The Quest for the Magic Peyote

Como Esta? (How are you?)
Muy Bien! (Very Good!)
So people, its been a crazy few weeks, filled with assignments and lots of work and some time to have alittle parties and a trip out of town... More cooking fill our limited menu as we add spam(luncheon meat) and mushroom with garlic chili sauce(found it in the supermarket!) Thank god, we thought we were going to run out of spices if our supplies we brought from Singapore ran out. We bought dried Jalapenos(chili) and fried it with our beef for a spicy meal. And it was spicy indeed! The whole house was choking with our spiciness...
Our crazy roommate Carla invited her crazy mexican friends over and we had a little alcohol while i did Spanish homework. Afterwards they came out of her room and we had a great time chatting with them and learning Spanish vulgarities.. In Spanish, a word that is seemingly ok and not vulgar in common usage, can be a really vulgar word in another context. Latin American Spanish is all about context and its just plain hard to find that one word has SO MANY MEANINGS...
The crazy part of the night was that they ordered beer and it was delivered to our house! There's this dude who does alcohol home delivery and you have to find him on MSN to order. How awesome is that! You gotta love this country!




















For those who may wonder how our place looks like, its a red house as seem in the picture. At the top left picture, you can see a nail salon just right below our house. We have a red convertible in our garage but that's the landlord's car... We went to our favorite supermarket, Soriana, and I took pictures of extremely cheap alcohol for you guys in Singapore to drool over.. Just look at the prices on the pictures and just divide by 7.44 to get the cost in Singapore dollars.. :)
BTW we live on House 3100, Cortinio, Colonial Valle Primavera. Just complicated. I dun even know my postal code.. haha




















After a really boring week, we got our packs ready for an amazing school trip to Real de Catorce! It means Royal 14, named for 14 spanish soldiers that died fighting around this area. Its 3000metres above sea level and one has to go through an awesomely long tunnel, 20mins drive to get into the town. The place is so beautiful and untouched with everyone in their cowboy hats and teenagers riding horses instead of motorbikes or cars. Around this place, it is rumored that we can find Peyote, a magic 'mushroom'/ cactus that upon consumption, makes you hallucinate and for a very lonnng time... haha.. So I went on a quest to find that crazy mushroom...!






































Getting out of the tunnel, we went straight to our beautiful colonial style hotels.. The streets were steep with cobblestones and horses and their shit littered those streets. You can see the people here lead very simple lives, tending to their horses and attracting small amounts of tourists to maintain their simple lives.




















Reaching there we had some amazing lunch.. and explored the area.. Everyone was wearing and i was so tempted to get one.. The fried stuff on the top right is fried cocoa.. its weird eating fried chocolate...




















Next up we got on our horses(those pooping things) and had a long and treacherous ride up the mountain to the ghost town! Yvonne's horse was the crazy one that bites other horses to get ahead and mine seems to be drunk and loves to walk by the edge of the cliff, scaring me like crazy.. But it was a great 2hrs, going up and down the mountain... with our thighs aching really badly after that. Everyone was walking like a horse after that...




















Ok that's all folks.. So sorry about not updating.. Busy with traveling and exams! its crazy.. On CNY i have two papers! Crap.. Will update more about catorce, veracruz and other adventures..
With that.. adios!

Week 2! and its loco loco!

Hi Guys! Sorry for the Long Hiatus... School has been busy and we have been doing too much partying that we have no time to sleep! Hahaha! And every time we go clubbing, it is the equivalent to going to TWO Parties! WHy? One night of clubbing = 1 x house party + 1 x party at the club. We will always gather at someone's place and drink till our hearts out, get to know new peeps and then the whole gang would go to the club together! So it was partying on Wed and then Friday and it was crazy.... We had to wake up the next day on Saturday for our school trip to Garcia Caves and it was a bitch..

Waking up every morning is such a bitch because it has started to rain last week and its so freaking cold, in the day, in the night, in the afternoon and all the bloody time! Our house doesn't have central heating so we just sleep with 4-5 layers every night and bathing is just out of the questions at times. Its so cold that yvonne got sick for awhile and was perpetually in bed. It was just miserable for all of us in the house. So we had to seek refuge in our warm school.

