Tampa 2005
Date: Oct 11, 2005 - Oct 17, 2005
| This is my first time visiting
Florida, you probably would be thinking about palm trees and white sand beaches.
Yes, palm trees are abundant. However, I did not make an effort to stay longer
and get a tan from the beaches. Why? I was supposed to do so in Cancun a couple weeks
later! Yet hurricane Wilma stopped me from going to Cancun... I took a red-eye flight outbound. I thought I was well-equipped by wearing woollen socks, woollen vest. I even covered myself with the blanket supplied by the airliner. It felt like sub-zero temperature. I could hardly rest on the plane. My advice: Don't take a window seat on an red-eye flight, unless you're well-dressed for sub-zero temperatures. |
| Tampa Bay Hotel is the unique historic architecture of the city. It was built as a hotel and now is part of the University of Tampa. |
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Since I had an afternoon to myself and I wanted to adjust to jet lag, I took the 50-cent In-Town Trolley from my hotel in downtown to Old Hyde Park Village. Houses along the way certainly look distinct from the western side of the continent. | |
 Paintings on the wall |
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I was surprised to see a British telephone booth. Perhaps the area being called Hyde Park did suggest something?! |
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Interesting metal dogs
guarding the entrance of a specialty shop - selling accessories for dogs.
No No, they don't bark. They do look cute~ |
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| Due to the dominance of home decor stores
in Old Hyde Park, I took the
trolley back and better spent my time by strolling along the Channelside.
I spotted quite a few individual lizards along the way. They crawl in highspeed so it was difficult to take photograph of them. Umm, if I stopped moving, it stopped too. As soon as I moved a little, it blazed away. |
St. Pete Times Forum
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 Channel view from the hotel. Across is the Harbour Island. |
My ignorance costs me to have missed viewing the Stanley Cup (Tampa Lightning won the last time) on display inside this hockey rink. I found out a couple evenings later and I didn't have the time to go there before I left. |
| Although Ybor
(pronounced as E-Ball) City is close, it would be far to go on
foot. We had a free afternoon on Friday, so I met up with a few others from
Minnesota, Windsor, Arizona to explore the historic city. We got a 1-Day
Unlimited Farecard from the hotel concierge and boarded the
Streetcar at the
Southern Transp Plaza right outside our hotel. While trolley was 50 cents
one-way, streetcar would cost 2 dollars each way. Ybor City indeed has many historic buildings. We could afford limited time in the area. Therefore, we just had lunch in Centro (Central) Ybor and did a little shopping of unique souvenirs. |
 Me @ Southern Transp Plaza |
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| International Bazaar sells items from places around the world. I picked up a couple jewelry items made of coconut shell, a small decorated box from Egypt, and an Alpaca knit from South America. |
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Saturday Night
Fever?! Indeed. Rather than a formal dinner, we were surprised to attend a
wild tropical celebration. The evening started off with people gathering in
the patio, live band. Even the sidewalk along the marina was packed. As we went into the ballroom for buffet dinner, each of us was given a straw hat. I picked the color fushia~ I wore a bright color top as I knew the evening event was titled "Tropical Celebration". |
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 Chocolate Fondue, Yummy! |
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 The 2 Canadian Gals! From Newfoundland to B.C. |
 When a German guy hangs out with a Spanish...... |
 Let's dance! |
 There were a few big parrots in the ballroom |
I was naughty. I had
much pleasure learning basic salsa dancing from a latino. As my back is
stiff, I knew I could potentially hurt myself or bear too much load on my
knees. I grasped the essence pretty quickly, as noted by my teacher. I'm a
fast learner afterall, heehee! When my back recover (maybe another couple years), perhaps I should find a dance partner and learn this hot dance properly. (^_^) |
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| We were on our own
Sunday evening. Our Canadian youngsters decided to have supper at the famous
Columbia
Restaurant in Ybor City. I had much expectation as many told me the food
is great. The food was alright. Yet I was surprised by the cocktail drink
Mojito with a Cuban twist. 5 of us ordered 2 pitchers. As I have
that Asian gene, I am an inexpensive drunk.
Go ahead, make fun of me, good entertainment for my fellow companions! |
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| The waiter mixed
the cocktail in front of us and happily disclosed the recipe of their Mojito.
Yup, I remember all the details, so you know, I wasn't that drunk. Of course, he told us before I had the drink!! |
Sweet
Mojito
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After 2
glasses of this sweet Mojito, I dropped silent. Robin, who was sitting next
to me, commented immediately, "You're drunk." Yet I still had half a glass
remaining.
Later I asked for directions to the restroom (washroom, water closet), the waiter showed me the way to the door behind him in this picture. It was all dark inside the dining area and the washroom was locked. Recall I was a bit drunken too. I walked back out like a fool haha, the waiter showed me to a different one. The restaurant itself is an old house, built a couple centuries ago, so ways to washrooms are not straight forward. We stayed in the restaurant and chit-chat for a long time for me to finish my cocktail and settle. I overcame the quiet stage by the time we leave. Still, you can definitely see my red face in this group picture, heehee. Seriously, I can't remember when was the last time I got as drunk. |
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| We got back to the hotel and
headed to the bar, just because we found a buy-1-get-1 free beer coupon in
the tourist guide or we just hadn't had enough?! I walked into the bar and
saw Bill and Kristi, who said, "You're drunk. Haha, I've never seen you
drunk! We've to take pictures." So Kristi took my camera and took this one.
I was back in the hyper stage as captured in this photograph.
Oh, Bill isn't a nurse, he got that shirt from the pool... He actually is a volunteer firefighter. His equipment weighs as much as I do! |
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 The key lime pie was delicious, not too sweet, very light, just right. This hotel has wonderful desserts. One lunch, they had tiramisu, cheesecake, and pistachio chocolate torte. I wanted to try all of them but I was filled after the cheesecake and tiramisu. |
For
several days, Bill kept on saying he swear he saw me bar-hopping with them
on Friday night. Unbelievable. He can drink a lot as he studied in Germany
but sounds like he was drunk that night. I spent that night listening to
piano music in the lobby.
I didn't dare to take another sip of alcohol. Can't afford to turn myself into a fool in front of a bunch of professionals heehee. By midnight, we moved out to the patio. That's the nice thing about the tropical area. It is warm in the middle of the night. The guy in the picture here, he had a few hilarious acts. When he went to university, he and his classmates had this cross-dressing event. He put on a bikini and took pictures in that!! On Friday night we had a formal dinner. Dessert was delicious Key Lime Pie, specialty of Florida. Scott had 4 of those, his own, 1 from our table, 1 from another table, 1 extra from the waitress. I would call that a meal by itself! So what was he doing in this photograph? He said he could balance a beer on top of his head. The first trial, oops, he missed and a few droplets of beer resulted on the metal bar behind him. Then he made it and I took the pictures as proof. |
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| When I bid goodbye with this guy
at the airport, after we shook hands, he said, "I've the flu. So I'm not
going to do it the French way." I was initially mad, then I didn't know how
to react.
You don't understand? The French way means kiss on the cheeks. So at least I can disinfect my hands with alcohol gel (*o*) |
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| After 6 days of warm, sunny times, I was ready to go home. Not that I didn't want to stay longer, but hurricane Wilma was on its way! |
