el crispito

June 19, 2008

Providence

Power Plant at Night, Providence

We visited Providence, Rhode Island, the capital of "the biggest little state in the union." Our friend Brett found it "cute" and even "cutesey" at points. I suppose in contrast to Los Angeles, it could be so considered.

I thought it had that cool college town feel that many places do; both Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design are located there, right next to each other, in fact. We stopped to see the RISD Museum, which I suspected would have a lot of design-oriented stuff. They did have that, but they also had a bunch of more traditional art such as ancient statuary and European paintings.

The RISD Museum, Providence

That museum is on Benefit Street, which is an old historic street with lots of old houses. Shawn insists that I put in a picture of one of them, so as to give all you dear readers a sample of the old crap that one can see there.

Aston House (built 1790), Providence

In contrast to several other college towns, the college angle doesn't seem to be overdone in Providence. You do not have a lot of ratty bars that cater to the drunken carousing of students, nor numerous mid-quality fast food outlets that pass off sandwiches that are merely overpriced as "gourmet." It might be that this is because Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design are both top-notch schools, or it might be that the city's raison d'être is not just the schools. In any case, it is a very beautiful place with some very interesting offerings.

I wanted to specifically note a place called The Meeting Street Café (220 Meeting Street), because it was incredible. They are more-or-less a deli, but not of your specifically Jewish variety. They have soups and sandwiches, as well as some other entrees and desserts. Everything we had there was really tasty, and incredibly huge. Unfortunately, I was so overwhelmed with the eating experience there, I didn't get any photos.

Apart from the cutsey old homes, there are some killer buildings in the downtown. Among them are...

The Bank of America Building, Providence

...and...

Court House, Providence

...and...

Citizen's Bank/Apartments, Providence

...and...

Some Random Building, Providence

We also had some good Italian food in Federal Hill, and went to a pretty cool gay bar named "Mirabar."

I'd tell you about our shocking hotel fire alarm experience (5:30 am!), but I don't have time now. That'll probably be related in a summary of our hotel experiences in a later posting.

Posted by crispy at 09:09 AM | Comments (2)

June 13, 2008

A Look at Boston

Shawn in Chinatown, Boston

The above shot was taken in Chinatown, as was this one of a bilingual Dunkin Donuts sign.

Dunkin Donuts in Chinatown, Boston

The Theatre District is next to Chinatown, and one gets the "border effect" of sorts at the Wang Theater.

Wang Theater, Boston

Let's just say that I was greatly disappointed with that place. Not so with the Museum of Fine Arts.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

They have a great Asian section, as well as an incomparable section of portraits of several early Americans.

Portrait of Paul Revere, MFA

They have a lot of pre-American stuff too, like the British lion on top of the Old State House, seen below.

Lion, Old State House

This is one part of the Potato Famine Monument, which shows an Irish immigrant woman looking back to the Old Country.

Potato Famine Monument, Boston

This building has fire escapes that are all spiral staircases.

Buildings with spiral fire escapes, Financial District

These are homes in the South End.

Residences, South End

These are in the Union Park area of South End.

Residences near Union Park, South End

These last two were not taken in Boston itself, but rather in Milford, an outlying town where Shawn and I spent the night. This first one was such an oddity that I had to include it. I figured readers (apart from those who live in Oregon) have not seen full-serve gas for a long time. It was roughly the same price (or cheaper) than the self-serve gas places in neighboring towns.

Full-Serve Gas, Milford

And the former smoker in me has to gasp at these cigarette prices. Note that these are on sale.

Cigarette Sale, Milford

Posted by crispy at 09:28 AM | Comments (3)

June 12, 2008

Specialists Admitted in Rear

General Hooker Entrance

It's even funnier because it's an entrance for the State House.

Posted by crispy at 06:03 PM | Comments (1)

June 08, 2008

The Photograph That Helped al-Qaeda

MBTA Advisory, Riverside Station

I was snapping this very photo of a sign at a train station for a collage I'm going to make once we return to Mexico of signs telling of all the things Americans are not permitted to do when I heard a voice asking, "May I help you?"

"Oh!" I exclaimed, having not seen him walking over. "I'm just taking a picture of the sign."

"You're not supposed to take any pictures of the equipment," he told me.

"No photos of any equipment?" I asked, not exactly sure how a sign was equipment.

"No," he replied with a sigh, indicating a mild annoyance.

I suspected I knew the reason for this, despite its being utterly ridiculous. Recently, I have been stopped from taking any number of seemingly innoccuous photographs like the one above.

The first time we ever ran into the phenomenon, we were in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Shawn was going around to see the locations used in the opening credits of one of his favorite shows of all time, The Mary Tyler Moore Show - the house where she supposedly lived, the park where she walked, the street where she tossed her hat in the air. When attempting to take a photograph of the escalator she rode in the Nicollet Mall, he was stopped by a private guard that wouldn't allow him to take a picture "for security reasons." At that time, it actually took us a while to figure out how a photograph of an escalator could be a threat to anyone's security, but by now, we've heard it as often as we've heard the one about putting your liquids in three-ounce bottles in a clear Ziploc® bag in your carry-on luggage.

All the same, I like to hear them say it. I put the camera down and asked him.

"Why is that?"

He looked at me for a moment with a corner of his mouth raised and issued a brief snort, and replied simply, "9-11." He stopped just short of following that with, "...smart-ass."

I thought I'd try to lighten the mood a little, so I asked him about what caused us to notice the sign in the first place: to reach the exit of the station, one has no choice to cross the tracks (visible at the lower left) about five feet from the location of the sign telling riders it is FORBIDDEN. I asked him how one was to get out of the station if they adhere to the mandate of the sign.

He was not amused.

"You exit down there, in the yellow zone," he said, pointing to a strip painted on the ground.

It was late. He didn't need some joker taunting him about the rules; people probably hassle him about the contradictory signage on a daily basis, each one thinking they're the genius that was the first to notice it. I abandoned my hopeless mission to turn his frown upside down and exited the station as he had indicated.

In my defense though, I wouldn't have joked with him about it if I could have just taken a photo of the sign. In his defense, he seemed, by his manner and tone of voice, to realize that it was ridiculous that I couldn't take a picture of signage at the station.

It made me wonder exactly how long people will continue to actually enforce such ridiculous knee-jerk prohibitions in the United States that were pushed on them in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. I mean, honestly. Even if I took a photograph of the entire station, it's a train stop in a suburban town in Massachusetts. It's unlikely to be a high-priority target on even the most unambitious terrorist's list. I would be open to consideration of the idea that high-resolution photographs of more serious targets (Grand Central Station, airport terminals, Fort Knox) might be of aid to those wishing to do harm to the United States and its citizens, but one would be an idiot to think that a tourist's snapshot taken in a train station, especially one that simply shows what a sign says, is helping terrorists.

I know, it's easier to just write a blanket law that uses language like "transportation facility" and "equipment" than to exhaustively list which manifestations of those things are subject to a law and which are excused from it. I understand that such vague terminology has certain advantages to legislators writing the laws and those who enforce it. Yet when will the old chestnut of selective enforcement of such laws start to kick in and give people a little relief from the martial law effect in the United States?

Even the guy that told me to stop taking photographs seemed to find it ridiculous, but he had to do his job. Will life in the United States be like this for the rest of my life?

Posted by crispy at 10:59 PM | Comments (8)

June 01, 2008

Toronto: What I Liked

CN Tower, Toronto

Two and a half days in Toronto is not much time. It is not enough time to experience a decent sample of what the city has to offer, let alone to get a good feeling of what the city is really like.

Given that our stay at the Sheraton Centre Toronto was the worst part of our trip (I won't go into that here; let's just say that the $18 veggie burger was not the only rip off there), I wanted to talk about some of the great things I liked about Toronto.

View from the CN Tower, Toronto

Toronto is a huge city. It is big not only in population and area, but in vertical space as well. Unlike Shawn, I am not a huge fan of high views, so I let him go on his own to the CN Tower to get his fix. The pictures he took there show how massive the city is, in terms of big, tall buildings. I have yet to reach New York City, but Toronto is in many ways how I picture it: skyscrapers cluttered together perilously close and teeming with surging masses of people betweent them.

View from the CN Tower, Toronto

I also liked that the people here are of all different types. Half of the population here is foreign-born. We had a cab driver from Kenya that told us about being thrown into jail in the United States at a border crossing and being held for six hours in a crowded cell just because the country where he was born (but hasn't lived for more than 20 years) is on "the list." We heard all kinds of different languages on the radio here, many that I couldn't identify, and of course, the ubiquitous French.

Multilingual Signage, Royal Ontario Museum

I love Mexican food. I have found a number of places in Guadalajara that have tasty delights that I miss already, having been on the road for a couple of weeks. Yet the ethnic diversity results in a great diversity of ethnic restaurants, the likes of which I'm not even sure they have in Mexico City. We didn't eat there, but yesterday we passed an Eritrian restaurant. We were so taken with Full Moon Vegetarian Restaurant (638 Dundas Street West, 416/203-1210), a place that serves a huge selection of all-vegetarian Chinese dishes, that we ate there twice. We also had great Indian and Thai food too.

