Florida USA: Sawgrass Mall; Sawgrass Recreation Park – Airboat ride; Japan Inn

On the Wednesday of our visit to Florida we met up with a friend of mine called Bob for lunch. He’d booked a restaurant in Sawgrass Mall where we could get a light lunch as it was Ash Wednesday. I put the details of The Grand Lux restaurant into my SatNav and we set off. We arrived on time in the car park of a Taco Bell.

A hasty phone call to Bob suggested that the restaurant was in a nearby part of the mall, so we parked and walked a few hundred yards.

We had a great lunch – interesting conversation being the key. The food was good too. I am glad we had the light lunch option as my salad was huge!

We asked Bob and his wife Mary for advice on where to go next on our trip. We said we’d been thinking about the Everglades, but it turns out the Everglades as we think of them (mangroves, etc) are further south. However, the Everglades nearby are also worth a visit. Bob recommended the Sawgrass Recreation Park and the Air boat ride.

A short time later we arrived at the park, had bought our tickets and were waiting for our ride on the airboat.

We saw quite a few birds, including the osprey on the dead tree above. No alligators though. We learned a lot about the ecology and history of the Everglades too from our captain “Chuck”.

Airboat Ride

After the boat ride we toured the rather depressing animal park. They had alligators of course, and turtles. This picture is of a turtle we encountered near our rooms at the Hyatt earlier in the day.

The other animals including black leopards, wolves, bob cats, skunks and so on were kept in rather small cages and runs.

After leaving the Sawgrass Recreation Park we met up with middle daughter (age 16) and son (age 14) and went off for dinner at Japan Inn. We had fun finding the place with they two of them navigating – but at least we saw a lot of Weston driving around.

Japan Inn is good fun for a dining experience as they prepare the food on a “hot table” in front of you. The chefs do this with style and panache, involving the children. My daughter suggested we pretended it was someone's birthday to get a free dessert, but to be honest there was enough food for us not to need dessert at all let alone need to be deceitful to achieve it!