excited to see Biscayne Bay.  I'm a sucker for natural things so I was excited to see this must see bay.

Either I booked the wrong tour, or all the travel sites misled me.  Biscayne Bay tours go around the man made (some of them are) islands and show you houses of "stars".  We saw J. Lo's, Enrique Iglesias and some other people's ginormous mansions.  I mean, they were pretty and all, but I didn't need a boat ride to see houses, because honestly I didn't really care.  One quote on that tour though that was my favorite, "You may see some houses that we're not talking about.  Don't worry about them, they're not important people."  Like seriously?  There were much nicer houses that I saw that weren't ridiculous or rented out by Usher for a party.  But who cares if they're a doctor or some business guy changing the world.  They don't matter.  Ha, clearly I was not the target audience for this tour.

We did see the house owned by the guy who owns the company that invented Viagra.  He spent $10,000 on South African Palm trees for his yard.  That is, every tree cost that much.  He had 30 of them.  I don't even know what to say to that.  Its just too absurd to deal with.

Me being the nature freak that I am and being RIGHT NEXT TO THE EVERGLADES.  We went to the everglades.  After this tour however, I started to question my ability to find good tours.  Then again, the everglade tour was nothing like the swamp tour in Louisiana.   Anyways, the everglades looked nothing like the pictures I saw.  I assume those pictures were taken further north.  I was disappointed on this tour, but it was still fun to ride a fan boat again and see some alligators.  The everglades are huge, and not very deep as you can see by this man standing in it.

This was a tree we saw at Gator Park.  There was a peacock in it at one point.  I liked the tree.

This just amused me.  I don't know how that hen got in that bin, but it was comfortable.  And, there was no way I was going to look for anything in that sale.

Whenever there is an option to either hold and alligator, or eat it you must do it.  Hopefully, you won't be eating the alligator that you were just holding.   This guy was 3 or 4 years old.  He was quite heavy.

 So, this trip got a lot crazier when we realized this was happening.  The man in the picture was from Notre Dame and he was playing the bagpipes on the beach.  The football championship was happening the Monday we were leaving so there were Alabama fans and Notre Dame fans.  It got ridiculous.

We managed to get to the beach every day.  This particular day, we stayed there the whole day.  It was quite awesome.

So along with the craziness of that bagpiper, there were other events going on that were connected with this football game.  FREE EVENTS.  That means, we could show up no questions asked.  This picture was taken at a FREE Flo rida concert.  We were in a sea of people.  I don't think I've ever seen that many people all smashed into the same place before.  I didn't remember who Flo Rida was until he started playing/singing/rapping his songs.  I knew almost all of them.  It was awesome.

Tour le Swamp

New Orleans

My mom got a job so as a sort of celebration we went on an impromptu trip to Louisiana.  After getting up at 3am and three different flights, we finally got there.  The best part about New Orleans: swamps and alligators (which are in fact outside of New Orleans).

St. Louis Cathedral as seen from Jackson Square.  Andrew Jackson is in the middle on his horse.

I do believe there are real pigs lips in that container.

Mardi Gras beads still hanging around.

Multi-graves, single family.  They're above ground because they'll float to the surface if they're buried.

This duck/goose chased us for our popcorn.

St. Louis Cathedral

The back of St. Louis Cathedral.  The shadow is extra eerie because we just finished a ghost tour of the French Quarter.

Sugar cane plants.

Oak Alley Plantation

Alligators!

Baby Alligators!

Swamp: water over land.  Its only a few feet deep and its brackish water (fresh and salt water together)

Beignets.  Most delicious thing ever.