Where should I start?

Hi People! Sorry for the long hiatus. I was so busy and SO LAZY that I didn't bother to upload or blog. But those who have facebook will know that i am pretty consistent in uploading my photos as it has a far easier interface to use and is a quicker medium for me to update my friends. Anyway thanks to my dear yvonne for updating everything so we will go on to talk about our Semana Santa holiday(its like called Holy Week but its our spring break).

This time we went down south to the beautiful and earthquake prone state of Oaxaca and its coast. First stop was Oaxaca city and its beautiful colorful architecture. The Mexicans sure have an eye for color as the streets(calles in spanish) were spread with color little terraces and houses and cobblestone pedestrian streets.. I love the place as it is so cooling and just so nice and relaxed. We found more people speaking English speaking here than most parts of Mexico that we have visited so far and Oaxaca City has the best collection of English books on Mexico. Its an artistic place and one can observe it through the flood of shops selling artistic wares, elaborately designed zocalo(something like a city square) and it just bursts into life at night when they close up the roads and destine some streets to be pedestrian only.

We explored the markets around and it was filled with weird looking stuff together with the colorful art wares. We were told by many to look out for the fried grasshoppers and even armadillos. We didn't find those due to our short time but we did see a lot of weird meats, a drink that is amazing disgusting (imagine grass jelly looking like leeches from a pot of water that looks like drain water) and this, mezcal. Mezcal is an spirit that is distilled up to 3 or 2 levels less than tequila. Its extremely strong, and has a mealworm in it. It comes in many flavors like mocha and strawberry but its strong alcoholic taste is just overpowering... u get the idea.. sucks.. We were supposed to eat it with sal which is salt and fried mealworms ground together, which i didn't know that i was eating it until the lady told me afterwards.



Then after exploring alittle of city and being amazed by its market, we decided to explore it more the next day(which we didn't, and thank god because i would have bought a shitload of stuff from there). So we went to Monte Alban, one of the most amazing and well preserved ancient city ruins in Mexico. Its pretty high up on a mountain, almost 3000 plus metres, and thank god we didn't cycle up as recommended by our hostel owner.. THe view was amazing and we got a nice old and knowledgeable Mexican guide who spoke perfect english to give us a low down on the place for 200 pesos. What an awesome deal! Thus, we went off into a trip back into time with the people of the area, the Zapotecs who were eventually chased away by the Mixtecs and then they buried up the whole place with its accompanying treasures when the Spanish came. This move of hiding their beautiful city was a good one as it is one of the few cities that were not pillaged by the Spanish and many treasures and jewelery were found here.....
So let's us let our pictures speak for themselves!



Together with us was Sam from Australia, who joined us for this trip..... This vannessa, our fellow Singaporean from NTU and her future self.. MUAHAHAHA
Our guide!
The ball court! This is where ancient Zapotecs settled their disputes and competed for certain stuff. U can only use your shoulders, elbows, knees to hit the ball into holes in the walls that were previously on top of the steps.. What a hard game!

This amazing structure can observe certain celestial phenomenons at certain times of the year.

Ok that's it for now folks! Blogging is tiring.. Yvonne or me will talk more about the rest of our trips... We will see whether we can let non facebook users see our photos too!