10 Dec 2010, Key West

Key West is 207km southwest of Miami, Florida and 170km northeastern of Havana, Cuba. Cayo Hueso (spanish pronunciation as kayo weso) is the original Spanish name of Key West island. It literally means "bone key". It is said that the island was littered with the remains of bones.

We signed up for a 1-day Key West tour at $75/person. Hotel pick-up at 6:30am, start the journey from Miami downtown at 8am, reach Key West at 11am. The 3-hour bus ride took us about 256 km driving distance down south across 34 islands and 42 bridges.

Witnessing the sun rising from the horizon of the Atlantic ocean while waiting for tourmates to aboard the bus.

Our tour guide, Peter.

On the way, we passed by Everglades wetlands.

Travelling down the 7-mile bridge, it seems as though we're heading to the open sea.

Oh, no! A broken bridge?!

Key Lime Pie is the specialty dish of Key West. Previously, I tasted it in a bakery, I didn't like it. Now, I taste it again at the place of origin. Still, I don't like it. It's like eating dish detergent flavoured cake.

Museum of Art and History

Hubby marvelled at the naked women at the Art Gallery.

Shopping down Duval Street.

Catching a spiderman playing a sitar by the roadside.

There are many shops selling sandals.

I'm particularly attracted to this brand: Kai-Kai.

Wearing Kai-Kai to go kai-kai.

Key West is a very small island. From the north of the island where we were dropped of, we walked 13 blocks towards south and we ended up at the south of the island.

Key West is a rather rocky island. People don't come here for the beaches. Nonetheless, there are a few stretches of sandy beaches.

Showing off my 4-month belly.

No diving sign.

Southern-most point of the continental of US, looking at the Mexican Gulf.

From the southern-most point of the US, highway #1 began with mile-zero and it leads up north to Canada.

The entrance fee to the light house is $10/person and entrance fee to the residential house of Earnest Hemingway is $12/person. Of course, cheapskate like us just snap photos outside. Hemingway's father-in-law bought this house for $ 8,000 back then. It was presented as Hemingway's wedding gift. Now, you couldn't even get it for $800,000.

It's time for lunch and we bumped into this meow-meow restaurant. I like the ambience of this cozy-little-cottage-styled eatery. We kept looking out for cats while having lunch here, but find a pet cock and 2 hens instead.

Later, I found out from Wikipedia that Earnest Hemingway owned a 6-toed cat, also called a polydactyl cat.

Lobster salad. Yum...yum...

Tuna sandwich ordered by Hubby is very dry.
It's actually a tuna patty sandwiched between breads, not the real slice of tuna.

We strolled around the rich neighbourhood after lunch. In this little island, we noticed that there are some very dilapidated houses. There's a stark contrast between the rich and the poor between the 13 blocks.

This is the winter house of the president.
It reminds me of the 避暑山庄 of the emperors in China.

We had plenty of time to kill in Key West because we didn't participate in any of the water activities, such as snorkeling, parasailing, boating and kayaking. To me, engaging in water activities at this 20-ish Celsius temperature was deemed cold. I clung to my jacket all the time. The turquiose and cystal clear water was no doubt very tempting, but the desire to change into a bathing suit was daunted by the cold wind.

At 3pm, we were basking in the afternoon sun, waiting to witness the magnificent sunset at 5:30pm. We waived to the passengers onboard a cruise ship to bid them farewell as the ship slowly departed the dock.

We tried the Conch fritters. Conch is pronounced as "konk", it's a type of seafood, a type of 海螺. Key West island is also known as the Conch island. In 1982, it declared independence from the US and announced the island as the Conch Republic. However, this self-declared republic has never been formally recognized worldwide.

Arts performance at Mallory Square.

Sunset at Mallory Square.

We began our journey back to Miami at 5:45pm. We reached our hotel at 9:30pm. Well, one $-) thing about travelling in the US is, you have to pay a 15% tips to the bus driver and the tour guide at the end of the trip. We paid willingly as we have had a smooth and safe ride.

Spending of the day for 2:

Key West 1-day Tour: $172

Food: $63

Miscellaneous: $10