Our Mexican Adventure

Communist Cuba

2008-06-08T12:53:00.000-07:00

The long awaited trip to Cuba finally happened last week! Booking the flight with Cubana airline was a total bitch. Rogie tried booking it at 1st but the transaction was over before he could even type in his credit card no to pay. The next thing we know, the price rose from US$250 to US$312. Feeling extremely disgusted, we decided to head down to the airline office to book the ticket. It turned out that the rate at the office was a flat rate of US$312 the whole year round. When we asked if she could help us to look through the internet, her reply sent us walking down the streets in search for an internet cafe - there was no bloody internet in the airline office!! When we finally settled down in the internet cafe, the Cubana website continued to irritate us further. Nyan and me wanted to try booking for a flight that comes back a day earlier than Rogie but the stupid airline only has flights that cost US$250 if we were to come back the same day as Rogie or 2 days earlier so we had no choice but to book for flights that come back on the same day as Rogie.

So off we went to Cuba - Me, Nyan, Rogie and Gustavo (from Chile). Air Cubana was an interesting plane to be on.. We could literally see the smoke of the air con just by sitting in our seat.. when it was about to take flight, there was so much smoke anyone would have thought the plane was on fire.. but no matter how bad the plane is, no plane can be as bad as Viva Aerobus. I swear thats the only plane where the pilots smacks the plane on the ground while landing. Having safely landed in Cuba, we thought everything would be fine from then on.. Never did we expect to be stopped by this black custom officer. He was just plain weird - took our passport and stared at it for what seems like hrs, refused to open his freaking mouth to tell us what´s wrong and started walking off with our passport. Thank god Gustavo came to our rescue and the black guy finally stopped harrassing us. Once we pass by the customs, it was Rogie and Gustavo´s turn to get into trouble - they were suspected of taking drugs purely based on the fact that Rogie was from Holland and Gustavo was from Chile. So they conducted a check on them before we finally got out of customs. I´ve never had so much trouble in a single day of travel before!

7 days in Cuba was all i need to have a basic idea of how a communist state is like.

1. The government knows everything - there was once when the cab driver took us to club to see if we wanna go in and when we decided not to, he had to get the guard outside the club to sign on his card. We were guessing that´s how the government keeps track of everything.. haha

2. They are not allowed to buy and sell their cars which is why they are still driving the antique cars we see during our parents´ era.

3. They are not allowed to buy and sell houses - houses are passed down from generations to generations. For people who do not have a house, here´s the way to get one: get married to someone who has a house and get him/her to give u the house and then get a divorce.

4. Tourists are only allowed to sit in tourist taxis although we ALWAYS take the illegal ones - the driver usually tells us not to snap any pictures when he drives pass the police checkpoint in case he gets stopped and checked.

5. The only thing they ever eat is pizzas and bread with ham and cheese. Their pizzas are called pizza with cheese which is weird for us cos pizza naturally should have cheese in it.. so basically we have been eating pizzas with no ingredients for a week..

6. Cubans survive on rations from the government. Medical subsidies by the government is very good cos medicines are really cheap there.

7. Any job can easily be better off than working as a professional in Cuba. Professional salaries are like shit in Cuba.

8. There is no internet access in Cuba. If there is, its 56k modem.

9. There is a song in Cuba which contains a word that sounds similar to the pronounciation of ¨Singapore¨ and the meaning of that word is to have sex. Everytime we tell people we are from Singapore, they laugh so now we know why they laugh.

10. Cubans rarely smile and stares more often than ever.

Not sure if i missed out anything.. haha.. but all i can say is that a week in Cuba is really a unique experience which i will never forget! Haha.. too unique to forget......

Yvonne

Toga Party

2008-04-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

If there's anything that i've done the most here, i have to say its partying... haha.. there's always a party going on.. so all we need to do when we're bored is to ask around.. So this time, we were invited to attend a toga party. If u do not know what is a toga party, go google toga.. u will know what i mean instantly. I was actually getting quite sick of all the house parties because they were all about the same.. people just go there to drink and get drunk so its kinda boring for me cos i don't like beer.. So as usual, i was contemplating whether to go for this one as well.. Eventually i decided to go since most of my friends are going (peer pressure.. haha).. So we got the cloth and strings that we needed to make a toga and wait for the time to leave.. An hr before, everyone in the house were cracking their brains over how to make a toga out of that piece of cloth and it got me really excited about the party.. I guess i've never really been to a party where i had to dress up for a particular theme.. no.. i should correct myself.. i HAVE been to parties with themes but i never bothered to dressed up.. haha.. so i got all hyped up with designing myself an outfit and i really enjoyed myself a lot!

My toga gown!

Nyan's toga. He insisted he wanted purple and Rogie got him a shiny purple cloth.. haha.. no matter how he dresses himself, we all agree that he looks like an Indian selling snacks in the mama shop.. (we refers to me and vanessa.. haha)

Isn't he the most blissful guy on earth? 5 girls fawning over him.. haha

Rogie insisted that he's a monk for the day and so we have to respect him, don't we?

Nyan and guapo! For those of you who don't know any spanish, guapo means handsome. Guapo is Carla's friend and when he 1st came to our house, Nyan called him Guapo and so from then on, we never bothered to ask or remember his real name.. He adopted a new name on the day we met him - Guapo.. Haha..

Kiss with Mahsa from Sweden! Oops~

Show some sexy legs, baby! Uh oh.. sorry for the unglam shorts.. hehe

Nyan and his newfound interest, Soly!! This guy has 2 paintball fields behind his house in the states.. Now u know why he's Nyan's newfound interest..

Polish girls! They take very beautiful pictures!

Chips, soft drinks and alcohol

Psychology classmates from France

Nyan daring Vanessa to down Vodka for 5 secs.. Rogie was the accomplice..

Can u believe it?! They brought their mask to the party! Haha..

As usual, Carla got really drunk and slept on the couch.. we had a hard time waking her up..

Picture before leaving for supper!

Taco Felix - Our favorite taco place for supper!

~Yum yumzz~

Posted by Yvonne

Lucha Libre!

2008-04-26T08:08:00.000-07:00

Despite the huge amount of pending homework, projects and readings, we decided to go and take a look at the famous Mexican wrestling that everyone has been talking about - LUCHA LIBRE!! Those who has watched Nacho Libre will know what i meant.. haha.. and we got to watch it live this time! I never like wrestling because i couldn't understand why people would see in front of the tv to watch 2 or more ugly and muscular (sometimes fat i think) guys fighting one another. In fact, i never understood why there was such a show in the 1st place. But now i know. People pay to watch WWF for its entertainment value. Here i am, watching it live and i have to say that it is really an interesting experience that i will never forget! Another thing that amaze me is the fact that this is a family activity. There were kids who look as young as 3-5 years old watching it. Also, i heard from Arturo that on some days, the women fight too.. haha..

They already started when we went in. We bought the most expensive ticket which is 100 pesos (13 SGD) so that we could get the front seats. It was worth all our money when u get to see them fighting right in front of you. Slamming each other with boards and rubbish bins, jumping off the stage onto the other guy, spitting at each other and once in a while, flying towards the audience. It was kinda hilarious to see everyone running off from their seats and yet frantically trying to get a good picture of them flying towards the audience.

One thing i find amusing about them was how fake some of them looked when they were hitting one another. Like the way they shake their hands and legs to portray the pain when the opponent was on top of them and they couldn't move. I couldn't stop laughing.. haha.. But some were really good and i just stared at them in awe. But there were some,

Emo Lucha Libre.

I don't know what he is. Batman? Haha.. but he was really happy to pose for a picture for our camera.

Skeleton man!!

This match needs parental guidance cos there was this guy who was a gay wearing pink outfit and a flowery scarf. I think he's just portraying himself as a gay for entertainment sake but who knows, i might be wrong.. haha.. But he was touching the privates of his opponents all the time during the match. He kept kissing them too. Needless to say, u should know who won this match. Haha..

They fell from the stage. Two obese man flying from the stage, imagine the impact. Haha..

Preparing to jump off the stage onto his opponent

Ultraman assault!

Slamming the guy with a board

And then a rubbish bin

But he eventually won!

The audience went crazy when the whole thing ended. All of us started climbing up onto the stage to "fight" and take photos. So of cos, Nyan was one of them. Looks like he can be a wrestler too! Haha..

Poor Siv..

Mask for remembrance sake! 80 pesos each!

Posted by Yvonne

Puerto Escondido

2008-04-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

The bus ride from Oaxaca City to Puerto Escondido was a ride to hell. We took a night bus, hoping that we could catch up with some sleep and that time will pass faster.. Halfway through the night, the bus started making turns every 3 secs.. The road became winding from i dun know where (Pochutla i think) and it went on for 2 hrs straight.. It was as torturous as you can imagine it to be. We didn't get much sleep and the ride felt like it was going to take forever.. Nonetheless, the hell we went through were all worth it when we got to Puerto Escondido!!

Breakfast! Free flow of toast with butter before our main course arrives! Yum yum~

Sitting in our favorite cafeteria.. it has the tastiest cinnamon buns i've ever tasted and we couldn't resist the temptation to buy it each time we walk past the cafeteria.. Best of all, it has stir fry! Haha.. And the food here is really cheap as compared to all other restaurants along the stretch of road..

Vanessa and her scooter. She almost got into a couple of accidents on the road!!

My 1st time on an ATV!! Ok.. i wasn't as brave as Vanessa so all i did was to ride it in the empty carpark outside the bus terminal.. after that, i let Nyan do the driving.. haha.. Even so, i think i almost killed Nyan and some pedestrians cos i changed the wrong gears all the time.. lol..

Some castle looking structure at the end of the beach

All of us tried surfing while we were there!! It was really fun at 1st and then it got really tiring.. haha.. but still all of us enjoyed the experience!

People parachuting!

Posted by Yvonne

Places around Oaxaca City

2008-04-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

During our 2 days stay in Oaxaca City during spring break, we went to a couple of places outside the city for some sightseeing.. here are the pictures!

A glimpse of our messy hostel room.

Common area in the hostel

The 1st place we went to - El Tule. This is where the world's biggest tree is located in.. Apparently, it has been entered into the Guinness World Record as the largest tree! No wonder they brought us here to see this famous tree.. haha

Son of the big Tule tree.. The guide said that they planted a grandson tree but it was destroyed by lightning last year. It died..

They have bushes trimmed into many different kinds of animals. Here is one of them - an elephant!

2nd stop was Teotitlan del Valle, a weaving village.

Materials for making the strings needed for weaving

The spinning wheel where strings are made manually

All the different rugs and mats done through weaving.. they were very pretty but the price was on the upper end too.. so we just feasted our eyes on it, took many pictures and left empty handed.

3rd stop was Mitla, another ancient ruin which is of a smaller scale than Monte Alban in the previous post.

Vanessa, Nyan and me on the top of the pyramid

Nyan inside the tomb. It was so short and tiny!

Yoga position 1

Yoga position.. ermm.. 2? Is this yoga? lol..

4th stop was Hierve el Agua where we got to see the dried up waterfall and swim in the pond. This place is really beautiful!

View of the entire place from the top

Dried up waterfall

Everyone soaking themselves in the pool and enjoying the view

Tanning under the sun!

Last stop was the Mezcal factory. Mezcal is an alcoholic drink which is similar to Tequila but distillated only twice (6 times for Tequila) so basically it is very strong in the taste and i didn't quite like it..

Shelves full of different kinds of Mezcal.. the tourists went crazy trying out all the different flavours.

Sunset

The night before we left Oaxaca City, we visited the famous church. Its called Santa Domingo. As they were having some ritual that night, we were unable to get any proper pictures inside of the church. All that i can say is that the inside of the church is extremely intricate and grand.. =p

Posted by Yvonne

Cuatro Cienegas

2008-04-14T13:52:00.000-07:00

Went over to Cuatro Cienegas over the weekend. It's about 4 hours drive from Monterrey and we went cos we heard about how beautiful the place is. A oasis in the middle of the desert, how often can we see that? Haha.. So off we went!

Memo! Thanks to him volunteering to be one of the drivers! Else we probably wouldn't have been able to get to Cuatro Cienegas..

Carla caught by the ranger for drinking beer in the water.. Haha.. After that, a few others were caught too.. What can i say? Beer is more important than anything else.. lol..

Picture in the lake!

Group photo! A total of 15 people went!

Rogie with a view of the mountains in the back

Taken along the stream.. Looks like we're in the middle of a jungle..

Sunset

As usual, partying in the night with lots of booze, food and loud music.

Another beautiful lake. Unable to swim here cos its really cold as compared to the other lake.

Sea kayaks! I miss kayaking!! Haha..

Nyan making Rogie do a funny pose beside the signboard.

We were to help a friend with his flat tyre but we ended up taking lots of photos along the road cos there really wasn't much cars passing by the area..

Nyan sprawled on the floor..

Me doing CPR for Carla in the middle of the road

Funny poses with the signboards along the road

Nyan and his favorite naked pose.. Haha..

That's all for Cuatro!!

Yvonne

Where should I start?

2008-04-02T15:53:00.000-07:00

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!

Cerro de la Silla

2008-03-26T09:29:00.000-07:00

It's been 1 year since i last trekked so was kinda worried about my physical stamina when Arturo suggested going up Cerro de la Silla, the mountain in Monterrey that has a summit that looks like a horse saddle. But then again, i can't reject the chance to climb a mountain here especially since i've been climbing the Malaysia mountains all this while.. time to conquer some mountains in Mexico!

Up the mountain we went..

Yellow flowers along the route.

Weird looking tree.. we get to see lots of them in Mexico wherever we go.

A glamorous picture before everyone starts getting tired from going uphill non stop.. haha..

Orange flower along the route.

Carla's 1st time drinking water from the water bag.. she was so excited.. haha..

Cactus. They are everywhere in Mexico too.

At the platform which was exactly halfway up the mountain.

Purple flowers.

The route up. It was uphill all the way and it just got steeper and steeper towards the top. The sun was extremely hot that day too. The thing about the sun here.. it's scorching and kinda blinds u even when u have ur sunglasses on.. I still prefer spore's sun i think.. haha..

Misty view from the top.

Smile! Glad we made it up! Haha..

Another view from the top.

A final photo before heading down!

Yvonne

Weekend at the Ranch

2008-03-26T08:39:00.001-07:00

During one of the weekends, Marcela (Arturo's gf) kindly invited us over to her ranch in Saltillo to have a bbq, relax, drink booze and go for buffalo hunting. Her ranch was really cozy and beautiful, a pity we were all so busy cooking and partying that we forgot to take pictures of the house. Oh well.. i will take it if we are going there again sometime before i leave for my travelling.. Oh anyway, there was a small little accident on the highway when we were on the way there. Carla's car just started swerving left and right for close to 5 mins. We all thought we were going to die but thanks to Carla's good driving skills, everything became in control after a while. Nobody knew what happened to the car.. weird.. Anyway, so here goes the pictures! Enjoy!

On the way to the ranch. We went off road for quite a long while and i think Carla's car was dying.. lol.. Her car's not an SUV, not really meant to go off road so once in a while we hear noises that sounded like the car was coming apart any moment.

Went for a hike up a nearby mountain and as usual, Nyan found an a green friend and decided to pose for some disgusting pictures with it.. haha.. anyway, all of us had cuts all over our legs cos the plants there were ALL spiky. Think it's cos of the weather in Mexico, so hot that sometimes there's natural forest fires every now and then.

