Holá Mexico City!!

This year is shaping up to be the year of crazy adventures!! This crazy adventure was a birthday celebration with a long weekend trip to Mexico City! We've been to Mexico a few times, but never to Mexico City so when we found a pretty good flight deal, we thought why not try something new? MC is the capital and largest city in Mexico situated at an altitude of 2,240 metres above sea level, and is filled with cultural significance. Turns out MC is a lot more modern than I imagined it would be, based on nothing really concrete outside of other travel within Mexico which probably isn't a fair comparison. We stayed at the JW Marriott which was located in the very nice Polanco neighbourhood and well located for the things we had planned to do. 

We arrived late evening, made it through contactless immigration quickly and because this was a weekend getaway got out of the airport fast as we had no checked luggage. The hotel was about a half hour Uber ride away. The hotel recently underwent a major renovation and has a flawless modern style to it. The hotel staff were all very friendly. Our room was lovely high-floor upgraded junior suite room with an amazing view of the city in the distance, with the Campo Marte park and National Auditorium across the street. We arrived in our room to a lovely birthday surprise - a cake, a bottle of sparkling wine, and fresh fruit. It started off the weekend well!! 

The next morning, we enjoyed a bountiful buffet breakfast with traditional Mexican cuisine (can you say refried beans?), a large selection of fresh fruits, yoghurts, American cuisine, and a very tempting but we stayed strong pastry and bread table. We ended up exploring the Centro Historico district for the day and enjoyed the sites in the centre square. The Metropolitan Cathedral of MC was incredibly beautiful with its two bell towers and central dome. Its facade is

adorned with statues and columns and inside an abundance of religious figure statues, and artwork ornate alters, and a very magnificent looking organ. One of the other notable buildings we visited was the Palacio Postal, the main post office which has been in operation since 1907. After spending the day exploring and on our feet, we enjoyed a leisurely late lunch/early supper (aka lupper?) at Balcon Del Zocalo. I had read about this place on someone's blog and it came highly recommended, not only for their coffee and food but also their location. If you are lucky, you can be seated in their covered outdoor patio which has a direct and unobstructed view of the cathedral. We were lucky. For pre-dinner service, they offer a 3 course prix fixe menu. The food was delicious and it was here that I tried a beef tongue dish; my first time and I had to apply mind over matter for the first bite, but then discovered this particular dish (prep, seasoning, and cook) was very tasty! We did and saw a lot in the city on day 1, but had to get back to the hotel for by special invitation margarita making class. This was quite the experience. There were six guests in total and class was something new the hotel was trying. They brought in a local bartender who explained everything we needed to know to make the perfect margarita. It was a hands on experience with a great group of fellow travellers - two of whom we discovered were also Canadians living in Montreal but originally from El Salvador and the other two friends there for work from England and from Ireland. Turns out, with the right ingredients and the right instruction we can make a mean margarita! We capped off the night with a couple glasses of vino and some food in the hotel executive lounge. 

The next day was an early one as we were off on our private tour of Teotiuacan, an ancient Mesoamerican city located about a two hour drive from our hotel. This remains an active archeological site stretching 83 square kilometres and was designated an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. The site is known today for its many architectural significant Mesoamerican pyramids, particularly the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon, both prominently built at both ends of the city's broad avenue which was likely used as a marketplace. In order to help preserve these pyramids, visitors are no longer allowed to climb up these structures, which is probably a good thing as the stairs are narrow and placed at odd distances between. When looking at both these pyramids at a certain level and angle the mountain ranges in the distance disappear completely as both pyramids are shaped to mirror the mountain at that point. Many other buildings have been uncovered and provide a glimpse into how the civilization lived, worshipped, and held ceremonies. Many parts of the archeological remains have been restored, but much remains in its original form and seeing the "advanced" methods for building they used for the period of their existence is incredible. Beautiful hand painted murals on the walls tell many different stories of life during their epoch. Our guide, an

anthropology major, provided an in depth explanation of the significance of this civilization, how they lived and the societal make up of the population. He was a wealth of knowledge and made the visit worth it! After our walking tour of the site, we had lunch at La Gruta, a restaurant that has been operating since 1906 from its location in a natural cave! After a morning learning about history, we decided to go check out the National Museum of Anthropology, conveniently located within walking distance of our hotel. From there we explored the massive park on which the museum is located. I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of parks we found around the city during our visit. We had been in MC for two days now and I had yet to eat a traditional Mexican taco, so Z found a great taco restaurant a short walk from the hotel where we enjoyed the most tasty al pastor tacos ever!! We had also discovered an amazing churros chain called El Moro Churreria; couldn't get enought and had to really resist overdoing it!! 