Full Moon Vegetarian Restaurant

This was a sauteed eggplant with vegetarian ham, which had a beautiful palette of rich colors.

Eggplant with Vegetarian Ham, Full Moon restuarnat

Big cities always have the best graffiti, and Toronto has some of the best I've seen in a while. Moreover, one doesn't tend to see all that many boring, crappy tags, but when there is graffiti, it's almost always the elaborate kind that demands real artistic talent.

Graffiti, Toronto

I don't like to see Shawn in pain, but this was one of the funniest unexpected things I saw on the trip. I looked up from taking that last shot and saw him bent over and rubbing his back next to this sign. I quickly snapped another shot just because the symmetry was so funny.

Shawn In jured, Toronto

Posted by crispy at 11:45 PM | Comments (3)

May 22, 2008

Chicago: Part One

Chicago

Given my previous apprehensions about returning to the United States, it was fitting that we got our first taste of just what I was talking about before we even left Mexico.

To get to Chicago from Guadalajara, we had to go through Mexico City. Getting from Guadalajara to Mexico City was uneventful enough. We took off, we were in the air for about 50 minutes, we landed and we walked for what seemed like 5 miles to get from our domestic arrival gate to our international departure gate. We waited for the announced boarding time, and at about five minutes before, the doors to the jet bridge opened and out marched a small army of private security personnel, each armed with a folding table and pair of rubber gloves. In near-perfect synchronization they set up the tables and donned the gloves, while an airline employee rigged the nylon-belted posts around them to restrict entry to one central point.

Shawn and I were confused, since we'd not left the secured area of the airport while switching planes, and we'd already had to go through an additional x-ray of our bags when we crossed from the national terminal to the international one. The gate attendant made the call for the boarding of the flight and people started lining up. We were about to have our carry-on baggage inspected for a third time.

Shawn and I couldn't believe it, and we were discussing amongst ourselves what the possible cause could be for having to go through this yet another time. None of the other passengers boarding flights in our area - one to Frankfurt, another to Buenos Aires - had been subjected to this special treatment. We were trying to figure out why we were so lucky when a voice behind us spoke up in English.

"It's because we're flying into the United States," he explained. "The US requires an extra security check for foreign flights going into the country now."

"What?" I asked. "We've already been through two other checks already, one just 500 meters back. Is this some new thing? We haven't flown into the US for a little over a year, but they didn't make us do this last time."

"Yeah, it's getting worse there every day," he said.

They also made us throw away any bottled water we had before boarding the plane.

We landed at around 1 am at O'Hare airport in Chicago. Clearing immigration and customs was a breeze, and then we got to spend the next four and a half hours in the airport, waiting until the shuttle service started running so we could get downtown and drop off our bags at our hotel.

At the airport, there were two places open. One had such American delights as veggie burgers, onion rings and root beer, all things we can get in Guadalajara but they're hard to find and expensive. Well, scratch that. They cost about as much after being specially trucked in to Mexico as they do here, what with the relatively high prices here.

The other place advertised having drinks like espresso and latte, but it turns out they only offer brewed coffee at night. One has to wait until 6 am to get expresso or latte. They also had a range of nine different sandwiches, including stuff it seemed strange to advertise the way they did, like "corned beef on white." One of these sandwiches was a veggie wrap, and it was the only item of the nine offered that one couldn't get between 10 pm and 6 am, continuing the idea that seems to be a worldwide misconception: vegetarians do not eat after sundown.

It was also the first example reinforcing one of the recurring themes we always notice about the United States when we arrive: it's the land of nitpicky little rules. No loitering. No skateboarding. No smoking within 50 feet of the entrance. No bills bigger than $20. No music past 9 o'clock. No food or drink. No substitutions. No minors. No shirt. No shoes. No service.

Eventually we were able to get a shuttle from the airport to hotel, but since we had nine hours to go before we could actually check in, we left our bags and went out to kill some time in the city. We went first to the Tempo Café (6 E. Chestnut Street), a 24-hour diner-style place with excellent food where we got omelettes. We went to get more coffee at a Starbucks, then did some browsing and buying at a Border's.

We took a cab to Chinatown, where Shawn took a few pictures and we went to a Vietnamese restaurant for some spring rolls. They normally had meat in them, but they were happy to make them vegetarian on our request. The only problem being that, when they arived, they were nothing but lettuce and a sprig of cilantro rolled up in a sheet of rice wrapper. It was still only noon, and we had three hours to kill, but I was starting to hallucinate from being up so long. We walked to the train and took it downtown, where we walked a few blocks and stopped at another Starbucks for more coffee and to pass another hour.

We were really dragging on the walk back to the hotel. We crossed Michigan Avenue, and what seemed to be a couple of blocks that took us about 10 minutes to travel when we were going in the other direction in the morning, seemed to be several miles that took forever to traverse in the afternoon. At last we arrived at the W Chicago - Lakeshore and checked in. We had made a special request on our reservation - that they secure a copy of the Wallpaper City Guide for Chicago in advance and give it to us at check-in. Sure enough, they'd done it.

We took a nap and showered before going down to dinner, where we were reminded of one of the things we miss about the United States while living in Mexico: the great diversity of great ethnic foods available here. At the Mediterranean-style restaurant in the hotel, they are running a special series of dishes from various Asian regions. We had a vegetarian pinkabet, a dish popular in the Philippines, and ordered some smaller plates: spanikopita, hummus and mixed olives. I got a couple of Manhattans, made with Maker's Mark, a label we just can't get in Mexico, where the only non-Scotch whiskies places ever seem to have are Jack Daniels and Jim Beam. I'm not sure which was more intoxicating, the bourbon or the vast selection made possible by American-style capitalism.

Still reeling from the conflict of the love-hate relationship I have with the land of my birth, I retired to a matress that was 10 times softer than any I've ever had a Mexican hotel, paying 10 times more than I would for a hotel room there. I switched on The Daily Show, where the brilliant Jon Stewart was somehow able to make me laugh my ass off over Americans talking about how they won't vote for Barak Obama because he's not white, because they have somehow been convinced that he is a Muslim, and because he's "Hussein."

One day down. Sixty more to go.

Posted by crispy at 11:59 PM | Comments (1)

April 30, 2008

Querétaro: Part Three

Paper Head Guy, Querétaro

I wanted to see the place where Emperor Maximilian was executed, El Cerro de las Campanas, or "The Hill of the Bells." We set out on foot this morning before noon to check it out.

It was already hot, and I was in semi-dressy clothes. At first, it wasn't so bad. Walking down Avenida Hidalgo, I saw a bunch of stuff that struck me as funny or cool, and I was able to snap some photos of them.

Lavandería/Tintorería Veronica, Querétaro

I don't understand the one below. It's a sign for a place that sells medical implants and prosthetics, and I'm sure their products help their clients to live fuller, more satisfying lives. Yet I suspect most of them do not go on to be communications directors on the crew of an open-wheel, off-road racing team.

Adventures in Prosthetics, Querétaro

I mean, where did they get this photo? Did they make it themselves? It looks like a poster for a Hollywood summer blockbuster about a racer that loses an arm in a terrible accident but whose courage allows him to take his former teammate to the championships as the tough but caring crew chief that inspires everyone that gets to know him.

A reward is being offered for this lost dog.

Perrito Perdido, Querétaro

Why, I'm not exactly sure. It looks like Darth Poodle to me, but then again, I'm not a big dog fan.

Is it just me, or does this...

I AM A MONEDA!, Querétaro

...remind anyone else of Don Hertzfeldt's "Rejected"?

Soon enough though, we started having to go uphill to get to the summit, and site of the historic stuff I wanted to see. This was annoying because I was a little dressed up, and I was sweating like a pig the whole way. As we got nearer and nearer to the top of the hill, Shawn noticed that all the gates to the park were closed. He started to worry that one had to go in through one specific gate to get in the park, but there were no signs whatsoever anywhere to direct one to the proper entrance. The gates that were closed didn't even have a sign telling one which gate to go to.

This isn't entirely unusual in Mexico, but one would think that, at one of the biggest tourist attractions in the city, they'd have signs telling you where to go to buy your ticket to get in. Of course, our friends Larry and Joseph would argue that this is where you make your first mistake, presuming that people think about such things here.

We finally got to the top, and found that we were in a big empty parking lot, unable to get in through the fence that encircles the whole park. Luckily, Shawn spotted a gate that was ajar, although it said (in Spanish), "EMPLOYEE ENTRANCE ONLY!" They can't afford the time or expense to put a sign up telling you where to get in, but they can somehow manage one to tell you to keep out. I was annoyed, hot and sweaty by this point, so I squeezed in through the gate after Shawn. I wasn't about to go back down the hill just so that I could go back up to get to the proper gate.

