Sunday, July 27, 2008

Jungle Island

This weekend Uday and I decided to head down to Miami, Florida to visit Jungle Island. This wonderful place is one of those places that we have alway said, "I want to go there some time..." and then never go. Uday and I decided to try and continue to do as much as we can in Florida and take advantage of all it has to offer. We have collected a large stack of brochures of places we want to visit in south Florida and are almost half way through. Sometimes the more places we visit, the more we find out about other places to visit.

We really enjoyed this adventure to Jungle Island. We especailly enjoyed the bird show, reptile show, and the tiger show. This place used to be called Parrot Jungle and was full of beautiful parrots and macaws. For, me it was truly amazing to feed and pat the kangaroos

and hold and feed a baby tiger.

This experience also reminded me that sometimes one does not have to travel the world in order to encounter such awesome, once in a lifetime experiences. For us, it was practically in our backyard.

While we were there, we also talked with one of the girls, named Dulce, who was in charge of taking care of the monkeys, tigers, and Ligers who volunteered for the company called T.I.G.E.R.S. We learned that the Liger is part lion and part tiger. When a male lion mates w
ith a female tiger, the resulting cub is a Liger, and when a male tiger mates with a female lion, the resulting cub is called a Tigon. A Liger is one of the biggest cats there is and can weigh about 1000 pounds! Whereas, a Tigon is dwarfed and weighs about 400 pounds. Dulce also reported that all of the people involved with working with the big cats volunteered and lived on a reservation and were given food and shelter for working the show and taking care of the animals. She told us that she works 7 days a week and this is her only life. Dulce was in her early to mid 20's and she also stated that it took her a year to get into the program.

During the reptile show, Uday was one of the participants picked from the audience to help hold a Burmese python, 15 feet long!

Living in Florida, we often come across alligators, but it was very interesting to see a humongous salt water crocodile (which they called the crocosaurus and was from Indonesia) quietly soaking up the sun. It felt like we were looking at a pre-historic monster. You will see pictures of it in the link we have provided below. Uday was even more amazed by the albino alligator! This was a completely white alligator and Uday had never heard nor seen such a thing before.

Beware of checking out the rest of our pictures as you might just get Jungle fever yourself!

Click on the picture below to see all of our other pictures.


Saturday, July 12, 2008

4th of July in West Palm Beach, FL

Uday and I decided to stay around home for this 4th of July since we have some more travel plans coming up in a few months. We were happy to spend some time with a friend of mine whom I met at work, Cathy and her husband Gary. Cathy and I have now known each other for a few years but did not get a chance to hang out until this year. We went down Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach to see the fireworks. Uday and I forgot our camera but thankfully Cathy and Gary had a new camera that took some awesome pictures. Cathy is about 4 months pregnant and her baby was kicking with joy when the fireworks began. I bet this is a 4th of July that she will never forget!! I took the picture of her with her husband which is very cute. Right before the fireworks began, people from the fire department unroll a big US flag from a very high building, which you can see in the picture. It looks pretty cool, and if given a choice it is also something Uday and I would love to do. You can also see in another picture the band called, "Simple Plan" who performed for free on this night! The fireworks went on for a long time and I told Uday several times, "this is the finale". We only included a few of the fireworks pictures to give you an idea.

Click on the picture below in order to view all other pictures (courtesy of Cathy and Gary).


The 4th of July is my favorite holiday as I really enjoy my freedom and independence! Perhaps it is also in my blood for this celebration to be special to me since I am related to John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Sam Adams and Abagail Adams. I have always had a good time on this night since I was a kid and because of this it did make me miss New Hampshire and Massachusetts a little bit, but it is always great making new memories on this spectacular holiday.

Later that night, after we said goodnight to Cathy and Gary, we found ourselves shaking and grooving to booty music on the dance floor at the "Mai Tai" dance club on Clematis Street, celebrating our freedom!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Paris : Saint and Sinner (Part II)

Here is some video footage of the second part of our experiences in Paris, France. The video shows our experiences at Notre Dame Cathedral, Moulin Rouge, Sacre Couer and more... just like we learned in the French class (for those of us who took French in High School). Most of the video is set to music for your viewing and listening pleasure. Unfortunately, we ran out of video tape on top of the Eiffel Tour on our second night there. This was the night when we went all the way to the top and celebrated with champagne. I wrote about our awesome experience on a previous blog post titled, Enchanting European Vacation. You can also find pictures under the "Paris" link to the right of the screen, that show some of which the video does not show.

Have a "bon" time
(means "good" time in French) watching the video!

Click on the picture below to view the video: