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。”