View from El Cerro de las Campanas, Querétaro

While climbing the hill, I was quickly losing interest in the park, cursing our even thinking of going there. Yet once inside, I was glad to have made the effort, because it was quite verdant and beautiful.

Shawn at El Cerro de las Campanas, Querétaro

There is a great, enormous statue of Benito Juárez in the park, which is kind of funny because he was a pretty short man.

Monument to Benito Juárez, Querétaro

Shawn commented that it looked so severe as to seem Russian.

Monument to Benito Juárez, Querétaro

You can't really tell in the above photo as resized for the blog, but Shawn's giving old Juárez the Lynndie England.

The Lynndie England, Querétaro

Emperor Maximilian was Austrian, and had been appointed as Emperor of Mexico by Napoleon during a period when France had conquered Mexico. His reign was brief though, as Juárez and the resistance movement overthrew the monarchy and had Maximilian executed. The family of Maximilian sponsored the building of a chapel to commemorate the re-establishing of diplomatic relations between Austria-Hungary and Mexico in 1900.

Chapel at El Cerro de las Campanas, Querétaro

It is a nice little chapel, but it does not seem like people are allowed to enter, but they do have the doors open so you can see inside. When we arrived, a bunch of school kids on a field trip were all bunched up at the entrance checking it out.

Chapel at El Cerro de las Campanas, Querétaro

There's also a fountain that is dedicated to children, their learning, and being the future. Yada, yada, yada.

Child Reading Sculpture at El Cerro de las Campanas, Querétaro

We didn't notice until posting the picture, but it looks like the kid in the above sculpture is missing a foot. Maybe he needs to visit the prosthetics store and make something of himself, instead of just moping around reading all the time!

We exited the park, buying the entrance tickets as we left. I suspect they thought we were crazy, but I didn't want to explain our whole gate-crashing earlier. We hailed a cab and went to Harry's, a New Orleans-style restaurant and oyster bar in the Plaza Constitución.

Shawn at Harry's

Harry's was a pretty nice place, and they had a handful of things on the menu that we could eat as ovo-lacto vegetarians. Meat-eating fans of Cajun and Creole food would probably enjoy it even more.

I was delighted to discover that they had pecan pie listed as a dessert on the menu, but I was disappointed to find that it was more like a Mexican pay de nuez than a southern US style pecan pie. Instead of having a layer of glazed pecans over that delicious sugary, gooey filling, it was more or less all crushed up nuts in a crust. Not awful, but not at all what I was expecting (and craving).

Harry's of Querétaro

It's in the same building as the Gran Hotel, and seems to be the most happening night spot in the Centro Histórico. We went back later at night, around midnight, to have a nightcap and celebrate our last night in town, but there wasn't a free table in the whole place.

Yet before all that, still in the afternoon, we walked over to try and hang out for a while in the Alameda Hidalgo, a huge park with lots of trees and grassy areas. We had driven by it last night, and it looked beautiful. Yet when we got there, we found it closed. There were maintenance people inside, but all the gates were locked up tight.

Alameda Hidalgo, Querétaro

Again, there were no signs anywhere telling visitors why the park was closed, or when it would be open.

Alameda Hidalgo, Querétaro

We suspected that, since they had maintenance crews inside doing things like watering areas of the grass and sweeping the walkways, they do open it up at some point.

Alameda Hidalgo, Querétaro

Yet since we had limited time in town, we didn't stick around to find out. We took photos through the fence and then decided to get our shoes shined. We asked the shoeshine guy what the deal was with the Alameda being closed and he explained something about how it actually is open at certain times, but he was old and a bit mumbly, so we didn't fully understand his answer. We think it's open on most days but only after a certain time. If visiting Querétaro, and if you want to visit the Alameda, be sure to inquire as to when it is open, or you may be very disappointed when you show up and can't get in.

Alameda Hidalgo, Querétaro

We hoofed it back to the center and walked up Anador Libertad, a very pretty street that is now a pedestrian walkway, to reach the Plaza de Armas.

Anador Libertad, Querétaro

Shawn went about taking photos of the plaza while I got off my feet in a seat off to the side of the plaza.

Plaza de Armas, Querétaro

We had coffee at Gloria Jean's Coffees, where the staff was exceptionally friendly.

Plaza de Armas, Querétaro

As we were leaving, Shawn spotted a restaurant next to the coffee place that said, 'COCINA HINDÚ' - an Indian restaurant! That's our favorite national/regional food, so we were thrilled to find such a place. They were obviously not open, as they had all their tables and chairs stacked outside, and were doing some remodeling inside. Shawn went in and asked if they would be open for dinner, and a man told him, yes, at 8 pm.

Plaza de Armas, Querétaro

We were excited and immediately decided to return for an Indian feast that night for our final dinner in Querétaro.

Plaza de Armas, Querétaro

As we left the plaza, we were surrounded by a bunch of school kids who wanted to interview us in English for a school project. They had some 20 questions about genetically-modified foods. It was incredibly hard stuff for non-native speakers, but they did a pretty good job.

We walked back to our hotel and relaxed for a while in the air conditioning. Eventually we showered (again), shaved (again), ironed our clothes and went out for our Indian delights. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the restaurant, the furniture that had been piled up outside was piled up inside. We entered and a bunch of people were all sitting around talking. We asked if they were open, and they said that they were opening on Friday. I was a bit miffed. I said that someone there had earlier told Shawn that they would be open at 8 pm for dinner, and the woman that seemed to be an owner apologized to us. We were really bummed because we were really looking forward to Indian food. It's very hard to find it here in Mexico.

It was nice however, to actually get an apology for being misinformed by someone on their staff. That usually doesn't happen. Normally you get a shrug and a laugh, and nothing more. Because people think it's better to tell you what you want to hear rather than to tell you something that will disappoint you, people lie to you all the time here, and nobody thinks there is anything wrong with that.

While we didn't get the chance to eat at the place because we're leaving Thursday afternoon to return to Guadalajara, I submit to you the information on the place in case you are going to Querétaro and would like to try it out. The place is called "bhaji" and is located at Pasteur Sur #8, in the Plaza de Armas. Their phone number is (442) 224-2814.

We ended up taking a chance on an Italian place called Trastevere (16 de Septiembre #28; 212-1472) and were positively surprised. Instead of the exact same boring three or four vegetarian dishes that they offer at seemingly all the Italian restaurants in Mexico, this place had interesting dishes that we have never seen anywhere else in the country. We had a cheese fondue with artichokes and grilled tomatoes that was out of this world, followed by a spinach and cheese ravioli in pecan white sauce for Shawn and a spinach lasagne for me. The service was excellent and the atmosphere quite nice: an open courtyard adorned with several interesting paintings. After our Indian disappointment, it was an absolutely delightful end to the evening.

Tomorrow we head back to Guadalajara, but we have had a great time here in Querétaro. I would recommend it highly to anyone interested in a good mixture of the historic charm and modern 'conveniences.'

I just wish they would get a little better about their signage telling visitors details like where the entrances are and when places are open so one doesn't end up wasting a lot of time.

Posted by crispy at 11:31 PM | Comments (2)

April 29, 2008

Victoria Soda

Victoria Soda, from San Juan del Río

I am delighted to have discovered yet another Mexican-made soda that has somehow thus far survived the Coke®/Pepsi® holocaust that has killed off nearly all the independent soft drink manufacturers of Mexico: Victoria!

It is manufactured about 32 miles southeast of Santiago de Querétaro in San Juan del Río, Querétaro, the second largest city in the state. It is also imported to the United States by The Victoria Beverage Company, Inc., Conroe, Texas.

I saw it at the Oxxo, and selected the unusual red currant flavor over the more typical lime, apple, sangria, and orange. At first, I thought it was a little funny tasting, but the more I drink, the more I like it. It seems a little weak on flavor, but it's certainly not weak on sweet.

I was unaware of the Spanish word for red currant, which appears to be grosella.

Refresco Victoria, de San Juan del Río

Black currant is grosella negra.

Posted by crispy at 09:32 PM | Comments (3)

Querétaro: Part Two

Shawn reads The News at the Museo de Arte, Querétaro

Today we woke up early to make use of the continental breakfast at the hotel. It was, as I suspected, nothing to write home about. In fact, it was not anything worth writing about in the blog, apart from the fact that it forced us to get up early, and that let us get a pretty early start on the day.

Before noon, we got the the Museo de Arte de Querétaro, which normally charges MXN $30 per person for admission, but it is free every Tuesday. We paid the additional MXN $15 to be permitted to take photos in the courtyard.

Porticos, Museo de Arte, Querétaro

They currently have an exhibit of work by contemporary Mexican painter, Carlos García de la Nuez there, and we both really enjoyed it. He uses mixed media to cover huge (10' x 10'?) canvases, but unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos of those works.

I can show you some of the details of the architecture though.

Inside the Museo de Arte, Querétaro

All the faces of lining the courtyard are different; they do not repeat.

Inside the Museo de Arte, Querétaro

However, they all terminate at the bottom in this single-leg and foot ornamentation.

