And now, the real leg of the journey officially begins!
Arrived in South Carolina via a super cute airplane. I got lost trying to find a courtesy phone to call Holiday Inn for complementary pick up to the hotel but finally found it at the airport service counter.

Stepped out of the terminal to find it was stiflingly hot outside!
OK I totally didn't expect the weather to be so freaking warm! And to think all the clothes I'd packed were all for cold weather... bummer! It was even warmer than Malaysia, which is another impossibility I struggled to comprehend. Thank god I didn't have to linger outside all that long. 5 minutes into it and I spotted the Holiday Inn shuttle. The driver was a friendly guy who turned out to be from MA when I told him I grew up in Boston. Mini reunion?? haha

All set to go to the outlet :)

Since my flight got delayed (twice!), there was a bit of a hullaballoo trying to find my rooms at the hotel. The check in counter was kinda unprofessional. Left me standing there for all of half an hour while they tried to sort out where I was located in their system. And they didn't even bother to apologize. Sheesh! The driver told me he'd get me to town to get my temporary sim card and go to the Tanger Outlet just 5 minutes away so I hurried up and down again to explore Charleston (or Tanger Outlet was more like it) !

The layout of the outlet..the buildings were spaced far, far apart. I only got to explore one section. It was too hot to walk around for long..

Fancy directory?

See Fossil anyone? The layout is similar to Harbor town in Melbourne. I thought the Fossil bags were 9.99 each until I looked carefully and saw the faded 7 in front of the 9.99. Holla!

This store had really hip accessories. I felt like buying the whole rack!

Familiar name, Probably coz of watching too much 24

The lamp post where I waited for the driver to arrive. Had to call them from a distant building offering free calls to customers and tourists like me

Phew! So that concluded my first day in Charleston. Thanks to the 800 bucks Cummins was kind enough to bestow on me, I had plenty to spare. I bought 2 new Adidas T-shirts and an Old Navy track suit from the brief excursion (I know, I was saving up the rest of the money for future shopping with the fam). Also got me a T-mobile sim card.

2 new T-shirts, both black at less than 10 dollars apiece

I know, what's up with the plastic bags right? I love bags! hehe...

For dinner, I went and bought some onion rings, fried mozzarella sticks, a veggie burger and a tilapia fish taco from Denny's. I had no idea what I was in for as can be seen from the pictures: