August, 2011: TexMex, Leaving Mexico

Before leaving Mexico, I need to go over to the central of the Federal District, to see an angel.

The Angel of Independence is found in the city centre, and it is on every tourist route for the city. Placed on the foot of the statue, are the bodies of the heroes of the War of Independence with the Spanish. Including the body of Hildago, who was executed in Chihuahua and had his head chopped off. Of course, after the war, they 'sew' the head back to the body and found its final resting place under the statute. The bodies are actually there for viewing by the public, I would guess it would be kindna gluesome. Luckily, or otherwise, it was closed by the time I reached the statute.
The area around the Angel seems to have been turned to a Little Korean. Korean restaurant lined the streets.
It has also been turned to a gathering place for gays, with men openly holding hands and whispering sweet nothing into each other's ears.
You don't see that in other area When I was there, there was some gay-pride event going on.
After leaving the Angel I went straight for the Mexico City Hard Rock Cafe, trying to add one more teddy bear to my collection. When I ask if they have HRC teddy bear, the counter gal looked puzzled. It looks like Mexico branch don't stock the bears anymore. Either that or HRC has discontinue the bears worldwide. In anycase, the HRC looks like it's in the uptown side of Mexico DF, totally different from the Cathedral area.
There was one more place to go to before leaving Mexico. It's near the HRC and it's supposed to be a busy park on Sunday. But by the time I was there, it was closed for the day. The place was dark, and this is the kind of place we are warned about wandering into in the night.

I was trying to get out of the place as fast as possible when something lighted up on the gate fences caught my attention. It was a long row of movie poster, and the character on them looks vaguely familiar. It was a man called Cantiflas, wearing a hat with thin moustache by the sides of his nose. The poster was interesting enough, and I kept going from one poster to next down the row, forgetting about leaving the place. Then I came to the poster of the Cantiflas cartoon, and it was total recall for me.
I have seen this before on Singapore TV. And it was dubbed in Chinese.
This show was "filed' in my brain under "TV shows I enjoyed but could not recall their name until Google came along", along with shows like: BJ and the Bear, The Banana Split Show, or Mat Yoyo.
It looks like Cantiflas is a well-loved movie series in the Mexico, and enjoyed a long live. By the time I got through the posters, it was quite late in the night. I made may way way away from the park, hoping I was in the right general direction. I was feeling better when I saw a lone teenage girl coming towards me on a busy road. I guess the area is not really too dangerous. Then tall building starts to appear and maps were found on the street. I gotten at ease enough to buy some drink from the convinient shop. As I left the shop and was trying to overtake a Mexican in front of me, I gave him a shock. I guess everyone out at this hour is worried about their own safety. Lucky, a left turn and I found a metro station.

The next morning I rise bright and early. I have an early plane to catch. I was hoping to get a brief stopover at Housten downtown before going home the same day. Unfortunately, some screw-up on the part of Continental counter staff meant I got on the next plane 2 hours later. That means, no Housten jalan-jalan at all. Well, with 2 hours of free time, I went to made complain at the counters a couple of time, and wrote an email of complain in my head to Continental. When I was home, I actually wrote and emailed it. The outcome was Continental sent me a 100US$ voucher for use with my next booking. But given the terms and condition, I may end up pretty useless.

When I was at Housten, I checked that the airport has not left-luggage facilities (this being post-911 USA), so the late flight might be a blessing in disguise.
When I was there in Housten, NASA has just shut down it's Space Shuttle program, their women soccer team has just lost to the Japan team (Nadeshiko), and they were heavily in debt (until the European got in the news by having a bigger Euro crisis). That did not stop the custom officer to be cocky and all. He saw the box I was carrying, and deftly flipped open his butterfly-knife to open up the box.
The guy, with his shaven head, looks familiar. When I was on the flight back, Fast Five (no.5 on the Fast and Furious franchise) was playing on KrisWorld. It remind me that he looks like either The Rock or Vin Diesel, and I think he fancy himself to look like one of them, too.
Incidentally, Fast Five was set in Brazil, which would be my next destination...

August, 2011: Xochimilco, the Floating Garden, Mexico

Bangkok has her floating market, and Mexico City has her floating garden.