Our final full day in MC was going to be spent exploring a couple other neighbourhoods nearby that we had read about. We were going to have a leisurely morning, with no set schedule, and we'd sleep in until whenever. Little did we know that every Sunday morning from 8am to 2pm, MC shuts down 55kms of roads to car traffic to allow for cyclists, pedestrians, skaters, runners to move about freely in the city. What woke us up earlier than anticipated, like 7am, was what sounded like cheering from the street below. As we looked out the window we saw what appeared to be a running race going on with spectators cheering on the participants. We later discovered this car free day and decided when in MC on car free day, do what everyone else is doing and participate. MC has a great bike sharing program that we signed up for on their app. In total it cost us $9 for the day and we were able to use the bike system which has stations situated all around town. The only drawn back was you can only rent a bike for 2 hours at a time and then have to return it, but nothing stops you from immediately picking up another bike, so we did that for a few hours and explored so much more of MC than we would have otherwise been able too and we managed to get back to the hotel before the daily deluge started. It was a lot of fun riding the streets of MC without cars and being immersed with all the others enjoying car free day. 

We capped off this trip with a birthday dinner at Archiebald, a restaurant in the hotel but we learned later not operated by the hotel. While the ambience and food were good, the service experience was disjointed., starting with the fact our waiter did not speak English well making communication difficult and then the mistiming of our main course coming before we finished our starters only to have our main course delivered again after sitting under a warming light for 15 minutes. Needless to say we were not happy particularly given Z's main dish of prawns were cold and not fresh as a result. Thankfully an English speaking manager sorted out the problem and we got new, fresh main courses brought to the table followed by dessert, this time appropriately timed; a small wrinkle in what was otherwise a wonderful birthday dinner. 

This was nothing short of a whirlwind trip; some may even call it entirely insane, but we packed in a lot, ate a lot of really good food, had an amazing experience and created many special memories. This trip provided with me a very different perspective of Mexico, one I had not imagined existed. Overall, the city felt safe, it was relatively clean and easy to get around.

To travel is to live... until next time, life is good! 

Singapore

The next stop in this crazy whirlwind trip was Singapore. We started our Singaporean adventure by staying at the Westin Singapore which is conveniently located to the marina bay area. After checking into our hotel room, we made our way to the marina bay area to visit Gardens by the Bay, a nature park spanning 105 acres. We spent the afternoon exploring the various attractions within the park including the flower dome, an impressive greenhouse filled with exotic flowers in a rotating exhibit; floral fantasy a magical exhibit of suspended bouquets and floral arrangements; cloud forest which replicates a tropical mountain with a circular path that passes underneath the world's largest indoor waterfall at 35 metres tall; and the supertree grove boasts 18 tree-like structures ranging from 25 to 50 metres tall which in the evening display the garden rhapsody light show. 

Just by the gardens and not an overly long walk along the marina bay promenade is the famous Marina Sands hotel, an architectural marvel consisting of three towers supporting the SkyPark observation deck, a three acre park on top that resembles a large ship where you find the hotel's infinity pool and the restaurant Spago. From the observation deck you get unobstructed 360 degree views over Singapore. We had a lovely dinner at Spago and timed it well because shortly after we started eating, the skies opened up with the typical Singaporean rain showers. Even with rain we still got to enjoy incredible views over Singapore and also got to watch the garden rhapsody light show. The area immediately adjacent to the Marina Sands hotel is The Shoppes at Marina Bay, a massive shopping mall boasting all the high end luxury brands you can think of making it a a shopping destination. There is a one-of-the kind Apple store shaped as a sphere that appears to be floating directly on the water and offering 360 degree views of the marina. We
stopped in to check it out and took advantage of free charging while we gave our feet a bit of a break from all the walking. Just outside the mall beside the Apple store, we capped off the night watching a free light show just over the water. 