View from halfway up the mountain.

Buffalo hunting!! Marcela's dog, Toby, went crazy chasing the buffaloes! Haha.. The buffaloes were actually scared when we went nearer to them.. So the girls managed to pose for a picture with them.

The guys with the buffaloes.

The long walk back to the ranch after looking at the buffaloes.

BBQ time!! Guess what we are doing? Making tortillas from scratch! Everyone wanted to do it cos we were all worried that we cannot live without them when we return back to our home country.. haha.. And we had fun making them!

For me, i had the fun of cooking the tortillas after i make them too! It was quite simple.. Like making roti prata.. haha..

Me and a photo with the great chef, Memo!

We marinated the chicken with beer and teriyaki sauce. The mexican way - beer in everything! Haha.. it tasted really good!

Poor Toby, smelling all the nice BBQ food but not given any.

Everyone resting outside the house for a chat before going back to Monterrey.

Yvonne

The long awaited Veracruz Carnival

2008-03-25T11:34:00.000-07:00

Finally! The post on Veracruz Carnival, the biggest carnival in the whole of Mexico that i promised a long time ago! lol..

Gran Cafe de la Parroquia! The most famous cafe in Veracruz! Fantastic food and the best coffee I found ever since i got to Mexico. And the best part is, they do it the teh-tarik way!

Group photo outside the cafe.

Along the port.

The Naval Headquarters.

Nyan and canon

I can't help but comment on this picture. By right, we were not suppose to sit on the display (there was a sign beside it) but Nyan couldn't resist himself and decided to sit and take a quick picture. Subsequently, all the tourists follow suit.. lol.. Bad example Nyan! Haha..

The famous 5 pesos bus in Veracruz. This is my 1st time riding on a bus ever since i got to Mexico and I must say that it's really a different experience. The thing about buses here is that there are no bus stops. All we have to do is to wait at some junction and when we see the bus coming, we jump, wave, dance and do whatever we want to get the bus driver's attention. And we can get down anywhere we want to. Just press the bell and the driver stops right on the spot. Haha.. We were always on the wrong side of the street so when we see the bus, we will be running across the road to board it.. Haha.. The bus kinda reminds me of those old school buses we see in american movies.. Lol..

Shops next to the port.

Filete a la Veracruzana! Basically, its fried fish with the Veracruz sauce which is made out of tomatoes, olives and onions. I think those are the only ingredients they use but i might have missed out some stuff.. haha..

Some artistic weird looking sculpture along the road.

See those cups we are holding in our hands? The best ice cream in Mexico as claimed by Carla called Guero. I love the ice cream! Haha..

Oops! I didn't mean to touch his butt!

So much for all those tourist things we did. Finally we get to see the parade. The crowd was just overwhelming. It looks as though the whole population of Mexico were gathered here for the significant event! Took lots of pictures of the floats! They were beautiful!

The crowd. Anyway, the parade was late by 2 hours, a typical thing that happens every year. Mexican timing!

Nyan and his 2 litre beer. He bought 5 of them. Loco loco.

The police force was the 1st to parade. And what a scene they created when they passed by! The public were chanting "puto" which means gay constantly. As if that wasn't bad enough, they started chanting song that goes like this “hay qué estudiar, hay qué estudiar, si no de policía nos vamos a quedar” which essentially means that if they don't study then they would end up being a police in future. We just joined in the chanting and i actually saw some police waving and smiling back at the people. Corrupted and weird Mexican police. lol..

Superstitions in Mexico.

The guys and their new Veracruz Carnival shirts!

Tacos!

Performance in the Zocalo, central area of Veracruz.

Eggs with beans, Carla's favorite. Haha.. I know it looks disgusting but then it actually taste quite ok! Nyan hates the beans though.

Before leaving Veracruz, we made a discovery while my friend was looking through his rough guide. There was a picture of the guy playing the instruments in the book (picture above) and we suddenly realize he was the guy who was playing the instrument for us at that very moment! So yes, we took the opportunity to take a picture with him before leaving.