Xochimilco (pronouced So-chi-mil-ko) is the floating garden and an UNESCO Heritage site. I have come here by the subway followed by the tram system. The logo for the tram system actually looks like the chinese character follow "old".
I have this pre-conceived image of Xochimlco with neat street leading to a beautiful water-front, where the floating gardens. The Xochimilco station was good enough, but once out of the station it was dusty road, old buildings and old cars parked by the side. So when I was near the jetties leading to the floating gardens, I just ignore it and headed straight for that (non-existing) beautiful waterfront.

It is then I wander into the residential area, walked around in many side-streets before I decided that I was lost.
I went back to the church-market near the tram station, to get my bearing. One of the many "tourist polices" (I don't their official capacity) on bikes around town, asked me if I was looking for the floating graden. I guess that's the only reason a foreigner would make his way here. I said yes, and he replied that it is just a few blocks from the church. I couldn't believe it. I was a few block from the church before, but where was my beautiful waterfront?
I set out again, this time setting my expectation lower. This time, I met a local, who without even asking what I am looking for told me the way I am going down is a deadend, and the floating garden is to my left. And I found my floating garden. Well, the jetty for the boat that will take me to my floating garden, that is. It is just a busy crowded jetty. But, hell, it was colorful, almost vulgarly so.
Now, to find a boat. Here, the boatmen were clamoring to sell me a place on their boat, the whole boat to myself. And the price looks like the price of a whole boat to myself. I am not going to settle for that. Fortunately, after checking out a few jetties (there are quite a few), I found one with tourist information office (with UNESCO logo and all). I saw on the window a poster in Spanish about shared boat. But a boatman was trying to get me on his boat, the whole boat to myself with price to match. The lady at the tourist just kept silent until I "excused myself".....and asked if there is an alternate for a lone traveller like me. The lady "switched on" like someone has flip a switch on her back. Yes, she replied, I told me to get on one in another jetty (or embarcadero) nearby...just look for the "Colectivas" sign. Great. It seems the tourist information office and the boatmen had a silent agreement, if the tourist don't bother to ask, the boatmen can get to make the profit for a whole boat for a lone traveller.
Not long after, I found the 'colectivas' jetty, got on one and waited for the boat to fill up. It was very much cheaper, and the wait was reasonable enough. Once the boat filled up to capacity, the boatman collected the fare, untie the rope tethered to the jetty and poke this long wooden pole into the water. And we were off. Finally.
And looks like we are not the only one setting off toward the floating garden. It was rush hour on the waterway.


There were boats hired where the whole families were on it, and having a party and feast. There were boats with marichi bands that will slide up beside the tourist boat and offer to sing for a fee.
Of course, there were boats selling food and refreshment. And those selling souvenir. It is actually not so much a floating garden but a floating market.
The garden are still there though. On the banks were some garden, or flower nursery to be exact. There were some potted plant selling from the banks. So of the tourists on the boat did stopover and visited, with some ending up buying the plants.
And like at Diversadero, the strays look on.
But most of the tourists were there for the cruise, the merriment on the boats, and the food and market once we reached the destination.
I am not even sure what's the name of the "destination", but its just rows of souvenir stalls, rows of food stalls (selling similar fare as Diversadaro station, plus BBQ) and a beer garden.
I took a brief stop, and then was back on the colectivas boat, gently down the stream, merrily merrily merrily merrily back to the jetty.

August, 2011: Mexico City - Night

As I was passing by the Plaza Santo Domigo around the Cathedral hotel in the morning, a hugh poster above its entrance got my attention. It looks to be a poster for an exhibition for the Inquisition. I decided to come back to it late in the evening after my round at the Cathedral. Well, anything about atrocities carried out in the name of religion catches my attention.