Our second day, we had booked a city bike tour for the morning. This turned out to be a fabulous way to see so much of this great city country. We booked our tour through Klook, an online booking company that offers all sorts of tours in different Asian cities. The cool thing about the city bike tour is that we covered so much area in what felt like a very short period of time, got some good exercise, and along the way learned so much about the history of and current day Singapore from our guide. We hit all the major attraction sites, including cycling on a part of the F1 race track, along the waterfront including a stoping point that gave us an unobstructed view of the Marina Sands hotel, we cycled through Duxton Hill and China Town, Little India, to the Merlion statue and through the university district. Might need to look at doing something like this in other destinations in the future. 

Singapore is situated about 1 degree latitude north of the equator which means it has a consistent hot, humid and wet climate. The temperature while we were there was in the mid 30C from early morning to late at night with humid to boot. What did give relief from the hot temperature somewhat was the rain which happened daily. The country is 284 sq m in area with one main island and 63 satellite islands and islets. With the limited land mass, much of its development is built on land reclamation and while on our bike tour our guide took us to a land reclamation area in process where a brand new stadium will eventually be built. The population is just over 5.9 million and is quite multicultural given its history and proximity within Asia. It's a very modern place, clean, and very safe. Interestingly we didn't see a single human police officers while we visited, but instead there are CCTV cameras installed everywhere and they also have robot police patrolling the streets to help manage limited resources. With the system in Singapore, there is very little crime and any crimes that are committed are strictly punished which seems to act somewhat as a deterrent. In comparison to other Asian countries, Singapore is expensive. It is a major aviation, financial, and marine shipping hub for Asiana. 

We spilt our stay between two hotels so we could experience a couple distinct neighbourhoods. Our second hotel was the Singapore Edition located near the popular Orchard Blvd and shopping mall. Here we had an overly spacious one bedroom room with a large living room. The room was modern, nicely appointed yet with simplistic decor. The hotel had a funky bar called the Punch Room on the lower floor which was completely decked out with blue velvet seats and couches and had a cozy intimate atmosphere. The only odd thing while we were there was they were blaring loud rap and R&B music making it a bit difficult for conversation. The breakfast restaurant was located off the lobby and had a great buffet spread and a la carte options. Their booth seats were nestled in with live plants and ferns making for a tranquil atmosphere. The hotel had a rooftop pool and was interesting to think it was rooftop because all surrounding it were much taller buildings creating a somewhat sheltered area.  

As we explored this neighbourhood area on foot, we checked out the Orchard shopping mall filled with luxury brands, found some really cool street art, wondered through streets lined with little shops and eateries, and stopped in at a quaint café called Wired Monkey Coffee where we each enjoyed a delicious flat white amongst funky monkey related decor. We popped in at the historic and famed Raffles hotel. It is here at the Long Bar where the Singapore Sling was first mixed in 1915. Along Orchard Road is an ice cream sandwich stand. So what's the deal with mentioning an ice cream sandwich stand? Well, these are no ordinary ice cream sandwiches, they are literally a slab of ice cream (with several different flavours to choose from) placed between two slices of special bread to become a literal ice cream sandwich!! And they were only $1!! What a novel concept.... this stand was popular even in the rain when we arrived and the ice cream sandwich was amazing!! 

This was an amazing quick getaway that some may consider crazy with going half way around the world for just one week. But we got to see and experience so much during this week long adventure that it was more than worth the long flight there and back. 

To travel is to live, until next time.... life is good!

Singapore and Batam, Indonesia

We did something a bit crazy in May and took a quick trip to Singapore and Batam Island, Indonesia. Why? Well, I had not spent anytime in Singapore outside of the airport, which is hands down the best airport in the world and no wonder it’s had that ranking for years, but also a new direct flight was launched making it “easier” to get there. Now, the flight was 16 hours and a red eye, not my favourite flying time, but this flight was quite pleasant with a 2 seat configuration in Premium Economy. With my comfy neck pillow I was able to get some reasonable sleep and the time went by quickly. The time difference does throw you off somewhat even if you feel reasonably rested but we got through contactless immigration fairly quickly and grabbed a Grab (Singapore’s version of Uber) and made our way to the ferry terminal. Our first stop was actually Batam, Indonesia, a just over an hour ferry ride away. Our hotel was right by the ferry terminal in Batam so that was very convenient. What we didn’t realize was we needed a tourist entry card to get through immigration and so thankfully we had some cash on us so we could buy the entry card because they didn’t take credit cards at the little kiosk. Lesson learned, check entry requirements for any country you plan on visiting and always have cash. I think we had even debated whether to take cash out when we landed. 