Inside the Museo de Arte, Querétaro

We then moved on to the Museo Regional de Querétaro. The admission there is normally MXN $30, but it was free today because it was Tuesday. Again, we paid the few pesos extra to be allowed to take photographs inside the museum.

Hallway, Museo Regional de Querétaro

I wanted to go there because they supposedly have the table on which the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed. Unfortunately, we were not able to find it anywhere in the museum, and it looked like a huge section had been closed off. We did find the desk where the orders to execute Emperor Maximilian were signed.

Poor Max Was Bound to Die

Tonight, we are hoping to go out to either Bangkok Mex Thai, or Chino Lung Xing
 (Blvd. Bernardo Quintana 110). The former only has photographs of the food items online, no real menu. If it turns out they do not offer any vegetarian food, we will try to get to Lung Xing, because we've read online that they have vegetable dishes with tofu. I'm not holding my breath in either case.

Posted by crispy at 02:38 PM | Comments (2)

April 28, 2008

Querétaro: Part One

Chris and Shawn at the Hotel Quinta Santiago, Querétaro

The ride from Guadalajara on the bus was pleasant enough. We both slept off and on for most of it. The films were Rush Hour 3 and Monsters, Inc. The former was subtitled yet still unwatchable, while the latter was dubbed, much to my annoyance, for previously mentioned reasons.

Our cab from the bus station to the Hotel Quinta Santiago cost us MXN $37 (about USD $3.54) and took about 20 minutes. We were delighted to find that the hotel room was huge and quite comfortable. We took a few moments to figure out where we wanted to go with the help of a handy free map they had in the lobby, and then we struck out to get lunch and a feel for the area.

Shawn Surveillance, Querétaro

In mere summaries and snapshots, I fear that one Mexican colonial town comes across as identical to all the others. It is hard to convey the subtle differences that exist between each of them with a hastily put together collection of photos with brief notations. Querétaro seems to me like a composite of Morelia and Guanajuato. Like Morelia, the public areas around the center are spacious, yet like Guanajuato, they seem somehow more gussied up for tourist consumption.

There are the requisite plazas, with beautifully manicured trees and walkways.

Jardín Guerrero, Querétaro

Yet just a few blocks off of these, one quickly comes to the Mexican equivalent of row houses along old cobblestone streets.

Street Scene, Querétaro

Doors range from the simple to the ornate, but there is always an artistic touch.

Door, Querétaro

I especially liked this one...

Door, Querétaro

...because of the stone birds above the doorway.

Detail of Door, Querétaro

There are the statues, like this one dedicated to Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, aka La Corregidora, a conspirator in the Mexican struggle for independence against Spain.

Monument to La Corregidora, Querétaro

She is elevated on a tall pedestal, flanked by eagles resting on cannons that are draped in what look to be flags.

While looking upon this monument, Shawn made the observation that there are so many women throughout history that played crucial roles in freeing their societies, only to have their gender given the shaft by the male-dominated governments that they helped to establish.

Monument to La Corregidora, Querétaro

One occasionally runs across something that just seems odd. I sometimes find out after-the-fact that these things seem funny because I don't understand what is actually being said or I do not know some secondary meaning for a term. This tends to give Mexican readers of my blog no end of fun in ribbing me.

In this case, I understand the word la moraleja to mean "the moral," as in "the moral of the story is..."

La Moraleja Parking, Querétaro

Maybe one of my Mexican readers can set me straight as to why this isn't as odd as it would seem to someone not in the know.

Many times, the things I remember about a specific city are images that are not intended to be artistic, but they achieve a certain accidental beauty that stays with me even after I've forgotten which statues of whom are in which parks in whatever cities. These are things that never seem to come across properly in blog entries or flickr albums.

A Mona Lisa for our times, Querétaro

This is a wall that was originally painted a certain shade of yellow, but has subsequently acquired a patchwork of other shades as graffiti and cracks were painted over through the years.

Yellow Mural, Querétaro

Running the length of half the block, this wall is an unintentional mural of chromatic minimalism and abstract expressionism, akin to that of Josef Albers...

Yellow Mural, Querétaro

...or Mark Rothko.

Yellow Mural, Querétaro

Sometimes it is just a face in a crowd that strikes me, and the moment is horribly poignant because I know, unlike all the tourist attractions that I can visit time and time again on return trips to any given city, I will probably never have the chance to see it again.

Cutie, Querétaro

Sure, the haircut, the shoes, or (as in this case) the pants might make me laugh a bit.

Cutie, Querétaro

Yet I cherish these snapshots among all those of the monuments, buildings and landscapes that I take in our travels across the country, because the people are the most beautiful part of Mexico.

Posted by crispy at 10:54 PM | Comments (2)

March 01, 2008

Graffiti: Calle Morelos

Graffiti on Calle Morelos, just west of Avenida Chapultepec

Graffiti on Calle Morelos, just west of Avenida Chapultepec

Graffiti on Calle Morelos, just west of Avenida Chapultepec

Graffiti on Calle Morelos, just west of Avenida Chapultepec

Graffiti on Calle Morelos, just west of Avenida Chapultepec

Graffiti on Calle Morelos, just west of Avenida Chapultepec

Posted by crispy at 01:56 AM | Comments (3)

January 26, 2008

Turndown Service

Results of Turndown Service, Sheraton María Ísabel

Not all hotels do it, and among those that do, there is no consistent set of things that comprise it. Often it involves leaving a chocolate or some other little token on the turned-down linens. Also common is changing out towels that the guest might have used during the day. On occasion, I've had a hotel staff member just ask if everything is working properly, if we need anything restocked in the minibar, or if there is anything else we might want before bed.

If you have never heard of turndown service before, it's not a big surprise. Not all hotels do it. In fact, not very many seem to nowadays. Shawn had never heard of it until he went to Thailand seven years ago. Nowadays we only tend to get it when we stay at Starwood properties, and even then, it's ridiculously inconsistent.

For example, in our recent stay in Mexico City, at the Sheraton María Ísabel, we got turndown service on our second night there, but not the first. Even then, it wasn't much of a service. They didn't even turn down the linens. They moved the remote control for the tv and the guide listing which channels were which to the bed, and left us a solitary foil-wrapped chocolate. This is what confuses me: they know that there are two of us in the room, so why leave us just one chocolate? Starwood hotels are not exactly what one would call economy lodging. Can't they afford one chocolate per guest, not just one per room?

Solitary Chocolate, Sheraton María Ísabel

To me, it seems like if you are going to bother with turndown service, you ought to do it right. Why go through the trouble just to do something lame like leave a chocolate that people have to fight over. At least leave a knife so the two guests can cut it into halves. If I were running a hotel, I'd offer much more interesting turndown service. Maybe like the carts they have in prisons and hospitals, I'd go around with DVDs or books people could enjoy before turning in for the night. Heck, since it's my fantasy, I'll even throw in the option to have a story read to you if you want. You could also provide a short massage for those that were so inclined. Of course, if it was a big hotel, you'd have to have a fleet of massage therapists, and even then, you'd probably want to schedule each person's at a specific time.

I have also read that some places leave an aperetif on the nightstand in their turndown service. I don't tend to like apertifs, so I'd probably offer a fifth of bourbon and, since I'd have to be living and working where folks were not so uptight about drugs, a couple of valium or vicodin, delivered by a geisha that would also give you a good-night haiku.

So if you could design your own ideal turndown service, what would it include?

Posted by crispy at 09:45 PM | Comments (1)

January 25, 2008

Mexico City By Night: Part Two

Twilight view from 10th floor of Sheraton María Ísabel, Mexico City

We switched hotels today and got a new view.

Twilight view of the Angel of Independence from 10th floor of Sheraton María Ísabel, Mexico City

Posted by crispy at 06:19 PM | Comments (1)

Mexico City By Night

Sunset view from 16th floor of the Sheraton Centro Histórico, Mexico City

Shawn and I went to PapaBeto Jazz Bistro last night, where we saw the Juan Alzate Cuarteto. They said the cover was MXN $80, but we ordered food, and it seemed that we were not charged this. Their one vegetarian entree was spaghetti with a tomato sauce with tons of mushrooms, so despite the fact that I despise mushrooms, that's what I got. After picking them out and donating them to Shawn, it turned out to be pretty tasty.

Yet it is obvious that you don't go there for the food. The space is pretty small, the color scheme hideous (maroon, pink, grey and green), and I've seen better bars on airplanes. Still, given the fact that it's the only place yet I've been to see jazz in this country where they don't use an electronic something (synthesizer in place of piano, a drum machine instead of a drummer), I was thrilled to kick back, throw down a few Jack Daniels (at around MXN $70 each), and enjoy the show.

Sunset view from 16th floor of the Sheraton Centro Histórico, Mexico City

I was pretty impressed with the piano player, Nicolas Santella. He was both cute and talented.

Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me, so I did not get any photos of him. That also kept me from snapping shots of the smorgasbord of hooker ladies lining the street we took getting back to the hotel. There was no effort being made at all to look discreet. They were clad in such stuff as white leather miniskirts, tube tops and huge cha cha heels. It was a beautiful sight to behold.

