The personal authentic travels of a world-wide drifter, you'll always see pics of me at the locations being described (if the other blogs you're reading don't do that, odds are they were NEVER there, just saying…)
Initially I found this restaurant on a Orlando Newspaper’s list of “things you must do in Orlando before you die” which was aimed at locals rather than tourists. It said you HAD to try the Bánh mì at Anh Hong’s restaurant (otherwise known as,’Vietnamese sandwich,’). These sorts of subs, hoagies or po’boys (depending on what part of the US you come from) have become all the rage recently, and have resulted in mom and pop joints springing up in major cities that have been giving the chains Subway and Jimmy Johns a run for their money nationwide.
There are MANY vietnamese places in Orlando’s ChinaTown area (which is essentially all along Colonial Drive), this would be the one that the Vietnamese go to (I had this on the authority of theVietnamese guy who runs a grocery store there).
I went there maybe three or four different times, even though it was no where near where I was staying, and took along friends who were locals (who have kept going). The food there is highly affordable, tasty, fresh, and like I said, not geared towards western pallets. The menu extends far beyond the sandwiches to include all of your Vietnamese favorites, such as Pho, etc.,.
A must do: I paid $28 for a 30 minute airboat ride, but since business was slow the pilot kept us out there for over 45min.
Anyone going to central Florida or further south down the peninsula, into the Everglades proper, really HAS to do at least one Airboat ride, it’s obligatory. I did this as sort of a last minute trip before heading north out of the land of Amusement parks (aka Orlando). I had intended to do it since arriving in June, but weather was unseasonably warm this year, and it wasn’t till January that it was finally cool enough for me to be willing to spend a full day in the sun — they were finally having a cold snap that demanded a sweater. I have to say it was very pleasant ride.
Perhaps it was the location (near Orlando which I opted for over driving an hour away from town) but the ride was more about being out in the sun and the wind, and enjoying the view, than about seeing wildlife — although we did seem some. In the picture below, if you put your nose right up to the screen and look to the left of my shoulder — just to the right of the chain — you can see a large grey spot which is a smallish alligator (although its easier to see in the bottom right image). I think we MAYBE saw two alligators the whole trip.
The bird in the image to the bottom left is one that is almost extinct (I forget the name). The driver told us that they seeded the swamp with a type of snails that these birds like to eat, and because the boat kicks up the snails from the bottom the birds have learned to follow the boats. All in all a highly enjoyable trip. Personally I think a 45min trip was long enough.
Today I watched history being made! I watched a rocket take off from Cape Canaveral, and then LAND again where it was supposed to. Humanity has crossed a technological threshold!!
If you draw a line straight down from the takeoff to the far bank (next to the blue building), thats’ about where I sat
My whole time I was in Florida I kept MEANING to go to Cape Canaveral, but just was never able to drag my ass out there, for a host of reasons, including inertia. The first liftoff I saw with my own eyes was on this trip, and it was quite by accident; I was at Disney’s Epcot, and happened to look in the right direction at the right moment and saw it. It was amazing. But I wanted to see one up close (well, as close as legally possible without paying an arm and a leg for the privilege). Finally, I saw on one of the web pages that track this stuff that there was going to be a liftoff (launch) tonight.
I drove out to the east coast of Florida to see the 8:30pm blast off… hopeful that it would happen. The last takeoff I intended to go to got scraped because of bad weather, and we did initially have a forecast for storms for tonight as well, but happily the forcast has changed and moved those off till tomorrow.
Per the suggestion of one of my best and oldest friends (the guy whose Winter Garden house I lived in from June through August — it is like a 15 min. drive from his place to the back gate of Disney) I left early (so that I could drive almost an extra hour south of NASA) in order to get a GOOD hot dog for dinner from what was advertised as the Florida branch of “Mustard’s Last Stand” ( a Chicago institution for the Northwestern University crowd) before heading north again to see the lift off. My friend knew it was there but had not yet had the chance to try it. Unhappily it turned out to be a totally bogus waste of time. The original Mustard’s is located right next to my alma mater’s football stadium, and its dogs are regularly listed as the best in the whole Chicago area — hence my willingness to drive an hour out of my way while in Florida. The Evanston/Chicago one has been around since 1969, this Florida rip off (who nabbed the url first) has only been around since 1987 (and how scummy is that? First they copy the name — adding Chicago style eatery so as not to infringe, and then they nabbed the url, Seriously!). There was spotty rain while I got my dog, and I hoped they wouldn’t scrap the liftoff again.