Yvonne =p

Bioparque Estrella

2008-03-02T18:09:00.000-08:00

It's the weekends again! Since there's no major projects or partials coming up, we decided to visit the safari which is an hour's drive from Monterrey. Here are the photos!

We saw them across the road while we were driving and as usual, Nyan got really excited and started taking pictures. It's kinda weird to see them going to the supermarket carrying guns.. haha..

Here we are!! Bioparque Estrella! Arturo says that we can choose to walk through the park to see the animals or drive through. We choose to drive through since its cheaper.. haha..

Once we were inside the park, animals started coming towards the car. That's a camel waiting for food outside Arturo's car. Oh.. some of the camels had foam at the side of their mouth! I hope this one doesn't. Haha..

The ostrichs and emus were SO scary!! I tried to feed them but then they bite me! So throughout the drive, i fed every other animal except them.. Haha.. Our car was always full of screams when they come near.. lol..

Nyan and the goat with the scary eye.

Haha.. this picture is hilarious. Wondering why Carla is screaming while posing for the picture? That's cos her hand was inside the buffalo's mouth!! Haha.. After that, she had her hand inside a camel as well.. so her car's steering wheel was kinda wet with the animal's saliva.. Lol..

The only time we managed to run out of the car for 5 mins to take a picture in the wild... Isn't it nice?!

A baby bambi

A giraffe that was roaming around. We were lucky to be able to feed him cos the rest of the giraffes were all locked up behind the fences. I swear i've never seen a giraffe this close before. I managed to feed it once but then it refused to come near our car after that.. oh well.. emo Mr Giraffe.

Monkeys that were by the river. Haha.. Nyan and a few other guys were throwing stones at them to see if they were able to find them.. guys and their cheap thrills..

A picture by the lake.

This goat was really naughty. It jumped up and had its hoofs inside the car. It was halfway into the car and everyone was screaming like mad. Haha.. Oh well.. after a while, it went away.. guessed it realize we didn't have any food left..

No one would have guessed how much trouble i went to just to have a good picture in the car. I was sitting on the right side of the car with 2 other girls (Van and Pam) and when we saw the cow, Van suggested that we should swop seats so that i can take some pictures with the animals too. So we started swopping seats inside the car. I swear i was climbing over everyone.. haha.. but the picture makes it all worthwhile!

Hungry Hippo!!! Too bad they were fenced up..

Duckies. They were so clean i think they look fake sometimes.

Llamas!! Aren't they beautiful? Their furs are so soft and warm..

Took it while we were taking a walk after the end of the safari trip. The whole park was huge.

As i said, the park was huge and there was a mini playground and so all of us started playing with it. The hamster machine!

Everyone on the swing!

Another group picture before leaving the park.

Cheers~

Yvonne

Valentine's Day

2008-02-29T17:17:00.000-08:00

Valentine's day is kinda big in Tec. On this special day, there were many booths selling balloons, chocolates, flowers, cards, sweets, marshmallows and many many more other gifts. Anyone who wants to send something to their love ones or friends can easily drop a note at the booths, indicating the name, class and time for delivery. Apparently in the past, they even called in mariachis to the class. I asked my flatmate and she said that teachers can't expect to have a proper lesson on Valentine's day cos there's bound to be interruptions.. haha..

The day before Valentine's day, Nyan and me went to Los Generales, a very popular buffet place here. The pork ribs tasted so good, i couldn't stop eating them! Ok.. it's partly because it's kinda hard to get bbq pork ribs here.. haha..

See the green gluey thing on the left? That's guacamole!! We eat it here all the time. I think i'm so gonna miss it when i return to Singapore cos avocado is kinda expensive.

The Mariachis!! Coincidentally, there was a birthday party going on that day as well and they invited to Mariachis to come and play.

Vanessa from NTU! Besides V day, that day was also international students day! Each country had a representative to raise their country's flag and Vanessa was the representative for Singapore!

Flags from all over the world.