During this week, our new housemate moved in! She's carla and a local mexican from Puebla and she's just freaking hilarious. We love her to bits, much more than the other irritating singaporean definitely. She has this pair of huge slippers which are furry and look like bear paws! HAha i call her Carla with the monster legs... U guys can see it in the pictures.

During Garcia Caves on Saturday morning, it was a torture as it was cold, we were totally bonged from clubbing and the bloody guy was speaking in Spanish. I didn't know what the hell i was looking at but the rock formation looked cool and stuff. After the torturous tour, we had the option to take the cable car down or walk down a winding and steep path to the base of the summit. Being the extreme people we are, we walked down and had alot of fun snapping at red cactus plants and just enjoying the majestic view. It reminded me of Kilimanjaro and reminded yvonne of Rinjani and it just fun walking downhill and overcoming the steep slopes!

Evening time was supposed to rest and recreation plus muggin for Spanish, but we ended up inviting our Crazy Swede friends over for dinner. My new Swedish bros, robert and patrik from jonkoping came over w their friend emmile and a hot girl from the states. Robert was teased by us constantly as he hooked up with a girl the previous night and was frenching her at one corner for an hour! Why don't I get this kind of bloody fun! But yea i love hanging out w them as they are so farnie and cheeky and they exclaimed one night during our clubbing this:

"Nyan, I'm very sure, you will come to Sweden to find us."

Me being drunk as hell replied:

"I will sell my jeans and underwear to fly to Sweden to find you assholes!"

Guess what they replied:

"Then we will have to buy you some jeans and underwear when u come over!"

Dinner was great fun as we scared them w our ultimate sambal chicken combi and they brought fantastic salad with cactus from the supermarket and superbly cooked lime cream spicy chicken.
We drank alot and was having alot of fun scaring everyone about Singapore and they talking about their homemade alcohol from Sweden... hahaha...

Then on Sunday, we went shopping at a big ass shopping mall called Plaza San Agustin. It features all the nice brands we have in Singapore and more. We wanted to save money and just window shop and then head to the supermarket to do our grocery shopping but we couldn't resist when we started seeing those beautiful jackets in Pull and Bear and Zara. What turned out to be an hour of shopping, turned to two as we went from shop to shop trying out nice cool jackets that Singapore doesn't have and that we don't own either. Which is making us looking like fashion disasters in school as everyone in school is so dressed for winter!!! haha...
So i got a kick ass jacket from a local boutique and Yvonne got hers at Zara, a nice white classy one. We loved our jackets as we sashayed across school today.. haha..

Sunday night was finally dedicated for Spanish homework and then Spanish test revision and I was so frustrated with Spanish I went around the house to take photos of Carla's paw slippers and took photos of Yvonne holding the big ass crab meat sticks! They are so huge and you will never see them in Singapore in that kind of size! The last pack of 10 sticks lasted us nearly 2 weeks!!! Its crazy u know!!

Spanish Lessons for Everyone #1!
Since i'm learning Spanish, i will clue u guys in on a little cultural and language exchange! I will list some words everytime i blog for u guys to learn about the Latin American Spanish language!
It will help me remember and u guys can have fun learning it too!
Here we go!

Buenos Diaz! - Good Morning!
Buenas Tardes- Good Afternoon!
Buenas Noche- Good Night!

Hola! - Hello! The H is silent so we pronounce it as Ola!
h is silent in all spanish!

Adios! - Bye!

Mi Nombre es Nyan! - My name is Nyan.

That's all folks! Pictures coming right up! I got to go mug for.. guess what..... espanol!(spanish!)









here's some of our creations recently, pasta and teriyaki chicken. I bought this Big ass COLA recently and its huge! i just had to buy it coz its so fucking big! HAHAHA

















Partying with the international students!
We have the Norwegians on the top left and top middle pictures and Andreas on the top right. Andreas is a Danish currently studying in Hongkong! Then we have Rogie in green who is a Dutch who studied in Singapore for 9 years then hongkong. The Marachis! take the right bottom corner with their cute outfits, trumpets and super fun music. The bottom right is Yvonne's blur Norwegian Spanish Language Classmate, Siv....