In the late afternoon, having done the tour in the Cathedral, I was back at the Plaza to check out the exhibition about crime done in the name of the Catholic church. I bought my ticket and was handed a MP3 player and a pair of earphones. A soundtrack was looping on the MP3 for all the stations in the exhibition. The guy at the entrance warned against photo-taking, and so no photo was taken. And the soundtrack only came in Spanish. In any case, the display and the video playing on the flatscreen TV (an except from the movie Goya's Ghost and another about Jesus) was providing enough info. Basically, you walk through the an old darken room, with exhibit showing the torture tools used by the Inquisition. Pictures, maps, write-up and video provided the background. But the main attraction, morbidly, was the static displays: life-size mannequinns with facial expression of pain as they were put through the torture routine. One such display had a female mannequinn being lower onto a sharpen wooden stake through her you-know-where. A lady with her young son in toll must be thinking it was not such a good idea to have brought her son along. There are other tools on display, let's just say if the church had free the mind of the people on other stuff instead of such creative torture apparatus, the Industrial Revolution may have came much earlier.
From the write-up cards, I realized I had the wrong idea about the subject matter of the exhibition. It was not about the SPANISH Inquisition, but rather, the Inqusition in Nueva España. I guess New Spanish is Mexico. When I googled it later, I realized it really is about the Inqusition in Mexico, right here in Mexico City. In fact, the Plaza itself (and maybe the exact rooms I was in) is the actual site of all the torture going on roughly between 1736 to 1820.

Fortunately, those days are long gone. The Palace of the Inquisition is now owned by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), which converted it for its new use as the Museum of Mexican Medicine. Some of the medical equipments somehow looks like the torture tools.
Stepping out into the sunlight again, cheerful music was streaming from another corner of the Plaza.
It brought me into the auditorium of UNAM. It seems there was a Mariachi competition going on amongst the various faculties. The student body, the academic and admin staff were all involved. I had planned to pay to watch a Marichi performance in Mexico City, but here, I got it for free.
The performance was a really fun event. Group of various size came on stage in full regala. The size really doesn't matter, each played to their strenght and limitation, and all were entertaining and skillful. And it's not just singing, they will throw in some standup comedy, a little skit (mostly about a priest, a funny one going by the laugh they got from the Spanish-speaking audience), a simulated bull fight (playing with the cape he is wearing) plus a highly-charge dance.
So, everytime, I decided to leave the auditorium, the next group got me back on the seat. By the time I left the auditorium, it was getting dark and was drizzling slightly.

Opposite the Plaza, some protestors were camping out outside another building. I think it was asking for a higher budget for education. But it does looks like a predecessor to the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I found a Chinese restaurant near the hotel. It was serving buffet. Great, I will have my fill of Chinese food. The owners were from Guangdong in China. Once they realize I speak their language, we striked up a conversation. Too bad, he did not bother to inform me about last order, as they got their Mexican workers to clear the buffet before I got to my 3rd and 4th servings.
Before I left I ask to take a picture of the statute of the Chinese deity GuangGong (unmistakeable, by his red face), on the wall next to the TV with a football match going on.
Interestingly, in Santos in Brazil a couple of months later, I was at another Chinese-run restaurant, and it was like déjà vu.
I guess when the Chinese came all the way across the Pacific many years ago to the New World, it was not the god of wealth, longevity or prosperity that they thought of; but Guan Gong, the deity most often related to the code of brotherhood and righteousness.
《三国演义》第二十七回：“美髯公千里走单骑，汉寿侯五关斩六将。”

August, 2011: Mexico City - Day

Having came all the way to Mexico, I couldn't leave without checking out Mexico City. The capital of Mexico, Mexico D.F (Distrito Federal), is by one count, the 3rd largest city in the world.

After 3 weeks in Monterrey it was time to leave for Mexico City, before getting out of the country. The evening before I left, I could hear the train horn blowing at the far edge of the industrial park from my hotel. Too bad, it was not a "Alllll-aaabooooard!!", since it is not a passenger train, just cargo.
Standing at an altitude of 2,240 metres, in the Valley of Mexico right in the high plateaus at the center of Mexico, it is probably one of the highest above sea level.
Most of the Mexican I worked with in Monterrey were from Mexico City, and they looked incredulous when I actually have to ask if Mexico City is bigger than Monterrey. Of course, they said. Go see for yourself, they suggested. I did, and now I am a believer. It is hugh.
And it is colorful, too. The street out of the airport was a crash of color.
I checked into the Cathedral Hotel, near the main city cathedral. It is at the centre of Federal District, and, judging by the crowd, the touristy part. Although here in the Historic Centre, it is a much sombre part of town. Even the 7Eleven shop lost their colors.
The website of the Cathedral Hotel promised me a view of the Cathedral. Well, I wasn't getting any of that. The only view I got was the window of the room opposite. But at least it is right at the centre of most of the touristy places I was planning to see.

