080102, 2437hr, florida time.

i forgot to mention yesterday, that we also toured the everglades yesterday. it's a national reserves state park, though i'm not sure if it's really wetland or river. tk insists it's wetland [ie swamp], but i remember distinctly the tour guide telling us it's a river - the slowest moving river in the world, but still a river. haha. hmm.

the airboat ride wasn't as fun as i thought it would be, maybe partly cos the tour guide was kinda boring [no tips for you!]. the animal show after that was quite funny though. this other guy basically introduced some animals to us - he took out a skunk, a hideous toad, a pair of turtle and tortoise, a crocodiles and a few alligators. the supposed exciting part is of course his interactions with the alligator, but i didn't get too inspired, maybe because the alligator looked just so lazy and sedate it didn't look very dangerous to me.

but of course, alligators are still rather dangerous. the guy told us that the alligator's mouth works like a mouse trap. if you don't touch any part of it, like the way he put his hand right into the alligator's mouth, the alligator wouldn't bite. but if you touch it, as he demonstrated with a pen, the mouth will snap close so quickly, you'll not even know what's hit you. pretty scary. crocodiles are worse though, more aggressive. "alligators run away from you, crocodiles run after you." supposedly, there're only two species of crocodiles in the world, one found in america, and the other one in china.

the guy doing the demonstrations was really quite funny. he explained that the gender of the alligators depends on the temperature in which the eggs were incubated. above 89F, males. below 84F, females. and in between? "they all moved to key west." hahahahaha....key west has a sizeable and prominent gay community, by the way, in case i forgot to mention it. hahaha..."it doesn't mean they're not good alligators!" he added, tongue-in-cheek. he also told us how to tell the difference of gender for tortoises. the ones that have shells that are concave at the bottom side are males, and the ones with convex sides are females. "for a better grip," he said. "and size doesn't matter." hahahahhaha...

after the demos, he took out a small sized alligator, and let us all carry it and take a picture or two. i was terrified! shuyi was sitting right in front of me, and she's got an interest in alligators, when she was quite excited to carry the alligator. i didn't realise she was already holding on to it, when she suddenly turned around to supposedly pass it to me or something, and i jumped! i jumped right out of my seat and escape to the next level of seats, to get out of the way of that alligator. eeeeek! priya was laughing so hard at my reaction. bleah. seriously, i'm intensely scared of reptiles. house lizards give me the creeps and make me scream. the worst was yet to come though. by the end of it all, everyone's already taken their turn holding the alligator, all except me. i think the guy noticed that i've not carried it yet [i think i caught his attention laughing the loudest at his jokes. bleah.] so he insisted that i try. and insisted. and insisted. and my heartless friends weren't helping, i was hoping we could leave the area asap, but they were gloating at my fear and were waiting to see my reaction. bleah. i eventually succumbed to peer pressure though and held that alligator for a total of 5 seconds. i guess i should be glad that i've overcome my fear, but i still get chills thinking about it. eeeek.

anyway, so that was everglades. we're at tampa bay right now, and this morning, we went canoeing! down this river, think it's river hillsborough or something, i'm not sure. it was simply too cold in the morning, my toes were numb and frozen, but the day gradually warmed up, so by afternoon i felt a lot better. the canoeing experience this time is a lot better than the last time at turkey run with kcsa and liwei, simply cos at the water here is deep enough to canoe. hahaha...last time round, we had water just about deep enough to scrap along the river bed. hahahha.... and the water is so beautifully clear and clean! we saw birds along the way, priya caught sight of a fish even, but i didn't see it. water plants, like water hyacinth [i learnt about it in primary school!] water lilies and all that. it was a great trip down the river. like before, i liked the peace and quiet of the place, the warmth of sun [actually even the water was warmer the air] - basically basking in nature's treasures. priya and i had a great time in our canoe, not talking most of the time, because we felt more comfortable just enjoying the moment as it is. once in a while, priya would break into a song, in her shy quiet voice. haha. i called her a faulty radio, because not only was it too soft, it also stops all the time. hahahhaa...

but anyhow, we're leaving tampa bay tomorrow, after going to the busch gardens [theme park] tomorrow, for tallahassee. and after tallahassee, it's back to chambana. argh. sigh. cold.