Note: I was EXCEEDINGLY unhappy with my Cheese dog, and it was totally NOT worth the extra drive (which almost had me late for the launch) … Firstly, they used the cheaper Velveeta as the cheese (BLECH) instead of using high quality Merkts cheese like they should have (even I know for a fact that it IS sold in local Florida stores, so no excuse there). Also secondly, while the hot dogs were Vienna beef, they were those really skinny small ones and NOT the big meaty ones any Chicagoan would have expected, so it was mostly bun… MAJOR rip off.
Driving back up I stopped at a local gas station and asked where I should go to watch the liftoff. The guy working the counter and the female customer (who looked to be about 30, but who was CLEARLY a meth addict) both suggested jetty park as the best free location; but, by the time I got down here it was kind of obvious from the backed up cars that parking near there would be an issue. So, I grabbed the first parking space near that I could find (way at the other end, by the Milliken’s Reef restaurant) and ended up sitting next to two older gentlemen on a bench. There were a LOT of people here, so I could guess how crowded the preferred location was.
RIGHT behind where I was standing there was this bizarre, modernistic looking building (built to kind of look like a rocket), which turned out to be named Exploration Tower… they had turned off all the lights in it, right before the lift off, and then they came back on afterwards… and I thought to myself “that would have been a great place to view the take off….” When I got home I was looking at some of these images on line and found the one from Reuters at the top of this blog, which I’m willing to bet money was taken from that building.
Granted, my recording isn’t very good… I did it off of my iphone 4s, which is already on its last legs (I wanted a new one but the iphones they released are SO much bigger that they don’t suit my small hands, am waiting for them to release a replacement for the 5s before I buy one). However, this is why G-d made Youtube.
That said, the fact is no recording really does justice to the experience. What sounds like wind hitting the microphone was this massive roaring noise that seemed to be everywhere all at once — that you just have to experience. And there was the camaraderie of the crowds, the excitement in the air, etc…. you just can’t feel that in the videos, the roaring and cheering of the crowds, so loud that you could even hear the folks across the bay cheering when the SpaceX stuck the landing…
It was amazing!
And I was THERE!!!! …. The whole drive home I was feeling “l saw something historic today” and then, the two hours of driving and the overwhelming emotional excitement of the launch of the space X, had worn me out completely by the time I got home.
Granted, Americans consider this to be a girl thing (mother daughter or gal friends), but if you’ve got the time, consider doing a High-Tea at Disney World. (And if you’ve got cash to burn, consider doing the Princess high tea).
People, when they go to Disney, tend to forget that there’s way more to do their than just go into the parks. Disney World is 43 square miles large, about TWICE the size of Manhattan Island, and almost as big as San Francisco. Sure, there are the four main theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood and Animal Kingdom), two water parks (Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach), and five golf courses (for the fathers who refuse to do the parks)…. but there is in fact much more than that. One of my favorite things to do is to explore the various theme hotels (all of which are way to expensive for me to seriously consider staying there, unless I was sharing the expense with friends), and explore the activity options available there.
One of the most impressive hotels was the third one built (1988) on the campus, namely the Victorian era themed Grand Floridian Beach Resort (although it’s exterior is modled after the Mount Washington Hotel in New Hampshire, which is one of America’s Historic Hotels).
Visible, from across the lagoon while at the Magic Kingdom, most visitors don’t bother exploring the hotel, but they should. Adjacent to it is Disney’s Wedding Pavilion (no seriously weddings are a big business at Disney World for people who really want the fantasy wedding)
so it’s fairly common to find folks posing for their wedding photos at the Grand Floridian, and in addition I’ve seen at least TWO occasions of pageant contestants coming there for award ceremonies, once it was the child contestants, which is an american cultural phenomena if ever there was one (Honey Boo Boo anyone?).