Garcia Caves! And a photo with our friend the states! Jewel..

Orientation Week

Hola! After a week of jet lag, it's finally orientation week and met up with all the international students. Apparently there is 120 Americans, 120 Germans and a total of 800 exchange students who are enrolled in Tec de Monterrey. The number of Asians? Countable by my 10 fingers! So.. when we saw a couple of Korean students and Vanessa, a exchange student from NTU, we felt a lot better. Oh well.. that wasn't the most depressing part. When we gathered at the Rectoria Building for our dinner with all the international students, we really felt like outcasts. No one bothered to talk to us or attempted to welcome us into their conversations. It was so demoralizing that we almost wanted to slip out of the place and go back to our flat. Thank god we didn't. Cos.. we really enjoyed ourselves at the dinner! Got to know 2 funny swedish guys, 1 snobbish and disgusting american guy, 1 german girl, 1 very nice and genuine texas girl and another girl from holland. We even went out for drinks with them after that and got to know more exchange students. I'll not elaborate on their nationality since there are just too many of them! haha... So yup, our very 1st night walking along the quiet streets, shivering under our thick jackets in the chilly weather. It was actually quite nice.

The next 2 days was registration and settling our insurance. Boy, the insurance lady sure stick to the mexican timing well. She told us to reach at 10, we woke up late, reach at 11 and she was not there until 1230. Fortunately for us, we just started mingling around and got to know another girl from d.c. She has a very special name - Jewel - and a very nice personality. After that, we went for another round of groceries shopping at Sorianas so that Pamela can buy all her necessities. We also took a cab to Barrios Antiguo, the night scene in the downtown that afternoon. The place was a lot more livlier, with more cars and people walking along the roads. So we just explored around and took some pictures. Oh yes, we finally got our Mexican numbers too! That pretty much ends our day.


We started off thurs morning with the academics policies talk in one of the auditoriums. One of the key emphasis was on the management of absences. For every module, we will be allowed 2 weeks absence. Ironically, punctuality is also another important thing that determines if we are absent from class (kinda contradicts with the mexican timing culture here). We have to be 10mins early before class and if we are late for 2 times, it equates to 1 absence. Well.. i guess we just have to start adjusting since we wouldn't want to screw up any of our available absences because we are late for class. Subsequently, there was a general information talk where the highlight is to tell us about the shipping of items to Mexico. Horrible stories were told about how items will be inspected at the US custom and the possible high tax charges especially for items made in Asia. So the packages will probably take months or never arrive at all. Argh! Who the hell wants to ship anything now man! Disgusting customs. After all the long talks, everyone gathered at the welcome tent arranged by the school. There was this reaaalllyyy cute mascot walking around and we just couldn't resist acting like some idiot tourists and started taking pictures with him. I don't exactly know what is the mascot but it looks like a tomato to me. Wahaha! And what's the welcome tent all about? A mini gambling den! So we just went on to gamble with the fake dollar notes given to us. The night ended off with an auction, seeing every flipping their fake money trying to win all the different prizes which includes ipod, dinner vouchers, free air tickets and many Tec shirts and bottles. What was amazing was the fact that even the Tec shirts were popular among both the international and mexican students. They really love their school, don't they? I think SMU were to auction off their shirts, we'll just sit there and laugh it off. Lol..