First stop ,the Metropolitan Cathedral, of course. The tourist has already descended on the cathedral and the main square in front of it. As with all churches in Mexico, the church came with the merchants. All along the front gate of the church were souvenir peddlers, stalls selling drinks and food.

I skipped going into the cathedral for now and followed the crowd into a side street.
Along the way, a Xi'an terracotta statute by the National Museum caught my attention and I went into the museum. Admission is free, and there were a China exhibition going on. In it were the usual Chinese costume, pottery and the likes.
A Confucius saying on the vermillion wall seems to attract a lot of attention from the Mexican visitors. It turns out to be
“己所不欲，勿施于人。”
《论语·卫灵公》

They also have a interesting permanent display of rice as staple food in the Asia Pacific rim.

After the museum, I wander into the old part of town. There were more churches, and more stalls. The old town seems to be organized by the same way as old Hanoi, where each streets has a concentration of a specific trade. The longest street I wandered into was textile street: everything from thread to panties. I have my lunch by the street, and then continue back to the Cathedral.


This time round, I went into the church. A Spanish sign ('cripta') seems to suggest there is a crypt right below the church. I followed the sign and went down a flight of stair to the basement. But there was a desk by the door and someone at the back of the desk, who look like he is there to stop busybody like me from entering. I never got into the crypt.


But images of death seems to be commonplace on the street. This reverence towards is probably carried over from Aztec belief before the introduction of the Catholic church. Mexico is quite famous for its Fesival of the Dead. Juxtaposition of church and death is everywhere in the street.


I would hate to run into this statute of Santa Muerta in the middle of the night.
Just right outside the cathedral, the Indians were doing their dance. Once they noticed me taking pictures, one of them came over for 'tips'. The sent the right guy, I gladly parted with some spare changes.

_________________________________________

July-August, 2011: Copper Canyon, Chihuahua, Mexico...退一步粉身碎骨

The Copper Canyon is really a misomer. There aren't copper mines found in the Canyon. In fact, it could very well be named the Grander Canyon, because in size, it is much larger the American Grand Canyon.

Standing at 2400m above sea level, the Divisaderio station is one of the highest point on the Chepe route between Chihuahua and Los Mochis. It is also the station where the train stop the longest. For this reason, I was expecting a sizeable town built around this station. As it turns out, there really isn't many buildings anywhere near the station.
There is a hotel with part of it hanging over the edge of the canyon (a good place to stay to have the scenery right outside your balcony), a small hut which is the ticket booth to the park built near the station, a little shop behind the station selling anything from powder detergent to Nacho tidbits and about a handful of buildings further down the track which serve unknown purposes.
I guess the train stop here the longest to allow the passengers to take a picture of the scenery, and to eat at the stalls along the track.
The cast of this stations are the passengers getting a quick bite, sourvenir peddlers and Mexican Indians just milling around with not much purposes. They just chat with each other, chat with us visitors, watch the coming and going of us visitors, check through the garbage can to look for something recycleable, or simply sit around. Some stray dogs were wandering around the stalls, hoping to get some scrap from the visitors. But none were Chihuahua dogs, though.
One indian guy commented on the dressing of a Mexican city-dwelling lady visitor. She was in some tight blouse and pants, with everything spilling out. I guess the indian was enquiring if she was 'for sale'. Her answer, in Spanish, seems to include a price in peso. I guess she was saying she is for sale, she named her price, and she was asking if the guy can afford it. The embarassment on his face was pretty visible.

But you wouldn't find these people in the pictures. I have been in Mexican for 2 weeks, and I found that Mexicans just don't seems to be taking photoes, even if this has one built into their cellphone. I assume they just don't like taking picture. And here in the remote Divisedario, I just assume the Indians here still have their superstition about having their photoes taken (the camera taking away your soul and all). Anyway, pictures with just mountains, no people.
The souvenir peddlers also don't approach the customers. They just sit in the shade waiting for customer to approach. Along the edge of canyon, a little park was built, with a hiking path and a few vantage points. Most remote places like this, the kids will look, if not stare, at the visitors inquisitively. But here, the kids don't even bother with eye contact. They could either be used to visitors, or it is simply not polite in their culture to make eye contact.