I must sign off for now, as we need to check out of the Sheraton Centro Histórico and move over to the Sheraton María Ísabel, the grand dame on the Paseo de la Reforma, which our taxi driver told us yesterday was the first five-star hotel in Mexico City. Maybe that's true.

Posted by crispy at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

January 20, 2008

Panama: Parting Thoughts

Now that we are back safe and sound in Guadalajara, I have time to post a few random thoughts about Panama that are too small or not funny enough to merit individual entries.

It should be noted that we did not venture beyond Panama City except when we went to Colón, the port city on the Atlantic side that is the destination of the Panama City Railway. I might post an entry about Colón, because it is probably the most dangerous city that I've ever been in, and it might prove helpful for those planning to take the train to know about it. We highly recommend the train trip, but the several hours that one must pass in Colón if one takes it (unless it's part of a tour package) might be enough to recommend against it. Note that it takes a lot for me to recommend not taking a train whenever possible. Colón is that bad.

Yet that experience aside, our time in Panama was limited to the captial, and there is a lot of beautiful country to visit outside the city. We prefer the amenities that cities provide, so we tend to stick to urban centers when we travel. Panama City did not disappoint. It is vibrant and exciting, rich with history and a very promising future. Shawn and I both expect it to become one of the world's premier destination cities within the next decade, and it is impossible to ignore the growing pains they are currently having along the way. They have gone from a city whose main reason to exist was to support the canal and the people servicing the canal to a city where people flock to enjoy the gambling, food, beaches, nightlife, retirement opportunities. They have not been able to grow fast enough to meet the demand, but it is not for a lack of trying.

According to our driver Roger, the Ministry of Tourism in Panama has been trying to educate service personnel on how to deal properly with foreign tourists. Unfortunately, employers do not want to allow the employees the time off to attend such training, nor do they want to pay for it, even though the Ministry of Tourism pays for half. Unfortunately, it shows in the level of service one receives at the restaurants and hotels there. Most of our complaints are about a phenomenon that we started to refer to as: This is what you want. This is what you get. You ask for one thing and you get what the service provider decides to give you.

Among our complaints about Panama are some of the following. The majority are about restaurant service.

Restaurants are often out of or do not really offer items they have on their menus, and servers do not seem to know about it.

Shawn and I had several experiences in restaurants in Panama where we would order something on menu only to be told a considerable while later that they did not have it. I believe that sometimes they had run out, but at other times, I think they just never stocked those items. As vegetarians, we order things that people never order otherwise in these meat-centric countries. It is amazing how frequently the things kitchens happen to have "just run out of" are the vegetarian items.

In one case, Shawn ordered a falafel sandwich from the menu. When it arrived, some 25 minutes later, it was a chicken sandwich. He called the waitress over to tell her, and she confirmed that he had ordered falafel. He opened it up to show her that it was chicken, and she just stared at him. We told her that we were vegetarians and could not eat pollo, and she silently picked it up and took it back to the kitchen. She returned a couple of minutes later explaining that there was no falafel; she offered no apology and no offer of anything else.

Servers that suck.

On another occasion, Shawn and I ordered the ravioli at a restaurant. The waiter came out after a while and told us that they did not have ravioli. At least he told us this before bringing us whatever the cook decided to serve us instead. He asked us if we would prefer to get spaghetti or fettucini in the sauce we had selected. Shawn asked for spaghetti and I asked for fettucini. When the food arrived, we both had spaghetti.

I would like to say here that we did have notable exceptions to this complaint, with excellent servers at Manolo's Cafe, the Four Points hotel restaurant and S'cena. However, Panama has a reputation for really bad service, and our experience generally supported that finding.

In general, Panamanians are not very friendly.

This was inconsistent, and we met a few people that were exceptionally friendly, nice and helpful. Yet on the whole, the people there do not seem very friendly. They are not mean nor rude. They just are not very friendly. It is hard to win a smile from Panamanians.

Almost any time that we would say thanks (or in most cases, "gracias"), people would not acknowledge it. Often when they did, it was with an "Okay." It seems the more educado of the people there would say the equivalent of "it is nothing," or "it is my pleasure," so I do not think that it is a cultural thing where the concept of "you're welcome" doesn't exist.

It's not cheap.

Again, there are some things that you can get pretty cheaply in Panama, but on the whole, it's not a bargain. Well, compared to traveling in Europe, it's a steal, but there are a lot of things that are as expensive in Panama as they are in the United States.

Our hotels that we stayed in ranged from USD $90 to $155 (including taxes) per night, and none of them were five-star establishments. Cushier places like the Bristol Hotel run about $300 per night. The Marriott is USD $280. Dinner out at Habibi's cost us USD $60 for two.

Shawn, as he is wont to do, looked into real estate listings to see how much propery costs in Panama. He saw many condos listed for USD $500,000, and he saw homes ranging from USD $250,000 to $750,000. Another source claims that new housing costs have doubled in the past two years, but apparently if you buy a used place, it is cheaper.

It is really hot, humid and rainy.

We went for the coolest time of year, and even so, it was constantly above 80° F (26° C) with 70% humidity. We were also there for the driest time of year, yet it rained 7 out of the 9 days we were there. I was not as bummed out about the heat as Shawn, although I was not crazy about the humidity, and the rainy aspect was a little inconvenient when we wanted to get out and about.

Despite all that, we loved our time in Panama, and hope to go back again sometime soon. Hopefully after they get a decent service ethic, but even if not, we would go back for the following.

The city is beautiful.

Panama City skyline, from Casco Viejo

It has some places that are less beautiful than others, but the skyline is magnificent and getting better all the time. Everywhere you go it's nice and verdant, with lots of beautiful, old, spreading trees and lush grass. It's right on the ocean and nestled up against mountains. Certain parts of it have architecture that looks like the Vieux Carre in New Orleans. There is no shortage of scenic beauty in Panama City, and we hear it's even better if you venture outside the city.

It is hopping.

After being in the relative snoozearium that is the second-largest city in Mexico for two years, it was THRILLING to be in a city that parties all night long. Sure, Guadalajara has clubs where you can dance to dreadfully repetitive techno or the same moldy Reggaetón hits you've been hearing everywhere for the past three years until 5 in the morning, but in Panama City, you have that plus bars and British pubs that are open late, late, late, clubs that play rock music, several chains of 24-hour restaurants and a handful of completely independent ones and casinos that never close.

It's racially diverse and the various ethnic groups are well-integrated.

Mexico seems really tolerant to us after coming from the United States, but a lot of times, I have to wonder if that is because they do not have a lot of racial diversity. That isn't to say that there has not been a lot of mixing in Mexico's past, because there has been. It's just that you do not see a lot of ethnic diversity here nowadays, at least not in Guadalajara.

In Panama City, you do. According to recent estimates, some 70% of the inhabitants are mixed Amerindian and white or mixed white and black while 14% are West Indian. Some 10% are white ('European'), and 6% are Amerindian. There is also a Chinese community of about 100,000. That might not be a big plus to a lot of people, but it is to me because I find diversity (ethnic or otherwise) to make a place more interesting.

The food is diverse.

This has a lot to do with the previous item, but the culinary side of travel is such a big thing for me that I think it deserves its own specific item. We had Italian, Chinese, Indian, Lebanese and Mexican food while we were there, and had we more time, we could have enjoyed several other national cuisines.

Of note, Panamanian food is very heavy on meat. For this reason, we didn't have anything that was specifically Panamanian, but those that eat meat would probaby dig it.

Everything is within walking distance.

Given that it is awfully hot and humid, one can get really sweaty walking around. Yet it does seem that one can walk easily from any one place to any other in town. That's not really true, but compared to the scale of some cities we've been to, it is a walkable city. One night we dined out at a great Italian place (Napoli), walked over to El Pavo Real for a few drinks, then meandered back to our hotel, stopping in a casino to lose ten bucks in a slot machine along the way. Traffic can be very bad in Panama City, and the buses are crazy. Therefore, being able to walk around to a lot of different things for an evening's entertainment is quite handy.

They have a great selection of booze.

Living in Mexico and being involved in NAFTA, you'd think that we'd be able to get the vast array of alcohol that people can access in the United States, but unfortunately, that just is not true. I have only seen Bushmill's Irish Whiskey once in this country, and that was in a hotel bar in Mexico City. In Panama, the selection is very good. It is a little slanted towards European bottles; they do not, for example, have a great variety of bourbon, but you can get some very decent gin or Scotch.

We had a very good time in Panama. I would recommend a visit there to nearly everyone I know, but I might add the caveat that it would be better to wait a few years first. They have a ways to go before they have refined their service ethic to properly deal with tourists. Even so, if you were to go tomorrow, you would be sure to find a lot to love about Panama.

