We flew into Israel from Tel Aviv and boarded a train to Jerusalem. I totally expected the Middle East to be pretty warm in February, but nope, it was snowing tiny little flakes in Jerusalem. If it weren’t for the Europe trip before this, I would have actually not brought any winter clothes, so I definitely lucked out there.

The Way of the Cross

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is probably what Jerusalem is most well known for. The Way of the Cross (aka Via Dolorosa) in Jerusalem is what is believed to be the actual path that Jesus walked during his crucifixion – regardless of whether you’re religious or not, it’s still pretty cool to see. This was a key event in the establishment of Christianity. The crucifixion of Jesus is considered to be historically true even by non-religious scholars.

The Way of the Cross begins with Jesus’ encouter with Pontius Pilate, the man who orders Jesus’ crucifixion. The Church of the Flagellation is built on the spot where Jesus was flogged by Roman soldiers before he carries the cross.

It’s said he falls three times during his walk.

Along the way, Jesus encounters several people (although some of these encounters are disputed):

• Mary – his mother
• Simon of Cyrene – he helps Jesus carry the cross
• Veronica – she wipes the sweat off of Jesus’ face, and so Jesus’ image was then supernaturally imprinted on the piece of cloth, now known as the Veil of Veronica
• the pious women – Jesus stops and gives a sermon

Eventually he makes his way to the location where he is nailed to the cross. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is built on the spot where it is believed he was nailed to the cross, and his subsequent death.

This is supposedly the spot where Jesus dies on the cross (below)

He is then taken down from the cross and anointed on the stone slab below. Anointing is a ceremonial ritual where a person’s body is smeared in aromatic oil to introduce a divine influence on the body.

Finally he is laid to rest in his tomb.

Of course his body isn’t physically in there, because supposedly after his ressurection, he ascended to heaven.

The entire Way of the Cross and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was extremely crowded and people lined up everywhere to pray in all the spiritual locations, like Jesus’ tomb, the home of the Virgin Mary, the Stone of Anointing, etc. People even touched all the surfaces that Jesus was said to have touched and I could see them in deep prayer.

Western / Wailing Wall

In Judaism, the Western Wall is one of its holiest sites. The actual holiest site lines behind the wall, the Temple Mount, but due to restrictions, Jews are not allowed to pray there, and thus the wall became the place where Jews went to pray.

Some Jews go on a pilgrimage to the Western Wall, some spend hours praying there. If you look closely in the video below, there’s a fellow running in circles and singing while people around him are rubbing their beards against the wall.

The Temple Mount

The Temple Mount is a flat plaza built on top of four retaining walls (the Western Wall among them). Although Jews are not allowed to enter for prayer (e.g. praying, singing, or other religious displays), people are allowed to enter the area as tourists.

The Dome of the Rock is one of the Islamic structures built on the Temple Mount. Unfortunately, non Muslims are not allowed to enter. Inside the dome is the Foundation Stone, and has religious significance to both Jews and Muslims.

Yad Vashem

This is Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. The entire memorial consists of a museum dedicated to the history of Jewish persecution throughout Nazi Germany and the places it conquered.

The eternal flame honours the victims of the holocaust. In front of it is a stone crypt containing the ashes of the victims.

The Hall of Names pictured above contains the the names of millions of Holocaust victims. The shelves around the room contain the names, while the cone above display photographs of the victims. The people standing in the photo are all Israeli soldiers – Jerusalem had a huge police presence with a lot of them openly carrying assault rifles (I felt very safe). Even some men in public that I saw had buzz cuts – presumably they are/were in the military. A few days before we arrived, there was a terrorist attack where a driver rammed a car into Israeli soldiers.

This train car is an example of the cattle cars that Nazi Germany used to perpretrate the Holocaust.

The Garden Tomb

Some sects of Christianity don’t believe that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre contains the real tomb of Jesus Christ. They assert that the real tomb is actually elsewhere, which they dubbed the Garden Tomb

Outside Jerusalem’s old town

Because Israel has so many Jewish people, McDonald’s started a special chain that serves only Kosher food. Even though it’s kosher, it tastes the exact same as regular McDonald’s which is pretty amazing for what it is.

Oskar Schindler is famous for saving 1200 Jews during the holocaust. He is now buried in Jerusalem. Putting stones and pebbles on the grave is an ancient Jewish tradition to honour the deceased.

There are also a lot of stray cats everywhere! I didn’t see any dogs though, just lots and lots of stray cats everywhere. People must take care of them though because they all look pretty well groomed.

Photo album: here

Duisburg

This is a walkable rollercoaster! Its only purpose is as an art installation for city beautification. The track is a walkway with stairs, but the loop is off limits.

Next door is a nuclear plant though. Makes me a little nervous after watching that HBO show about Chernobyl.

Arnhem

Now we’re back in the Netherlands, in the city of Arnhem. During Operation Market Garden in World War II, the western Allies attempted invading Germany through the Netherlands. Allied soldiers (mostly British) attempted to secure key bridges throughout the country; one of which was in Arnhem. The operation ended in disaster, and the Allies failed to advance in to Germany.