Me and the korean girls

Balloons in the air

Booths selling flowers, balloons, chocolates and many other small little gifts.

Balloons!!

Chocolates

Nyan hugging cookie monster! I heard there was elmo too but we didn't get to see it though.. =(

Ok.. read the note carefully. My flatmate Carla send me a bottle of hershey kisses and this note was stuffed inside the bottle. She had a test on that day and she wants us to send her something so that when she stand up to collect it, she can look around for answers. Haha..

This is the famous Tec lamb which i've been secretly wanting. Thanks to Nyan, i own one now. Haha..

Haha.. the real flowers didnt look very nice so i made Nyan buy me a fake sunflower.. hee..

That's all for V day! Next up is probably the safari or some house party i guess.. haha.. Stay tuned!!

Yvonne

4 Fiesta Night!

2008-02-20T19:16:00.000-08:00

Back with more updates! Haha.. Last friday, we had a major fiesta night, a night my flatmate named the 4 fiesta night.. Why 4 fiesta? Because there were 4 parties going on in different places that night! First party on our list was the dinner at the Swedes' house where they prepared the famous swedish meatballs and some other yummy food! The meatballs were so good, i couldn't stop eating! Haha.. But anyway, i managed to get the recipe from my friend though so i can prepare them as and when i like it.. haha..

Before we left the house, i pop by Carla's room to ask her something and this was what i saw. Look closely if u do not know what i meant. This crazy girl is ironing her hair with an iron because her hair straightener is not working! I used to say that women would do anything to look pretty but i swear this is just the craziest thing on earth!

Chef at work! Swedish meatballs!

I don't know how but the Swedes managed to steal the Mexican Flag home! Haha..

Carla, me and Alba. One fine day while we were walking back home from school, Alba came up to us and asked if we spoke mandarin. After that, we exchanged numbers, email and msn and ta-da, we became friends! What can i say, the mexicans are extremely friendly and approachable!

The 2 lovers! (As always.. hee..)

One group photo before we head over to the French party!!

Guess where we took this photo?! Arturo's car and there were 11 of us in there! Haha..

When we finally arrived at the French party, we were all disappointed. Firstly, we had to pay 50 pesos for a night of unlimited beer and secondly, the party really didn't look or sound like a party! There weren't any music and i could count the number of people with my fingers there. The best part? A french guy greeted us, stared into the house for a while and left with his friends to the Finnish party! How do we convince ourselves to go in and have fun when the french guy doesn't even want to go in?! Lol.. And so we packed ourselves back into Arturo's car (this time in different positions.. but it was still packed and squeezy..) and left for the Finnish party. So no pictures for the French party cos we only stood outside the house, procrastinating on whether we wanna go in.. haha..

The Finnish party wasn't that much of a let-down. There were the usual loud music, booze and crowded rooms. I didn't know a lot of people there so we just started mingling around with people. Everyone just stood around, talking, drinking and smoking.. No pictures were taken too.. Sobs.. After a while, we finally left for the final fiesta of the night - salsa party in Bar-rio!!

I swear this is the most random thing i've ever done. We were on our way to Bar-rio from the Finnish party and were trying to get a cab along the road near S-mart (supermarket). All of a sudden, Rogie and Sab came along with a trolley each. The next thing i knew, Carla was climbing onto the trolley that Sab had and I was climbing onto the other one. Nyan? Haha.. he was nice enough to help us take a photo before climbing onto the trolley that Vanessa had.. No.. he wasn't bullying her by making her push, just that Vanessa doesn't want to risk falling off the trolley.. haha.. So once all of us are seated on the trolley, off we went with the trolleys! Racing each other round and round in the carpark late at night. When we are finally satisfied with the cheap trill we got, we went off to find a cab to Bar-rio.. Haha..

Marianne, me and the 2 gers from Finland in Bar-rio.. I'm so sorry but i really can't remember their names.. it's really kinda hard to remember them sometimes.. haha.. but these 2 gers are really nice people!