Posted by crispy at 04:20 AM | Comments (2)

January 19, 2008

Esperar

Shawn Waiting for Taxi Outside Casa Cubilete, January 2008

Posted by crispy at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)

January 18, 2008

Tosca

Ticket for Performance of "Tosca," Teatro Degollado 17 February 2008

Shawn and I will be attending the performance of Tosca at the Teatro Degollado next month with Miguel Chico (the equivalent of "Jr."), an opera aficionado that lives downstairs in our building. It is a "Special Presentation" of the Orchestra Filarmónica de Jalisco, and for some reason, we were not able to buy tickets online. We had to have Charles take us down to the box office at the Teatro Degollado to buy them, but they confirmed for us that it will be a full staging of the opera (not just the music), and we were able to get pretty killer seats.

Posted by crispy at 03:30 PM | Comments (2)

December 22, 2007

¿Qué pasa, ese?

Ese laundry detergent, product of Panama

I wanted to rinse out some of my sweaty clothes in our hotel room sink, so I went to the mini super to buy some laundry detergent. When I got there and saw this box, I had to buy it.

[why this is funny]

Posted by crispy at 05:11 PM | Comments (2)

December 21, 2007

My Kind of Convenience Store

Mini-Super Fuki #2, Panama

This is the store under the Hotel del Alba building, where I bought the previously described Colombiana soda. This illustrates a situation where it might be better to use the pound sign.

Mini-Super Fuki #2, Panama

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December 20, 2007

Panama: Around the Hotel Torres de Alba

Posted by crispy at 04:09 PM | Comments (0)

Panama: On the Ground

View from the Torres de Alba, Panama City

We arrived in Panama last night, after a relatively pleasant flight on Copa Airlines.

Our one observation about Copa, having now flown on them three times, is that one should arrive at the airport about three hours before the departure of the flight, because checking in to a Copa flight seems to take a little over an hour. Their check-in desks are always understaffed, the employees tend to waste a lot of chatting amongst themselves, and when they are servicing clients, they're very slow.

The flight was pleasant enough though, and they did remember to serve us a vegetarian meal, consisting of a little dish of honeydew melon and an alfalfa sprout and tomato sandwich. Because, you know, vegetarian = rabbit.

We took a cab from the airport to our hotel, the Torres de Alba for USD $28.00. The cab driver told us that this would be the price without tip, and he knows that Americans always tip. The listing of the price in United States dollars in this and subsequent Panama entries is not for reader convenience; they not only have a currency pegged to the dollar, like many other countries. They actually use United States dollars as their national currency. As for values below a dollar, they seem to have their own coins, but they also use U.S. coins too.

View from the Torres de Alba, Panama City

The Torres de Alba thankfully has industrial-strength air conditioning, because it's hot, hot, hot here in Panama. It's not even 10 am yet, and it "feels like" 30.5°C (87°F) outside. It is located right next to the enormous Veneto Hotel and Casino, and about a block down the street from a 24-hour restaurant, and even the restaurants that close do so no earlier than 11 pm.

The Torres de Alba also has kitchens in all the rooms. The one in ours is easily four times the size of my kitchen in Guadalajara. Unfortunately, we will probably not be making many meals here in the hotel before we check-out tomorrow.

Kitchen, Torres de Alba

This city is exhillarating. It is hot, crowded, bustling and falling over itself with new growth. Whereas Buenos Aires seems much more like an older, European metropolis, Panama seems fresh and positively Pan-American. Shawn says it reminds him a lot of Miami. The joke here goes that Panama City is like Miami, except people here speak English.

Yeah, a lot of people here do speak some English, but don't be fooled. They prefer to speak Spanish, but it is surprisingly a very Caribbean form of Spanish, where the letter "S" before a consonant apparently costs extra. Our cab driver told us that there are a lot of English speakers here because they have a large number of immigrants from the English-speaking Caribbean islands. Given the sound of their Spanish, I'd guess they hae a large number of Cubans and Dominicans here too.

I've been here about twelve hours and I already love Panama. It even has one of my favorite things about Colombia...

Colombiana soda

...Colombiana soda.

Posted by crispy at 07:30 AM | Comments (1)

December 18, 2007

"This is the school I work for..."

Shawn comes home today and tells me about the administration's plan for rewarding the students for good performance. He had suggested extra recess or maybe getting to watch a movie. Instead, the geniuses came up with this killer idea.

Each teacher will get a set of flags for various subjects to put on the wall. The top student in each category will have their photo put under it. WOO HOO! What fun!

They look like this:

Award flag for "Reading Comprehension"

Award flag for "Listening"

Award flag for "Writing Skills"

...but this says it all about he school where Shawn works:

Award flag for "Spelling B"

Another funny thing about it is, they have seven teachers that are supposed to use them, but they only made five sets of flags.

Posted by crispy at 03:21 PM | Comments (4)

December 08, 2007

Megacable Blows

Digital Cable typo listing How to Blow a Billionaire

It's true. I have lost some of my love for Megacable, but I'm saving that for another post.

Instead, today we're going to talk about something they did that made me laugh. Today Shawn was looking at the digital cable guide and he saw the listing for the FX show, How to Blow a Billion...

Proper title on FX-created bumper

...but instead, it looked more like How to Blow a Billionaire. It's a little off, written as Billionarie...

not "Billionaire"

...but it's close enough that we both were shocked and amazed. Maybe that's some way for them to avoid a copyright infringement lawsuit from Vivid Video.

In any case, it's a sure-fire way to get people to tune and check it out, even if it is cheating a little.

At least they do properly label it as an 'adult' show.

How to Blow a Billionarie

Posted by crispy at 01:04 PM | Comments (1)

December 06, 2007

Shawn at Plaza Galerías

Shawn, Plaza Galerías

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December 05, 2007

Mandú

Exterior of Mandú Restaurant, Plaza Galerías

Mandu
Plaza Galerías 360
33/3673-2319

As vegetarians in the United States, Shawn and I usually found Asian restaurants to be a pretty safe bet when dining out. At best, they were among our favorite places (Taki's and Tra Ling's) and at worst, they offered the same four or five ubiquitous, boring, yet meat-free, dishes. I can't tell you how many chefs seem to think that vegetarians not only avoid meat, but also variety.

When we moved to Guadalajara and tried out a couple of Asian restaurants, we were shocked to find that they usually did not offer any vegetarian dishes at all. I do not mean that they didn't have tofu dishes. I mean they didn't even have any dishes that consisted of just vegetables. When we finally did find our little slice of heaven, they understood our plight. They said that their tapatio customers would order something like beef with broccoli and pick out all the strips of beef, leaving anything green behind to be dumped into the trash. When that restaurant closed, we felt like we'd lost the only restaurateurs in town that understood us. It was a dark day indeed.

That left us with the sushi restaurants that serve kappa maki, avocado rolls, vegetable tempura, stir-fried vegetables and vegetable fried rice, but it seems like almost all the sushi restaurants offer these five dishes and only these five dishes, with very few exceptions. We like sushi, so we do go out for it often. Yet it seems that Japanese food, and particularly the sushi side of Japanese food, is one of the few socially-acceptable ethnic foods that the people of Guadalajara will dare to eat. It is by far the Asian cuisine most represented here, with Chinese being a distant second. Then all the other contenders - Korean, Mongolian, Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysian - simply do not exist here. At least, that's what we thought.

The discovery of Mandú, through a friend of Joseph and Larry, did not drastically change the situation for us, but it did offer us a couple of new dishes that we liked and can enjoy now and again when we want vegetarian Asian food that isn't sushi. (Actually, their sushi is pretty good too, and they have a chamoy roll that emulates the pickled plum roll, ume maki.)

Sushi at Mandú

Shawn likes their bibimbap, a Korean dish that they will make for him with tofu instead of meat. Unfortunately, the tofu they use is always the salad kind that comes in vacuum-packed aseptic boxes, so the best they can do with it is to put uncooked slices on top of the dish. Still, it's rare to find tofu of any kind in a restaurant here, so he is happy to get it. Personally, I don't like fried eggs, unless they're scrambled first. On my first trip to Mandú, I ordered the bibimbap and asked for my egg scrambled, and it arrived with a fried egg diced up and sprinkled around the bowl. Not exactly what I asked for, but even if it had been, I wasn't all that crazy about it. Not that it wasn't well-prepared. It should be noted that their execution is quite good with everything I've had there. I just didn't like bibimbap all that much.

The next time I went there, I got the Thai noodles, and asked them to hold the meat. They did, and the noodles were very good. When we went last week with Joseph and Larry, I got the udon with vegetables and tofu, and it was the best thing I've had at Mandú yet. I think next time I'll get that again, but I'll not get it with the bland tofu. It would be better if it were just noodles and vegetables. They also have a dish that is breaded fried cheese on skewers, served with a chipotle sauce.

Interior of Mandú

The first time we went there, we went with Charles, and he asked to see the chef. The chef came out and Charles explained that we didn't eat beef, pork or chicken, nor even seafood. He asked if the chef could make something vegetarian, perhaps something that wasn't even on the menu, for us. He said that he would be sure to prepare our food vegetarian, and he suggested the bibimbap to us. That's when we tried that. He then said that he had a cookbook at home with many vegetarian Asian dishes, and that he'd work with it to come up with some other dishes for our next visit.