Or, very likely, I just don't look that much different from the Indians to warrant a second look. It might sound ridiculous, with Asia and South America being so far apart, but many of the Indians in Mexico has facial feature that reminds me of someone back home, albeit in a darker shade. The Aztec Indians are supposed to originate from Siberia, they probably move east across what is now the Russia far east, cross into America (now Alaska) many many years back (before CFC was invented, before global warming and before some ice bridge between Asia and America still exists), and then move down south into Mexico. If you think of how closed Siberia is to the Mongolia steppe, it is possible the Indian gene merging into the Mongolian gene. And think of how closed Mongolia is to China, so is it possible for the Mongolian gene to merge into Chinese gene. So, maybe it is not surprising that the Mexican American actually looks more like us Asian than an African or Caucasians.

Anyway, along this hiking path, you can just walk up closer to the edge and try to look down. Not recommended for those who are afraid of height.
The walk took about 2 hours. About half way through, I could hear a loud train whistle from the direction of the station. I was thinking has my return train just pulled out of the station, leaving me here in Divisedario. Luckily, that was the day's 1st class train leaving for Chihuahua. My 2nd class train is not yet here.
I arrived back at the station early for my train back to Chihuahua. As expected, the train was late. I while away the time people watching, and did a little shopping at the small grocer behind the station. Surprising, even at this remote touristy place, I found that the prices were not inflated. As it approaches late afternoon, the souvenir peddles were packing up and coming out from the parks, and were board the back of pickup trucks. I guess they are calling it a day and going home from their 'office'.

When the train did arrive, it was the same familiar scene of passengers rushing for the food stall. Probably because the train needs to make up for lost time, the stop was much briefer, and some of the passengers was seen trying to finish their food from the disposable plates as they run along the track to board the train. This gave the stray dogs to sniff out some crumps. But I did not see a single Chihuahua dog.
I picked a seat where I could see the scenery on the side opposite the one when I came into Divisedario. When I inform the conductor that I have no ticket for the journey back, I could almost see his ears prick up. Call me a pessimist when it comes to human nature, but I could predict he was coming up with some scheme.
When he later came back with his colleague, he inform me that I could pay for the ticket to them. Well, nothing wrong with that, since I was told at Chihuahua to pay for my return trip at Divisedario, and the Divisedario station has no ticket counter. But then the conductor came back and inform me that, unfortunately, they have ran out of paper to print the ticket. If I am OK with that, I can have the ticket for 450 peso, a discount of 75% from the actual price. I paid up, since I would have to pay anyway, but I suspect the conductor would have pocketed the 450peso, since there is no paper trail for my purchase.

Anyway the scenery back on this side of the train looks much better.
The guy's name is Juan. if it isn't, he has no business blocking the sign for the town of San Juanito.
But it was late in the afternoon, and before long, it was dusk, and then it was dark.

It was past midnight when I arrive back in Chihuahua. There was a mad rush at the station for passengers trying to secure a taxi back home.
I agreed on a price for my trip back to the hotel, without knowing there were already 3 other passengers on the cab, going to 2 different places. The driver has to drop them off before taking me to the hotel. I was trying to memorize all the turn the cab made as it pulls further away from the station, but I gave up after the fifth turn. As the cab travel down dim and lonely roads to drop off the other passenger, the fear in me grows. The cab driver could threaten to abandon me by the road in a bid to jack up our agreed price (the cab don't run on the meter system). Worst, he could just rob me and abandon me by the road. I would be at his mercy.

Fortunately, none of that happen. He got me safely back to the hotel, all the way carrying on this conversation:
Him: Ibis hotel, Si?
Me: Si, Si.
Him: Ibis hotel, Si?
Me: Si, Si, Ibis, Si.
......(repeat from the top.)

In fact, once I am safely in the hotel lobby, I insisted he pay me the change of 10 peso, a very small sum. He has no small changes so have to ask the hotel receptionist for it. I could sense his frustration (face turning beetroot red, beads of sweat on the forehead), but no anger. So, while the Mexican drug gangs are killing all over Mexico in their turf war, the majority of Mexicans are just making an honest living.
After a brief shut-eye, I was back on the road to Chihuahua airport to catch the flight back to Monterrey.