That's the end of the 4 fiesta night! Stay tuned for the next post on our Safari trip! Hee.. Till then.. Adios!

Yvonne

Chinese New Year!!

2008-02-14T22:19:00.000-08:00

Hola People! Haha.. if u peeps realize, i most of the blog entries are done by Nyan cos i've been too lazy all the time.. lol.. so i decided that i had to do this entry! SO.. over the last few weeks, we had a scandinavian party which turned out to be a scandal-vanian party, travelled all the way to Veracruz for Mexico's biggest carnaval ever and had a Chinese New Year Party at our cozy little flat!

Left to right (Front) Nyan and Andrew, (Back) Robert and Andreas doing the submarine. After that, I heard Andreas making a comment that Nyan was the craziest Singaporean he's met. Andrew rushed to the bathroom after that. I think he vomitted. Lol..

Mette and her famous strawberry daiquiri! It's really nice!

Group photo before setting off to fiesta in La Cabana!

At the entrance of La Cabana! We get vodka shots before going in. Those blue bottles u see.. they are the vodka bottles! Aren't they beautiful?! Haha..

Smile for the photo!

Sighhhhh.... sometimes, i really wonder if my bf is a bisexual. He just kisses all the guys when after he drinks! Hmm.. actually, he kisses and hugs them sometimes when he isn't drunk too.. haha.. Oh well.. Patrick seems really happy too! Lol..

The most scandalous award for the night goes to my flatmate, Carla and Holgar from Germany!

Vanessa from NTU! Other than Nyan, she's the person i bitch to most of the time! She's just so laid back all the time! Nyan says it's the NTU culture.. haha..

Lisa from Sweden! She was drunk even before she got to La Cabana and when we left, she was so drunk that she accidentally kissed Nyan on the cheek! Oh! She's the girl who got attacked by the deer in school during the 1st week!

Nyan and Carla.. Nyan says she's the female version of him! Haha.. She told us that she wants to go to Singapore in future once but when i told her Nyan is the only crazy Singaporean and that the rest are normal, she decided that she shouldn't go there anymore.. Haha..

Siv and me! As u can see.. she's already drunk.. haha..

So sorry to say that Veracruz's photos will not be up yet cos we still have some photos in our Swedish friend's camera. But no worries, we will be uploading them once we get it from them and then u guys can have a glimpse of their most happening carnaval! At the same time, we will probably tell u guys a bit more about what exactly happened there! Haha..

As Chinese New Year approached, i was getting increasingly homesick. I miss my mum really badly and it got worse after i called her to send everyone my greetings. Apparently, i wasn't the only one feeling this way and so we decided to invite all the chinese over to our place for steamboat! Before i knew it, there were 25 people in our invite list and i swear our small little flat can never accomodate everyone to have a proper Singaporean CNY steamboat. So we had to forewarn everyone that they most probably have to stand around and eat.. haha.. This is my 1st time using.

Thanks to Nyan's creativity, we managed to transform our our dustbin into a bucket for beers on Chinese New Year. Of cos, i must not forget to mention that Carla helped us to wash it!

Preparing the food for steamboat! Making beef meatballs cos we couldn't find minced pork in Wal-mart the night before..

I've never cooked so much fried rice before in my life! But i'm really glad that everyone liked it and everything was gone within 2 hrs of the party!

The amount of steamboat food we had for close to 30 people!

Chicken by Vanessa! Not really sure how she does it but it tasted really nice! =)

Our psychology project mate - Emilie!

Me hard at work!

On the extreme left is Sam from Australia, Sydney! Me and Nyan both agree that she reminds us of Yn Ay.. haha.. Anyway, she just turned 21 a few days ago!

Me and Marcela - Arturo's gf!

Nyan and the 3 Hong Kong girls

The Quest for the Magic Peyote

2008-01-31T22:22:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-01-21T19:12:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-11T05:54:00.000-08:00

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...

2008-01-09T05:43:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-01-07T02:09:00.000-08:00

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