Miami Nov 2014 (Oreste and Kevin wedding)

Participating a milestone event of 2 friends brought me back to Miami after 5 years.

Miami Bay

The grooms, with the Singapore flower pot and cherry blossom flowers that we made together for the event

The church where the service was held

Wedding program

Beautiful wedding of Oreste and Kevin 

The Mums and the Bridesmaid

One of  Oreste's cute niece. I can't get her sister's picture as she's too fast and too shy

It was a great trip seeing Oreste's family again after so long and meeting Kevin's family for the first time. Everyone in Oreste's family remembers me, the Asian girl who ventured into their family and culture 5 years ago. I also met his 2 nieces for the first time and they are ADORABLE.

An old friend reunion : Cassandra who does not age and still embrace life with enthusiasm and innocence.

Cass and me : in our dresses for the wedding event

I met a lot of great people in this trip, learn a little more about Kevin and Oreste through their old friends who stayed with them through the years.

Adults being silly with photo booths

The girls in the same car for the wedding

Of course, I had a lot of GOOD food, mainly cuban.

First breakfast in Miami : Guava and cheese pastries, croquettes, cuban spanish, spinach pastry from Gilbert Bakery
The guava pastry from this bakery is sweeter than Versailles, and my vote goes to Versailles. But it's still really good!


























First dinner in Miami with Cassandra, at Seasons 52. We ordered a bunch of the happy hour small plates, shrimps, scallops lamb chops and chicken teriyaki. Flat bread from 52 is always good, and complete with their signature desserts

Good cuban food from LA Carreta. Note their iconic chicken smoking cuban cigar =)

I did more sightseeing this time on the Miami Big Bus that gave me a big picture of  Miami.

Cool effect of my 2nd camera on my face!

Cass and I did the full 3 loops around Miami
It was a fun experience and a quick way to go to parts of Miami that i never seen before, all in 5 hours!
Each tour bus has a different tour guide with completely different temperaments =) The bored ones, the experienced and energetic ones and a crazy bus driver who got yelled at several times by the tour guide for driving too fast =)

We also had to duck a bunch of branches and i captured this shot which is interesting. It shows how close we are to the trees on the open top bus

Little Havana mural

What was interesting for me, was the Wynwood walls in Miami
http://thewynwoodwalls.com/
I love great Graffiti and these are really good. I learned that shops opening in that area has to get an artist to paint the outer walls.

The Graffiti zone of Miami 

The financial district of Miami

I also learned that there used to be a little Haiti area in Miami and it has famous singers like Ray Charles who goes there. However, the building of the I95 tore up 20k homes and destroyed the neighbourhood and it never recuperated from that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Haiti

The holocaust sculpture (Rocks from Jerusalam are used to make the inner walls) 

Also, south beach is one of the few man made islands in Miami. They build a few islands and a bunch of rich and famous folks live there. South beach was also tore up by 1926 hurricane and they rebuild it with some areas in Art Deco look. Apparently you cannot change the facades of those Art Deco building or paint with non-pastel colors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Beach


My perfect ending: last meal in Miami - Versailles in the airport! Guava pastries, croquettes, Cuban sandwich! yum!