Last day of orientation and the start of the weekend!! Immigration talk was boring so let's not go into the details. Oh.. we saw a deer along the way in campus too! A hyperactive deer with really beautiful spots and it attacked one of the international students when she went a bit too close to it. It was quite scary.. Nyan managed to capture it on video though.. haha.. The CCA talks was the interesting part though. There were so many activities and excursions planned for us that we were wondering if we are going to study at all!! No wonder they wanted us to organize our absences well. Haha.. So what's next? Friday night is the start of the fiesta! So we were welcomed into a cocktail party set up in the auditorium, with vibrant mexican music, traditional mexican cuisines and dances. I love all the different Mexican dances and their mexican and cowboy hats! Salsa in singapore is in no way comparable to the ones here man. It's so much more fun here!! Everyone had a lot of fun, dancing, eating and mingling around. House party was next on the agenda! Booze, smoke, loud music and people squeezing in and out of the house. It was really fun! The only sad part was that we didn't know that we had to bring our own alcohol so it got kinda boring after a while. Since it was Friday night, we decided to head down to Barrios Antiguo to check things out. And oh boy, that's where all our bad luck started. Firstly, we couldn't find the 2 swedish guys and subsequently found out that they were going to another place that is some distance from Barrios. Then we saw Marianne along the road and she invited us to join them. When we finally reached the pub, we didn't manage to go in as her friend didn't know we were part of them and the bouncer didn't allow us in. So we just had to wait. The suckiest thing was that the bouncer lets people in on the basis of whether they know the people. A couple of us were queuing for really long and he just refuses to let us in. We got really sick and tired, hop onto the taxi and try our luck to find the Swedes. As the saying goes, bad luck sometimes come in a streak. That was what happened to us. The idiotic cab driver didn't know where the place was and when we told him to drive us back to our place, he took a long time to find it. What's worse was that he doesn't have change for a 200 peso note!! What kinda of taxi driver is that?! Argh.. so ya.. that kinda ended our fiesta night. Oh well.. i guess it's ok to bump around sometimes.. we have 7 months here to fiesta anyway.. Haha..

Adios,
Yvonne

Photos!

Japanese curry rice!

Nyan frying the drumsticks. Me? Behind the scenes, cooking rice, boiling veg and preparing the curry sauce.

Nyan and the 2 funny swedish guys.

Dinner with the international students.

Lov Pub located opposite school.

(From left) Marianne from Germany, Marjolene from Holland and me from Singapore!

The alcohol was dirt cheap! 20 pesos (~S$2.6) for a bottle of beer and 65pesos (~S$6.8) for a big styrofoam cup of coke and rum! The styrofoam cup is really huge.. maybe the next time i will remind Nyan to take a picture of it to show u people.. haha..

The streets of Barrios Antiguo in the day. Decent, isn't it? Well.. when the people comes out to play at night, the streets are totally different! Fiesta! haha..

Huge cathedral beside the pubs and clubs.

Trying to climb our way into the cathedral! The SMUX spirit! haha..

Parque (park) opposite Barrios Antiguo. I swear it was really embarrassing doing the pose. Everyone in the park was staring. Haha.. but who cares, i'm a tourist! hee..

Another cooking session! Crabmeat, caixin, minced pork and eggs in the soup!

The hyperactive deer in Tec campus.

Roaming peacock in Tec campus.

The first two days...

Buenos Diaz! That's good morning for you guys and its now 8:18am.. How do u figure out what time it is over in mexico? Take the Singapore time, flip it, (so if its am, flip it to pm and vice versa), after that minus 2 hours off that time. An example speaks a thousand words so i'm gona do it for you guys. If its 10pm in Singapore, its 10am in mexico - 2hrs = 8am.. entienda? (understand?)
So after we landed in beautiful Monterrey, we went apartment hunting. Not before we were panicking very badly during the flight where everything was in Spanish and was wondering whether Arturo ( our mexican friend) would pick us up. Ultimately he would be our link to this part of the world and if he wasn't there to help us establish this link, boy, would we be in big trouble. When we reached, we didn't see him while collecting the luggage. The combined cold, loneliness caused by being surrounded by alien speaking strangers staring at us, it just made it worst that Arturo was late(or possibly not coming). We have not booked a hotel, there doesn't seem to be taxis outside of the airport(although Pamela confirmed that there was a taxi service), it just made us regret on our decision to purely rely on Arturo's promise. But they always say, have faith, and you shall be rewarded! Soon after Arturo came along, and brought us to apartment hunting in the middle of the night.

