Lincoln Road in Miami Beach - A Pedestrian Friendly Open- Air Mall

We visited the visitor centre at Miami Beach and asked what were the must visit places in the area.

We were informed that that Lincoln Road should be on our must visit place list as it is a vibrant and lively area with a lot to offer.

After our visit to the Art Deco Historic District, we took a leisurely stroll down Lincoln Road, a pedestrian-friendly street, also known as the "Fifth Avenue of the South."

We enjoyed seeing the beautiful architecture, colourful scupltures placed almost on every street corner, and lively atmosphere.

Unfortunately, we didn't have a lot of time to explore the shops on Lincoln Road where a variety of shops, ranging from high-end designer stores to unique boutiques selling different kinds of fashion wear, accessories, and souvenirs.

Visitors are bound to find something that catches their eyes.

We also discovered many outdoor cafes and restauranthere and an abundance of options for dining along Lincoln Road.

We ordered a coffee and had a delicious snack, relaxed and did some people-watching. We walked past the Lincoln Road Mall.

This open-air shopping mall features more than 200 retail stores, restaurants, galleries, and theaters and even a church!

Lincoln Road is known for its vibrant nightlife.

As the sun goes down, the area comes alive with bars, clubs, and live music venues.

If you're in the mood for some entertainment, there are plenty of options to choose from.

We had a fantastic time exploring Lincoln Road with our son. A great time indeed!

RT Lincoln Road, South Beach Miami, Florida

Beautiful Bygone Era Buildings in Art Deco Historic District in Miami, Florida

Tuesday was the last day of E.'s stay in Miami and he would be flying back to his home in the west coast while we would be staying on for a few more days since we already paid for our hotel room here. Though I was hoping for an early start in the day, we didn't get going until well after 3p.m. E. told me that he was biten by mosquitos so badly that he had a hard time falling asleep. I have to make a note of that and remember to bring some insect replellents when we go to some hot tropical places with him.

One thing that we learned to do on this trip was installing the UBER application on my cell and ordering an UBER anytime for ourselves. We've found that very convenient. Still keeping our social distance, we took a different Uber and went to the Art Deco Historic District in Miami.

We strolled down the palm tree lined street with numerous outside restaurants and their waiting staffers waving their menus and beckoning us to go to their eateries.

The place was really busy crawling with tourists and it had a vibrant and lively vibe. Though the place was busy and full of people, we were surprised to find that it was kept very clean and free of litters or broken bottles. The Miami beach/ art deco distrcit has a different feel to it.

In many American cities, we often see fairly new concrete modern buildings or we would see old run down houses in the older section of towns.

The Art Deco Historic District is made up of 800 plus buildings and structures build between 1923 -1943. I have never seen so many beautifully well restored buildings together in the bygone era in one place.

Thanks to the efforts of Barbara Baer Capitman who found the Miami Design Preservation League and worked tirelessly to preserve and restore the colourful buildings to their original glory!

Visiting the district brought back many of my childhood memories when I was in Asia and these types of bulidings were common structures where my family were at the time.

R.T. Art Deco Historic District Miami, Florida

Keeping us Amused by a Hotel Cat in Miami

I was up early this morning around 8am hoping that we would get a good start for the day. I texted E. and saw if he was up or not. His first question was" Did u test yourself?" The anwser to which was no. Since we only bought 4-5 testing kits with us, we ran out of them. We went to the pharmacy closeby and bought a testing kit. While we could get testing kits for free in Canada, Americans do not. We bought one from Walgreen for US$ 10.00 each. Disappointedly, I was still tested positive with COVID, though I was completely symptoms free. I texted E. of the result; he was obviously disappointed. He said he was tired and didn't want to come with us for lunch. Our plan for this trip was to spend some quality time with our son yet due to my positive COVID result, we have to social distance and haven't spent too much time together on this trip.

We went to the San Poche restaurant around the corner of 8th street and SW 9th Ave, a pretty decent place for Columbian food.

Keeping social distance with diners at the restaurant, we ordered take out food and ate at the hotel patio hoping E. would join us.

Meanwhile, the hotel cat kept eying our lunch, milling around waiting for any scrapes falling off from the table. He was getting bold as we were enjoying our food.

With his paws hanging on the edge of the table, he circled around trying to get close to our food. At one point, he even jumped on the table trying to get a bite of our lunch. What a bold cat! We were waiting for E to come out of his room and join us for a day to explore Miami. God, I pray that he is not getting sick or something. RT Miami Day 5

Eating at a Salvadorian Restaurant & Running Into a Rain Storm in Miami

 

We have travelled extensively in the US, having visited both the east coast numerous times and to the west coast years ago a few times when our son was studying in the State of Connecticut.