The next time I went, I went with Charles again, and he asked to see the chef. He asked if the chef remembered us, and he did. Charles went through the routine again about all the things I don't eat, and asked what the chef might be able to make for me. The chef asked if I'd had the bibimbap. I had. As I mentioned, they didn't really make it like I'd asked. I didn't really want that again. He suggested the Thai noodles that were on the menu, but he could make them with vegetables instead of meat. I figured anything Thai with noodles has to be good, so I decided to try it. It was good. Yet I was getting the feeling that if I didn't get that, we were going to start running out of options. I did not get the impression that he had been looking into cookbooks to come up with anything new.

Of course, I don't hold that against him so much. He is a chef at a restaurant in a mall. I'm sure he has more interesting things to do with his free time than find recipes for two freaks that don't eat meat. I just wish he had not told me a story about cookbooks and being into discovering some new dishes, because I really got excited about it. If he wasn't really planning to do it, I would have preferred that he answer like the owner/chef at the Italian restaurant we went to with Charles, who upon getting the story about how we do not eat beef, chicken, pork, nor even seafood, and being asked if he would make something vegetarian for us, perhaps something that wasn't even on the menu, replied quite simply:

"No."

Larry, Shawn, Joseph and Chris at Mandú

Posted by crispy at 08:27 PM | Comments (2)

November 15, 2007

Beirut

Beirut at Night

Restaurante Beirut
Avenida López Mateos 1308
esquina Lázaro Cárdenas

Shawn and I walked by this place many times while we were on our way to Tai Spice, and we would always say, "We should check that place out sometime." Since we were on our way to have Robert and Kay's delicious Asian dishes, we were never tempted enough to stop. A recent disappointment with one of our regular Lebanese cuisine outlets lead us to finally try Beirut, and we were pleasantly surprised.

It is a small restaurant with about 12 tables and a bar, but the bar is not one where you can actually sit at the bar. A few of the tables are outside, where they also have drive-up service for tacos arabes, which is what Mexicans call any of the various things that come stuffed in pitas like gyros. They also have hookah service, which they call shishas, with flavored tobacco that lasts 30-40 minutes per order.

The food there is relatively standard Lebanese food for around here, although their drink list has several items I've never seen on a Lebanese restaurant's menu before, like agua de flores and yogurt drinks. It seems a little expensive. For example, an order of four falafel with a little salad is MXN $67, although they are larger than average. The quality of everything we have had there has been top notch. They have a vegetarian plate with five items for MXN $99, and everything on it is quite tasty. The service is also very attentive, and they seem pretty quick in the kitchen.

Interior, Restaurante Beirut

They play funky belly dancing videos on the TV and they have a couple of odd fountains with colored lights. On the way out the door, you can stop and check out the items they have for sale, like music CDs and incense. They are open most nights until 11 (I believe on Sunday it is considerably earlier), but they are closed on Mondays.

Posted by crispy at 08:58 PM | Comments (0)

November 14, 2007

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bus

Local Area Bus, Guadalajara

Today, almost two years after moving to Guadalajara, I took the bus by myself for the first time.

Before, I usually took taxis or walked to my destination. On a couple of other occasions, I took the bus with Shawn. It was not that I thought I was above taking the bus, nor that I was afraid of the bus being dangerous. The drivers do tend to gun it then slam on the brakes, so it is not necessarily the smoothest ride one will ever experience. Still, I can handle that.

The main reason that I previously avoided taking the bus here is that the one time I took the regular bus with Shawn, it violently and completely disillusioned me of the notion that Mexicans are always sweet and polite. Before taking the bus, I found most Mexicans (apart from the one "Gringo Go Home!" driveby shouting we managed to survive) to be unfailingly friendly, kind and welcoming. In almost all other situations, Mexicans seem very polite and nice. On the bus though, they have some socially acceptable licence to be complete jerks and they revel in it. That is not to say that they are in your face, what-are-you-gonna-do-about-it jerks. It is a lame passive-aggressive rudeness that has a particularly Mexican (or is it tapatio?) flavor.

When I went on the bus with Shawn before, we had to stand because all the seats were already taken. No big deal there; I don't mind that much at all. I did not expect any of the people on there to give up their seats for us. Yet when old people boarded that were barely able to remain standing on terra firma and not a single able-bodied person offered them their seats, I was aghast. Mothers with infants and bags of groceries got on, and nobody offered up a seat. When someone got up from an aisle seat to exit the bus, the person sitting in the window seat would quickly slide over to block access to the empty seat. Riders are instructed to board through the front door and exit from the rear, but even when politely asked, people would not budge to let others move from the front or middle of the bus to the rear exit door. I suspect a frail, blind abuelita who was missing an arm could board carrying a hacking Tiny Tim on her back and nobody would surrender his seat to her.

No, because of the dog-eat-dog atmosphere of the regular bus, I was not all that keen to use it. Yet with Charles out of town, the need to start trimming the budget, and my desire to get out and about more, I decided it was high time for me to start using the bus in Guadalajara.

There are two primary types of inner-city buses, the TUR/Turquesa line and regular lines. They differentiated by their service class, with TUR and Turquesa being more upscale. That just means they have cloth-covered seats, air conditioning that usually works, and best of all, they are rarely full. I am not sure if that is because their price being double the cost of the regular lines keeps their ridership down, or if that is because they have a policy of not stopping for new passengers if all the seats on the bus are taken. We have heard that the latter is the case, but I've seen Turquesa buses go by with people standing now and again. The problem is, there are a very small number of routes (like 2-4) served by TUR/Turquesa, and the remaining hundred or so are served by the regular buses.

A regular bus costs MXN $4.50 (about USD $0.40), and there are no transfers. If you need to take only one bus to get where you are going, the trip costs you MXN $4.50. If you have to take two buses, the trip costs you MXN $9. If you have to take three, it is MXN $13.50. You get the idea. There are so many different routes though, it is unusual to have to take more than two different buses to get to your destination. Of note is the fact that here, bus drivers make change for you. You don't have to have exact change or forfeit any extra.

Local Area Bus, Guadalajara

The TUR/Turquesa buses are turquoise in color, and the regular buses are white or tan, for the most part. Each bus is numbered for its route, although some numbered routes are split into "A" and "B" or "Via 1" and "Via 2" because they have slight differences somewhere along the route. The routes are all loops, although it is often the case that the loop is just turning around at the end and tracing the first half backwards. I'm not sure if a passenger could pay once and just ride around indefinitely, or if they charge you each time you pass the start or end point of the route. Most routes start in the early morning (between 5 and 6 am) and stop between 11 and 12 pm. Much to my annoyance, there are no late night or 24-hour bus routes.

To catch the bus, one must go to a designated bus stop, and when the desired bus comes along, put out her hand to flag it down. Most stops are used by multiple routes, so the driver does not know that a person wants to get on his bus unless they signal in this way. From inside the bus, a request to stop is made by pushing one of the little buttons on one of the handrails that run along the aisle.

Shawn has had buses fail to stop at a designated stop even though he has his hand stuck out to signal the driver. Did they not see his hand? Did they not stop because he is a gringo? Were the bus drivers just being jerks? Any one of those is possible. Sometimes if the bus is in the left lane and there is other traffic in the right lane, the driver will just skip the stop, just like our water delivery guy will sometimes skip bringing us water if there is no good parking spot right in front of our building.

Bus Stop, Guadalajara

There is a book for sale at newspaper and magazine stands called the Guía de rutas del transporte público, which details the bus and light rail routes. It is about 5" x 7" and costs about 15 pesos. In the front of the guide, it has an indices of colonias (neighborhoods), major streets and sites of interest. Each entry in the index lists the route numbers that run by that neighborhood, street or attraction, so to go from point A to point B, one must find a route number that is common to both. If both places do not share a common route, the map of the route must be used to determine where two routes, one for each point, intersect. The hard part about doing that is that the route map shows the route on a map of the entire Guadalajara metro area that is like 2" x 2". It is nearly impossible to really determine what streets the buses run on by looking at the map, so they just give you a general idea. Then one has to verify that the routes actually do cross (or to which they come close) by reading the list of streets the each route takes, also listed for each route in the guide. They do not make it easy.

Macro Shot of Route Map, Guía de rutas del transporte público

At times, people get on the bus with guitars and sing for tips. The guy on my bus today was not too bad. Shawn, on the other hand, tends to score people that bang on guitars not set to any recognizeable tuning with no recognizeable rhythm while they yell along. It would be really cool if they had a 15-piece mariachi ensemble strolling up and down the aisle playing music like on the Tequila Express, but I do not think that is likely to happen any time soon. Nor are they likely to have go-go dancers or geishas serving tea.