On the way there, the sights were beautiful, the whole hill of housing were lighted, their roads were littered with signal lights that acted like our street lights and pavement signs. We passed a huge brushfire and I laughed as I exclaimed, "Welcome to Mexico!" and you can see the crazy driving on the roads. We were constantly driving at an average of 110km/h on those roads, be it big or small roads. Mexicans, i swear, are the most craziest drivers I have seen around. Cutting across 3 lanes, overtaking on a two lane, two way road, tires CONSTANTLY screeching from the abrupt turns. We reached our first apartment to find that it was kinda ok... with another exchange student living in it, but we weren't given three proper rooms. The third room was right smack out of the house, it was originally a maid's room and can you imagine the loneliness, cold and the claustrophobic conditions whomever was going to face just staying in there.

Figuring that it wasn't such a good deal and it wasn't such a good idea to make any decision when we are jet lagged and searching for an apartment in the middle of the night, we drove off to Arturo's place in another city, 1 hr away in Satillo. The ride was long, dark and sleepy, so we dozed off intermittently till we reached his place, and Ohh and behold, it's such a big ass huge mansion! His parents were too hospitable, making supper for us, kicking arturo out of his room to accomodate us, making arturo's sister share a room with yvonne. "This is your home!" they said and that was hospitality, probably too much for a Singaporean like me.

We visited school the next day, freezing from Arturo's place in Satillo and Tec de Monterrey really has quite a beautiful architecture with a vibrant wildlife, yes, i'm not kidding, wildlife. Ducks, Squirrels, Deer(haven't seen one yet though) and Peacocks. Free to roam around. Imagine prestige and modernity of SMU with the size of NUS, and a fantastic animal life to boot.

We shall not say too much and let the pictures rollllll...

Adios,
Nyan





Arturo's Place..




















Me and Arturo in his place...















Here's one oil painting that Arturo's mum does. She really talented and she's into feng shui recently.. Apparently its some craze in Mexico right now..
















On the way from Satillo back to Monterrey, the beautiful mountain scenery that surrounds the whole of North Mexico.
































First to the apartment, then to Walmart! They are really cheap!


















Ducks living on campus ground, there is even a pond for them. The peacock is known to wander into the corridors.. haha


















Yvonne in front of the tallest building in School.
It hosts the virtual university, and a web conference room that hosts classes for campuses around the State! That's really good stuff! MIT of mexico indeed!

Hola!

Hello People! We are finally in Monterrey! But the adventures was definitely filled with excitement, thrills and the near possibility of not being able to go past the Changi Airport customs! Coz mua forgot to bring my documents for mexico and the US. Senorita Yvonne herself didn't bring her key to her metal mesh for her packbag, totally risking all her winter clothing and lingerie from being stolen.

As the turban policeman in the airport said, its better u screw up in Singapore, then u screw over there in Mexico and risk flying all the way back. He also said, when one starts off so badly, it is usually a prelude for better things to come. And yes it was, we passed through all the customs smoothly with only a bad cold and aching legs. We loved Narita Airport the most and we noticed that the way each airport works, reflects greatly on our impression on each country. By far, among all the airports passed so far, Changi,Narita,Los Angeles and Monterrey. Los Angeles gave me the worst impression. Our plane landed on LA at 745am and the customs weren't at work yet, we had to wait till 815am, which then were we allowed off the damn plane!
Even then, we were spared from the super long queues caused by having only 4 officers to clear the passengers.

Our only regret was not learning Spanish earlier or taking the learning more seriously. The regret surfaced the moment we boarded the Plane from LA to Monterrey. They were using spanish like a first language and it was just confusing and frustrating to be so clueless at times.. But it was all fine and we just observed body language and tried to make out some of the words.
So here we are in cold cold monterrey.. Pictures say a thousand words! So let's see some!







Yvonne in Narita Airport! She nearly went crazy with all the shopping. I stopped her from buying too much so we got jap chocolate biscuits and chewing gum only.
















Narita Airport, clean, efficient, pristine. Nice uniforms for everyone.. Trust the japs to do that.




















The cool vending machine in Narita
















LAX airport!













Tired after 2hrs at the US customs! Argh!















Me with a bad cold...





















The beautiful Mountains of Monterrey