"Life in Plantation... Target CLEARANCE!"

After hearing that Target is having a clearance on their Star Wars items, I quickly went on a hunt!

One store after another, and since I already have almost all Star Wars stuff (heheh), there wasn't many that interested me. Until.............


It's the Target-exclusive Battle Rancor!! This baby was launched just a few weeks ago at $39.99. I passed it then as it was too huge and expensive....

Check out the price NOW:

$19.98! :D

Woo-hoo!

Patience paid off ;)

Not all Target stores have it that cheap. Out of the FIVE that I went, 3 of them showed $27.98. Only 1 had this sweet deal :D

And now it is standing proudly on the computer table ;)

"The Everglades National Park - Part 2"

We journey deeper into the Everglades....


like Indiana Jones, always got a map showing Point A to Point B :D

Point A is the amazing Anhinga Trail, right at the Main Visitor's Entrance. After that, we hopped back into the car to Pa-hay-okee Trail


Park the car and start hiking...



Ah, we are there... from the overlook, we can see...



The vast and endless "Sea of Grass"! Well, it's kind of dried up, not surprising, considering the blazing heat... :-S The best time to visit the Everglades is winter, then all the wildlife would be in abundance.



The boardwalk circles around the sawgrass...

Grasshopper :D

Ok, time to hit the road again, to Point B, Flamingo Visitor's Centre. There were a few other spots to hike, but we were in an express trip (and it pretty much looked the same throughout!)


The Long Road ...........................

At some point, we were considering turning back coz it sort of became a drag, driving for so long.

But then...
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Whoa! The scenery changed drastically! Now a beautiful coastal prairie lies before us! We've reached Flamingo point... Lucky didn't turn back!


I absolutely *love* this picture! Can be my wallpaper ;)


Actually, Flamingo was badly damaged after Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma back in 2005 and it looks eerie...


Bird nesting on top the antenna.

The view from Flamingo is...


not really exciting.. it's a murky swamp :D Heheh....

There's these scopes to view stuff (faraway boats, birds, etc)

Captured a video to show how it's like there:

So windy, it's almost scary. Can imagine how it was like when the hurricanes hit.

Ok, time to go back... drove ALL THE WAY BACK TO POINT A (-_-''), but we stopped by the main entrance to take one last pic...
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Ok! Mission accomplished! ;)

"Life in Plantation... foodie"

Wednesday's breakfast:

Some biscuit-y thing with white sauce. Sauce has some chunks of meat in there, didn't like it at first, but it's pretty good :)

Wed's dinner... Chada Thai!

Ordered combo fried rice, 7 star ! combo means it includes pork, beef, chicken, prawn, crab meat. We are now notoriously known as the only guys who ordered 7 stars everytime ;)


Also comes with some spring rolls. Nice and crispy!

Thursday's breakfast:

Minced beef, potatoes, and some-white-thing-which-tastes-weird!

Thursday's dinner cannot take pics, coz it's pizzas shared with everyone :P Thursday is usually pizzas.. They ordered before Papa John's, Pizza Hut and today was Antoni's Coal Fire Pizza... their pizzas are usually of exceptional quality. The freshness of the dough, the toppings and the overall flavor!

Friday's breakfast:

Some kuih with white cream inside mix with strawberry sauce and potatoes (notice always got potatoes). Well, the strawberry sauce is nice, but the kuih-thing... is ... ugh.... slimy and bland.

which is why I tried another thing which is there all the time:

Cereals! Which I also didn't like. Especially the taste of cold milk :-S

Tonight no free dinner, so....
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5.30pm chow la! ;)

"Life in Plantation... Monday Tuesday"

You know the drill.... another week....................... -_-''

Monday Chilli's

N.Y. Strip..... 16.99 :P

Unfortunately, I ordered MEDIUM, but it came almost RAW :-S So when u cut, there's blood........ ugh... didn't like it too much, so I brought home to microwave it! Even more unfortunate, after heat up, it became WELL-DONE! Hahaha, next time order something else!

Tuesday.... an Italian restaurant! Not many people stayed back late, except us coz we are on a cost-saving run! :P

Ordered Grilled Halibut... mmmm.....

Superb. 17.99!! Ketuk them kau2 :P Although that thing looks like rice, it's not! It's some kind of pasta thing...


And a Diet Pepsi to accompany it... some ppl here are very health conscious!

"The Everglades National Park - Part 1"

During my first visit to Florida back in 2006, I was so concentrated on the 'touristy' places like Disney, Universal, NASA, you know, those places... There was one particular place that I would have loved to have gone if I had an extra weekend: The Everglades National Park!

Yup, nature lover ;)



Driving there from hotel takes 2.5 hours. The Everglades is the entire green area of the map. It is a system of slow moving rivers in a subtropical wilderness or "marshland".


Driving past cow farms :D

I don't mind driving when the scenery is this beautiful... miles and miles of clear sky!

Aha... almost there... see the sign NO FUEL AVAILABLE, lucky us, we have full tank :P

Before long, we reached the Main Visitor Entrance, listen to some videos...

Everglades is a World Heritage Site...

And a statue of the endangered Florida Panther! There's less than 100 of them in the wild, so tough luck trying to find one!

The park has a few stops which we can park our cars and hike a trail. The most famous of all is the Anhinga Trail, right at the entrance, which is a superb place to view wildlife!


Another endangered species ;)

Before we even start, holee crap!!!

There's an Alligator in the pond!!


"Humans... eww.."

Wow! That was the first look at these alligators which populate the Everglades! And we haven't even started the trail yet! Nice...

Ok, start walking, it's damn hot day....


going through the Everglades on a boardwalk... safe ;)

The River of Grass, the nickname of the Everglades... don't be fooled! Although it looks dry, at the bottom are swamps!

After awhile, we reached the main viewing area...

a lake..... :)

Pretty girls....

Wow..... nice view.

Oh-oh... sorry sorry, side-tracked a bit! :P

Here are some pics...

Nice tree, like some vegetable...

In perfect harmony... the wading bird, Anhinga (top right) and see who's at the bottom left... an alligator's head! That's how they like to appear... just the tip of their head submerged....

Umm.... what am I taking...?

Heheh, look carefully.... that's no wood! It's a Gator!

Can you spot them all?? :D


Two tortoise....

and a gator! Food......:P






"Dumb humans...."

National Geography LIVE! :D



Gator hidden in the mud....

At some point, the boardwalk ends, leaving us back on the road.... and man... THERE'S NO FENCE IN BETWEEN. The gator can just choose to come up and .... *gulp* Nah, dun worry, humans are not part of their food chain! (looks around nervously)


A tortoise!

Ok, the Anhinga trail ends... Next is Gumbo Limbo trail...


Sorry la, I'm not crazy enough to go IN there! Later end up as gator food! :-S Fren2 was sick enough to make a joke when we heard some sound coming from the bushes. "Gator, gator!" In the end, both of us got paranoid and went back to the car! :-S


A signboard.... what a superb shot of a panther in the swamp....

Next: Continuing deeper into Everglades!