INDONESIA IN MIAMI
if you are a resident of a vacation spot, you tend to get a lot of visitors, which was the case when I was a resident of Miami. Currently I proudly call Miami my American home but unless we coincide, or organize before hand, there is no way I could promise to be here. The same goes for my other home, in Cuba as well as my other temporary homes.
Many people had over the years promised to come and visit me in Miami but except for a Japanese visitor from Takoaka, I cannot remember any visitors and that was ten years ago. I must say that I have had visitors from Paris.
So it was with great pleasure to welcome my good friend HP and his family from Bogor, Indonesia. On 22nd of this month we will be celebrating the second year anniversary of our friendship and it is more than coincidence that I would be repeating in 2014, the journey to KL via Hong Kong, almost to the date.
I had recommended various hotels, but this being the high season for Miami, it was not easy to get accommodation for 4 people. In the end one was arranged so that it would be convenient for me as well, since I expected to shepherd them around Miami.
Look, Talk and Gastronomy is the motto of my good friend, the humble man of Bogor. With that in mind, I organized a visit, in which the beauty of water around Miami could be appreciated, for the girls to meet someone their age and of course gastronomy!
Sawa fusion cuisine Middle Eastern, A Food Court Egyptian food at a Mall, a Pan Asian restaurant owned by a Filipino Chinese and a walk along Lincoln Road mall with a taste of the "best pizza" at Spris were all on the able.
The highlight courtesy of my friend from Medical School days, Dr W, was a tour of inland waterways between Miami and Miami Beach to look at the Bay from an unique perspective. It was good to be in the water, in the middle of winter, when the rest of the country is freezing and Miami had a non humid, caressing 28 C!
When I said Good bye to them at the airport, when they departed for the next point of their North American Adventure, arranged mainly for the two girls to be exposed to this part of North America, I did not feel sad at all. My good friend HP had already outlined a few days for all of us in Bali, which he knows like the palm of his hand.
I was glad to be able to share with him, my love for Miami and its history, my affection for the Cuban and Haitian immigrants to this country.
When he left, I said, bring the girls again back to Miami, we will go to Mexico and Cuba!
The teenagers and their father coldnt get over how friendly the Miami people were, as we were constantly accosted by smiling strangers, after their morose encounters with Parisians with their non humourous attitude towards tourists.
I was happy to chat away in Spanish with one and all, and the girls exclaimed: There are no white people here!
I was happy to chat with the bartender or is he a part owner of Spris , the pizza place, who was from Matanzas and we joked about many things.
Dr W sent me this message last night:
Enjoyed meeting your friends, the girls are lovely, self confident and spoke English so well! in fact better than some of the locals here!
I am sure that I will be welcoming Drs and Mrs W to Bali in the company of my friend from Bogor in the not too distant a future!