At the back of the hotel is a restaurant called Narcoossee’s which has decent food, but more importantly, its back deck overlooks the lagoon and is one of the prime viewing areas for the Magic Kingdom’s nightly fireworks, including the very special displays (way pricer) that they do for special events like the Xmas or Halloween parties. You do NOT need to pay park entrance fees to see it, and they pump the music for display through the speakers embedded in the ceiling of the balcony (which will protect you from incremental weather.
Plus the Grand Floridian makes one heck of a gingerbread house during the Christmas season, which you can actually walk into — its a shop that sells gingerbread cookies, etc., and if you get there when it’s just gone up the whole area is flooded with the smell of gingerbread.
One of the things you can do at this hotel, other than shop is, High Tea at the Grand Floridian Hotel, although it is really something you share with a friend. I had ‘living at Disney World’ for about five months when my friend Gina came for a short visit, which gave me a defensible opportunity to finally do this (let’s face it, doing high tea by yourself is kind of pathetic).
The High Tea is served in the cafe below the band, you don’t hear them there
While this places offers high teas that go for as high as $175 for adults (which includes caviar and champaign), or can go staggeringly high for the (spoiled child) Princess teas (see menu above for complete pricing), we opted for the far more economical, and princess-less, Cheshire Tea:
First Course
Selection of exotic fruits and imported cheeses
–
Second Course
Medley of Finger Sandwiches accompanied with Berries, Cheese and Lavosh
–
Third Course
Buttery Scone and Jam Tart
–
Finale
Choice of delicate House-Made Pastries, Strawberries and Creme, or English Trifle
Choice of tea
$48.00/person
By the end of it, both Gina (who you can see is slim) and I (who is a good 50 lbs past slim) were stuffed to the gills. The meal can best be described as decadent, albeit a bit pricy. We really loved the cheeses.
This was a truly earth shattering moment for me. I was walking around Epcot, near the China pavilion, when suddenly I saw something metallic glint in the sun, and a trail of something white behind it, lifting straight up towards the sky… it took me about a second to realize what it must be.
I was amazed, and dumb struck (practically immobile) … I could not speak. Seriously… I started pointing up at the sky, could NOT get a word out of my mouth and was making these weird moaning noises instead (people who saw me initially thought I was mad). When no one paid attention I started poking men who were walking by (Fathers with kids) and pointing at the sky.
One of them finally said, “What, what am I supposed to be looking …. OH SHIT! It’s a ROCKET!” And this finally redirected the attention of the other people who were staring at me like I was a mad woman.
Still I could barely move and wasn’t doing very well with the talking either … I’m not over stating this… I was completely dumb struck … literally unable to speak.
This man started pointing it out to his kids, loudly, and then other folks all stopped to see what we were pointing at, exclaiming things like, “THIS has made this trip worth it (from bored dads)!” and “I’ve never seen this before!” “Amazing!” “Oh my G-D!!!” “Honey LOOK!” “Wow, that must be from Cape Canaveral!” etc. … and we, as a growing crowd of techno geeks, watched it climb and climb till it disappeared
Only after the shock and awe subsided and my voice and wits returned to me — after we had all congratulated ourselves, all bonding in the enormity of the moment in a communion of “THAT WAS SO FUCKING COOL!!!!”… did I finally remember to pull out my camera… hence the lousy photo of the smoke as it was already beginning to be pushed around by the winds — it had been a perfectly straight line.
….. and I for one was completely overcome by my emotions for at least the next half hour.
One interesting thing was, I seemed to be the only woman who gave a shit. All the guys who passed (who weren’t locals and hence accustomed to the site) stopped and stared, but I noticed that women seemed more than annoyed by their husbands being distracted from “being at Disney” than interested in what was happening in the sky above. That and I noted not one of the moms was even like, “Hey! Teaching moment for my kids, let’s talk science” … nope, that seemed to be left to the men.
Rebecca Radnor's Personal Blog: Consider yourselves warned! 