 United States is a vast country made up of fifty states with diverse landscapes and weather patterns. So far we have had experienced the American culture only until our recent visit to the city of Miami.

One of the pleasant things we discovered on our trip to Miami - the vibrant subcultures existed in this beautiful city. 

Just within blocks of our hotels, we have experienced the Cuban culture in Little Havana for the past two days.

Today, we went for brunch at a Salvadorian restaurant.

This restaurant also sells many interesting gadgets

We ate at this restaurant the first day we landed in Miami and we liked it so much that we took E. with us for a brunch.

After we sat down on the patio and ordered our food, we were enjoying this relaxing time and having a nice conversation. Suddenly, strong winds and rain started coming down heavily, blowing our cutlery, napkins and some plates off the tables.

We had to move inside and finished our brunch there. We sat and waited for the wind and rain to die down.  We couldn't even talk to E. during the brunch.  

We experienced a tropical rainstorm in Miami

 We waited for almost thirty minutes and it was still raining cats and dogs.  We decided to call a Uber and went back to our hotel which was only about a 5-7 minute ride. But we couldn't believe our eyes as the heavy rain kept pouring down.

In a matter of after raining for about 30 minutes,  some of the roads were flooded with water coming up as high as half of the height of the wheels. Our driver had to make a few detours navigating himself carefully not to get the vehicle stuck on flooded streets.

Wow! I could just imagine the power of the tropical rainstorms here in Florida. We have heard and seen so often some parts of Florida being devastated by tropical torrential rainstorms. This time we experienced just a tiny small part of it.   We should never underestimate the power of nature!

After getting back to our hotel and rested for a little while, both my husband and our son went for a baseball game at the stadium to cheer on our beloved Blue Jays team from Toronto. I  was happy to have some downtime by myself while the father and son could have their bonding time at the Jays baseball game!

Little Havana, Miami

Today was the Juneteenth Day in the US, a new national holiday celebrating freedom and the slaves being free in America. I never heard of Juneteenth day until this time. Love travelling as we can learn some new things wherever we go!

  RT, Day 3

 Miami, Florida

Little Havana , Miami, where it reminded us of Cuba

 

Little Havana has always been on our list when we visit Miami.

Our hotel, located on SW 9th Ave,  is not too far from the famous Calle Ocho, where Little Havana is.

After the Fathers' Day's lunch, we strolled on Calle Ocho, 8th Street, but we were not impressed first as we didn't see many nice shops and restaurants.

However, things seemed to change when we reached a park dedicated to the remembrance of the Bay of Pigs Invasion in Cuba.

Miami is a majority Latino city - while 70% of its population is Hispanic, over 54% are of the city is made up of Cuban Americans.  

We could see and hear Spanish written and spoken everywhere in Miami.

Since it was Sunday, a lot of shops were closed. I found it quite surprising and unexpected as this was supposed a spot frequented by tourists.

As it rained intermittently throughout the whole afternoon,  we had to stop at a number of places to avoid getting soaked. 

We went into a cigar and coffee place decorated with old prints and furniture looking like some old cigar shops in Cuba. 

We ordered some coffee, relaxed and soaked up the Cuban atmosphere there. 

This store/ restaurant brought back a lot of memories of our visit to Cuba.

This Cuban cafe not only served Cuban coffee; visitors could also learn about Cuba cigar making from its displays at the front part of the restaurant.

 In the back part of the cafe, we admired art work, books, pictures and other items related to Cuban

culture.

This Cuban cafe provided a nice spacious place for its customers to enjoy its beverages and smoke a cigar or two in a Cuban atmosphere.

This was the section of Little Havana where we found a lot of nice restaurants serving Cuban, Columbian and Salvadorian cuisines.  A few restaurants had a live band playing Cuban music with patrons dancing inside and outside of the restaurants. Very lively atmosphere indeed!  

E.'s friend in Miami recommended us to go somewhere for dinner but it didn't have an outdoor dining space. We went back to Little Havana with a sidewalk dining space for some tapas! We didn't even try the tapas bar in Spain but we got to do it in Little Havana in Miami, how about that?

We were sitting at different tables a little far apart so we didn't talk much to E. However, we enjoyed the lovely and lively Cuban feel and music while watching people dancing on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. What a fun loving bunch!

RT

Day 2,  Little Havana, Miami