It would probably take something like that to make me sincerely love taking the bus in Guadalajara, and as it is, I am not sure that I will ever be able to stomach how inconsiderate people are on it here. Maybe I will just try the old chestnut that is so good for dealing with crazy people that yell at you on the bus in the United States: plug in the headphones, crank up the iPod and just pretend they are not even there.

Posted by crispy at 01:48 PM | Comments (4)

November 13, 2007

Mothra!

The Moth That Ate Cleveland

I often talk about how this place is teeming with life. Larry gives me a hard time when I remark about this, because he and Joseph lived in Puerto Vallarta, where it's really teeming with life. But to me, I've never lived in a place with so many different kinds of wacky bugs, reptiles, birds and animals.

About once a year, we'll be sitting in our living room and an enormous moth or butterfly comes in through the open window. Above is this year's model, which we first noticed when it flew into Shawn's face. We were able to catch it in a plastic bag when it stopped to rest, and we released it back into the wild.

You can't really tell from the photo, but the wingspan on this thing was at least five inches. The piece of wood on the left (there are two pushed together, but you can see the line where they meet) is four centimeters (just a bit more than one and a half inches) wide.

Posted by crispy at 12:31 AM | Comments (2)

November 12, 2007

Cheese

Chris and Shawn, Mío Cardio

Posted by crispy at 08:44 PM | Comments (4)

October 30, 2007

Score!

Ticket for the Sonofilia Festival, December 2007

In typical Mexican fashion, we lucked out and noticed the announcement in the Ocio this past Friday, which finally explained what was up with Bjork's announced, yet mysteriously vague, appearance in Mexico. She will be the headlining act at the Sonofilia Festival, to be held in Huentitán on 8 December 2007. As far as I can tell, this is the first Sonofilia Festival ever.

The tickets are rather outrageous: MXN $1200 for general admission (the only ticket available), and the sales outlet (Super Boletos) charges a 5% commission on top of that. That's better than the 10% commission and additional per-order fee charged by TicketBastard, and I suppose by international standards, that's about right for a festival with five bands (Claude Von Stroke, MSTRKRFT, Ratatat , Jay Jay Johanson and Björk).

According to a map of the event on the Super Boletos web site (unable to be linked here because for some reason they've done it as a stupid Flash file linked to with Javascript), the grounds will have restaurants and bars scattered about, which will be nice since the event runs from 6 pm to 3:30 am. I was annoyed to read that we will have to bring our passports to the event in order to gain entry. It's so smart to take such important documentation, especially if it is difficult and expensive to replace, to crowded events where everyone is whacked-out, including you. Yet I was impressed by the fact that their Frequently Asked Questions explicitly (and rather shockingly) state that they will have vegetarian food available.

I guess if I lose my USD $67 passport while in a drunken stupor from a couple of MXN $100 shots of tequila and have to forfeit my USD $600 air ticket for our Christmas vacation in Panama, I can console myself with a MXN $150 veggie burger. Cool!

Posted by crispy at 01:42 PM | Comments (0)

October 26, 2007

Cine Mexicano por Cable

Sindicato del crimen, Cine Mexicano por Cable

I mention de Película, the cool Mexican film channel we get here, often.

I figure I should give Cine Mexicano por Cable a brief mention. I tend to reflect more fondly on de Película since it was my first saturation of Mexican cinema when we first visited Guadalajara and were camped out at the Hotel San Francisco Plaza. Cine Mexicano por Cable was around then, but de Película used to show their films uncut back in those days. Cine Mexicano por Cable started annoying me early with commercials.

Sindicato del crimen, Cine Mexicano por Cable

Still, they show a lot of really great films. They show a lot of crap too, but for me, that is half their charm. Cine Mexicano por Cable is on basic cable for Megacable, and on digital service it kicks back on channel 420.

That's right.

Sindicato del crimen, Cine Mexicano por Cable

Along with the mighty de Película, CMC helps me in my neverending search for the Mexican Russ Meyer or that En kvinnas ansikte en español. They're having a Ciclo Luchadores this Saturday. They're running Blue Demon and Santo movies all day.

Posted by crispy at 01:52 AM | Comments (1)

October 22, 2007

Another Funny Mexican Product

Product Label, Food Keepers Storage Bin

I suppose the product itself isn't that funny. It's a plastic storage bin, sized to fit under a bed. It even has nifty little rollers to make it easy to slide in and out from under your bed.

The funny thing is that they call it Food Keepers, despite the fact that the label clearly shows office supplies, not food, and right under the Food Keepers part, it says bajo cama:

Detail, Food Keepers Product Label

...which means "under bed."

An under bed food keeper? It's like they had Homer Simpson in mind.

Posted by crispy at 01:04 PM | Comments (0)

October 20, 2007

I went on a date with a real clown last night.

I was looking through a newspaper while in San Luis Potosí, San Luis Hoy. I turned the page and couldn't believe my eyes when I saw what I thought were personal ads for something like Clown Seeking Clown:

Clown Classifieds, San Luis Hoy [larger image]

It was one of the most surreal things I'd ever seen. But, I figured, clowns need love too.

On closer investigation, I saw that they were just clowns for hire, advertising their services...

...as clowns.

I hope.

Posted by crispy at 12:18 PM | Comments (3)

October 18, 2007

FM3:3

Cover, Non-Immigrant Visa

In the last entry on this topic, I had a list of other things I had to turn in to get my FM3, the non-immigrant visa for living in Mexico. I turned those in last week, and this past Tuesday I was able to go pick up the little book shown above. This makes me an official, legal, non-immigrant visitor to Mexico, who can be in the country without restriction on coming or going, for a full year. It is renewable (without the whole long application process I went through to get it) for up to five years.

Inside Page, Non-Immigrant Visa

The whole thing is pretty simple. On the first page inside, on the left, there is a list of rules and limitations for the visa, and on the right is the date of issue, government seal and the signature of the head of our local immigration office.

Inside Page, Non-Immigrant Visa

Then on the next page there is all the information specific to me, such as various dates (the date I entered the country, the date I applied, the date the visa was issued, my birthdate, etc.), the number of the visa, my birthplace, my gender, my marital status (in Mexico), my signature, a photo and even my fingerprint.

Note how in the photo, I have the "wet look" that is ever so popular down here.

There's another official seal and once again, the signature of the local immigration chief. I don't know why they have to sign and stamp it twice, but if you've been in or around bureacracy in Mexico, you'll know they're really big on that. I suspect that's pretty common worldwide.

But that's it. Now I'm legal for a year. A year from now, I have to go back and renew it, but I don't have to go through the whole process again. I'm glad for that. It involved so many trips: 4 to the immigration office in the federal building, 2 to the bank, 2 to the photographer's studio, and 3 to a copy shop.

Posted by crispy at 01:22 PM | Comments (4)

October 12, 2007

San Luis Potosí: Part One

360° Panorama of the Plaza de Armas, San Luis Potosí [larger image]

Shawn had a four-day weekend, so we decided to visit another Mexican city that we had not yet seen: San Luis Potosí, the capital of the state of San Luis Potosí.

In 2005, it had a population of just over 685,000, making it only the 15th largest city in Mexico. It is known as la ciudad de los parques because there are so many parks here. We had to ride five hours in a bus, heading northeast from Guadalajara. If you have Google Earth, you can call it up.

It is not high on the list of tourist destinations within Mexico, and to be honest, we did not decide on it as our next domestic destination because of any particular attraction. We selected it simply because we could get to it in a relatively short time (less than a full day) and we had never been there. It is outside what is considered Mexico's colonial circle, but then again, some say that about Zacatecas. Like Zacatecas, it has its own particular charm, no small part of which is the fact that it is not a big tourist destination. We were not expecting much, yet we have been very pleasantly surprised.

First off, it lives up to its reputation as a city of parks. It seems that the slogan is taken as a guiding philosophy, for one sees many spaces of only a few square meters about town where a mass of plants or cacti have been squeezed in to spruce them up a bit. The more formal parks offer a diversity of trees, plenty of benches, well-maintained sidewalks, verdant lawns, and fountains that are operational.

The city is a pedestrian paradise. Large sections of the historic center have been closed to vehicles, providing safe, wide venues for foot traffic.

In other places, they have nice shaded walkways set apart from the streets, like this one (pictured below) that stretched so far we could not see the end of it.

Walking is not the only thing to do in the city, however, and just because they are not known as one of the colonial gems of Mexico, it does not mean that they do not have their fair share of historic attractions. Along this walkway is a famous historic and architectural icon of San Luis Potosí, el caja del agua.

Because I learned caja to mean''box' or 'cage' in English, I hear this in my head as "box of water" or "cage of water." Both seem funny to me. It is actually a colonial-era water tank, which is notable for its size and ornamentation. A sign, printed in Spanish and English, located next to the caja del agua, tells that there are others about the city, but they are all smaller and not ornate.

There are things like clock towers...

...non-traditional (for Mexico) architecture...

...gargoyles...

...theaters...

...gazebos...

...and temples...

...in San Luis Potosí that we passed while walking around the centro histórico. We passed by this ice cream shop, and I had to go in to try their coconut ice cream.