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1. Ten Malls, One Great City Miami is known for its warm climate, great beaches, and most of all, hot women who dress to kill. So where do most of these hotties go to stock up on amazing clothes, shoes, and anything else you can think of? Ten great malls, that's where. From Homestead to North Miami Beach, this amazing city offers its residents and tourists ten large shopping malls, ranging anywhere from outlet-style such as Dolphin Mall and Sawgrass Mills, to oh-so-chic venues such as Lincoln Road, CocoWalk, and let us not forget, Bal Harbour Shops. The Falls, Bayside Marketplace, Aventura Mall, Miracle Mile, and Dadeland Mall are other great locations for some serious shopping. Ka-ching! 2. Miami Seaquarium With more than 38 acres of water fun, this venue opened in 1955, after 14 years of planning and 14 months of construction costing approximately $2.3 million to construct. At the time, Miami Seaquarium was the largest marine-life attraction in the world. The Seaqaurium attracts more than 600,000 visitors each year, and today, more than 80% of the bottlenose dolphins that reside at Miami Seaquarium were actually born at the park. The star of the show, Lolita, has been a resident of the park for 45 years. She is now 20 feet long and tips the scales at 7,000 pounds. For more information, visit www.miamiseaquarium.com. 3. O.J. Anyone? Florida's unique sandy soil and subtropical climate have proven ideal for growing oranges. Today, there are more than 12,000 Florida citrus growers cultivating approximately 100 million citrus trees on more than 748,000 acres of land. More than 90,000 people work in the citrus industry or in related businesses. Today Florida citrus is a $9-billion industry, leading the world in grapefruit production and producing more oranges than any other region of the world, except Brazil. 4. Public Schools Children are the building blocks of the future. And the Miami "building blocks" need somewhere to learn, right? With more than 450 public schools, not counting charter schools or vocational centers, Miami-Dade County is the perfect (and a pretty inexpensive) arena to facilitate that education. 5. Is it really that expensive? We all know that Florida tolls dent our pocket books—So does the Sunpass really save us all that much? According to the Florida Turnpike Website's toll calculator, a trip from Homestead (Florida's first toll from South to North) to the Dolphin Center toll (the last one in Miami-Dade county) will cost you $3.50 with a Sunpass and $4.75 without. If you had to make the trip back and forth each day, five days a week, 52 weeks a year, it would cost you approximately $1,800 a year with the Sunpass and $2,470 without. Conclusion: Buy a Sunpass. 6. Pizza … Well Done. It all began in 2002, when an oven, fueled by burning anthracite coal, maintained a continuous temperature of 800 degrees, cooking each pie in just four minutes. The result is a pizza with a crispy and flavorful crust that complements the taste of the high- quality toppings. Anthracite is the one of the world's cleanest-burning fossil fuels (cleaner than wood or your gas grill)! Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza also has tasty chicken wings cooked in these "green" ovens. Although there is only one location in Miami-Dade County, Anthony's is expanding to Pinecrest and the Doral area next year. For more information, visit: www.anthonyscoalfiredpizza.com. 7. Miami Children's Museum Founded in 1983 as the "Miami Youth Museum," and opening in 1985, the Miami Children's Museum started in a 2,000- square-foot area in a mall on Sunset Drive in West Kendall. Today, the Children's Museum has its own stand-alone facility measuring 56,500 square feet, located on Watson Island, near Downtown Miami. The Museum recently received a half-million- dollar grant from the state's Division of Cultural Affairs in order to build a charter school area, allowing the build-out of ten new classrooms. For more information, visit: www.miamichildrensmuseum.org. ML Miami by the Numbers Curious about your city? Try these unique and fascinating Miami facts. . . . Words by Irama Valdes MIAMI LIVING 37 KNOWLEDGE