While our overall trip was short at a week, we decided to split the time between Batam and Singapore because truthfully Singapore is expensive, it’s a city island country, and to get a good sense of it you only really need a few days. So this made sense to explore somewhere else nearby, even if nearby was in an entirely different country. Batam is known for outdoor and water activities, shopping, food, and spas. Unfortunately for us, we hit a bad weather system time and it did limit our ability to take better advantage of the outdoor activities. Not that it was all bad, we did make the most of it and explored quite a bit. 

We stayed at the Batam Marriott. We had a beautiful, spacious room with a lovely view of the harbour and of a fishing village across the harbour with houses built on stilts due to the tides. Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim country with 87% of the population identifying as Muslim and unbeknownst to us there were was a mosque across the water that broadcast their call to prayer over loud speaker and in the wee hours of the morning made sleeping very challenging. We never did find a way to block out the sound entirely, even earplugs didn’t really work. For us, we found everything in Batam to be quite inexpensive, particularly compared to Singapore. But while this was true for us, you could also see as you explored around that so many of the residents are impoverished and basic infrastructure is in disrepair or lacking. Yet, everyone we encountered was kind, helpful and seemed content. 

We hired a private driver one day to take us on a tour of Batam to see the main sites. We opted this route again because it was inexpensive and gave us the luxury of not being stuck on a bus with who knows how many other people. Jacky, our driver picked us up right from our hotel, and off we went. Jacky spoke pretty good English and he provided a good commentary and explanation of things along the way. Our driving tour took us to the Welcome to Batam sign where conveniently a photographer was standing by to take pictures which he then printed and gave to us. We then were off to a Buddhist temple where Jacky took great pride in showing us around while also taking a moment to say a blessing as we looked around. From there we were off to the miniature house park which displays various replicas of traditional houses of different ethnicities of Indonesia. While the mini houses were cute and a cool way of seeing what traditional houses looked like, the park itself was a bit in disarray and not well kept. From here we went to 70 Fahrenheit Koffee where Jacky arranged a private tour for us even though the factory was closed to the public. We learned about various types of coffee beans and also got a private tasting. It is here where we fell in love the peaberry coffee bean. The bean is fully round in shape unlike other coffee beans and is technically a mutation of the coffee bean as the peaberry is a singular bean in its cherry and only occurs in about 5% of a harvest. Peaberry coffee is more flavourable than other beans we've tried and carries a higher amount of caffeine requiring less beans to brew a perfect cup of coffee. This was a perfect stop for this coffee lover and we bought several boxes to bring back home. After getting re-caffeinated, we drove about an hour to Barelang Bridge 1. This bridge is the first in a chain of six bridges that connect the Barelang island group of Riau Archipelago. Bridge 1 is the most popular stop and again conveniently had photographers situated there available to take and immediately print your photos. Jacky told us there wasn't much to see or any facilities after the first bridge so we didn't venture the remaining 50 kms to the end. Not sure if this was entirely true, or he didn't want to drive it, but we believed him and instead enjoyed some barbecued corn on the cob as a snack before heading off to lunch at a restaurant built on stilts over the water where Z got to literally pick his seafood lunch fresh from the day's catch. This driving tour gave us a good view of the island and opportunity to see the main sites. Other popular activities on Batam are shopping and spa treatments. While we didn't do much in the way of shopping, we did indulge in a couple inexpensive massages. Z also determined that he needed a haircut and found a local barber who gave him a great cut, despite a bit of a language barrier. The cut cost him around $10.

Indonesian cuisine is influenced by Indian, Middle Eastern, Chinese and European cuisine and we immensely enjoyed a variety of delicious food full of complex flavour. The fish options were abundant for Z and the non-fish options equally abundant for me. After our four days exploring and eating far too much, we took the ferry back to explore Singapore.