The John Frost bridge was constructed on the same location as the old bridge that was destroyed by bombings after Operation Market Garden. John Frost was the leader of the group of British paratroopers that actually arrived at the bridge during the battle. The Airborne Museum in Arnhem is dedicated to the Battle of Arnhem, but it was closed for renovations (out of all the war related museums we went to on this trip so far, most of them ended up being closed…). The city centre itself has the same vibes as other cities in the Netherlands.

Our day was shorter because of our flight, but our next destination gets even more exciting: Israel, Palestine and Jordan.

• Duisburg
• Arnhem

Bastogne

The Battle of the Bulge (known in German as the Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein – Operation Watch on the Rhine) was the last major German offensive in the western front during World War II. The Germans attempted to use this offensive to break the Allied offensive on that front and force the western allies to negotiate a peace treaty. The territory taken by the Germans during the offensive resembled a “bulge” on the map, hence its name.

During the battle, Bastogne was surrounded by German forces, and when the Germans asked the Americans in Bastogne to surrender, Brigadier General McAuliffe famously answered “nuts!” to the German request.

We stayed overnight in the same farmhouse which served as the former field headquarters of the legendary American 101st Airborne Division during the battle. The staff there mentioned that the same family still owns the farmhouse to this day and that some of them had perished in concentration camps during the course of the war.

They even decorated in the interior with old helmets and ammo boxes.

I wouldn’t consider the place in the middle of nowhere, but maybe trying to find it at night isn’t the best idea.

Just look for the tank turret out front I guess!

We tried going to the Bastogne Museum, but little did we know that the Bastogne War Museum was closed between 20. January 2020 to 19. February 2020. I knew it was low season, but I didn’t think it was so not busy that the entire museum would be closed for a whole month! The only exhibit we got to see was the East Germany open air exhibit outside showing off art painted on the tank, slabs of the Berlin Wall on old Trabants.

Nearby the museum was the Mardasson Memorial, a monument dedicated to the American soldiers who fought the Battle of the Bulge. Inside the memorial, carved panels tell the story of the battle.

The weather really cooperated with us today! We had clear blue skies all day, and got to see the the thin layers of morning frost over the vast farm fields.

Liège

The weather didn’t cooperate for long though because it became like this on our way to Liège…

The thing that surprised me about Liège was how seedy it was. We were hanging out around Place St Lambert, and it felt like people were subtlely eyeing us from the side of the street. In once instance, the moment we turned corner, a man glanced at us and immediately started walking in our direction. I glanced at him some more and eventually he went away. Yeah, we didn’t stay long in Liège.

I think one way to explain why it was so seedy was that Wallonia was no longer Belgium’s center of industry like it was in the late 19th and early 20th century. As the industry went to neighbouring Flanders, the local economy suffered.

Drielandenpunt

Next up, Drielandenpunt, the triple point between Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium. It’s also simultaneously the highest point in the entire Netherlands, a miniscule 322.5m above sea level.

Aachen

Not far away from the Drielandenpunt, was the westernmost city in Germany, Aachen. This is where 31 Holy Roman Emperors were crowned. Charlemagne (his bust pictured below) himself had his imperial medieval residence here.

The Aachen Cathedral shown below was the burial location of Charlemagne. The chapel shown in the middle is the location of the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperors. Despite the name, the Holy Romans Empire was neither holy nor Roman, nor an empire.

As a “holy” empire they weren’t exactly unified by religion. It wasn’t solely catholic and had a significant population of Protestants.

It wasn’t really Roman since for most of its history it didn’t rule over what the Roman Empire ruled over (although it did for a time) and its centre of power was ultimately in Germany. Arguably, the Byzantines or the Eastern Roman Empire was the true successor to the Roman Empire. They were a part of the Roman Empire when it fell and it continued the empire in the east until it fell in the 15th century to the Ottoman Turks.

Technically, it was an empire (at least officially) for a time, until their defeat in the Thirty Years War (1618 – 1648), which resulted in the kingdoms within the empire effectively receiving independence from the empire.

For lunch, I finally got the chance to eat Eisbein (bottom dish), a pork knuckle! It’s simmered for several hours in broth and served with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes! If you like meat, this is the dish for you. The above dish is a schnitzel – thin slice of meat (thinned via pounding) that’s breaded and fried.

Bonn

From Aachen, we drove to Bonn to meet up with a friend, who moved to Bonn from Taiwan to pursue a PhD in chemical engineering. We were so full from lunch, we only had a small snack for dinner at a local pub.

Since it was a Bavarian pub, it sold Bavarian specialities like weisswurst (shown on bottom – literally white sausage). It’s a sausage made from veal! The bread in the basket is a very delicious German pretzel. It’s got a nice cripsy outside flavoured with salt with a soft inside.

After dinner, we explored the city a little bit and visited the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven. The house is one of the few remaining middle-class homes of the era.

Bonn is also the world headquarters of an amazing brand of gummy bears – Haribo! It was founded by Hans Riegel in Bonn, hence the name Haribo. People who hear about Haribo for the first time usually think it comes from Japan, and are almost always surprised to find out it’s German! The outlet store not far from Bonn city centre has a MASSIVE selection of all sorts of Haribo variants! It’s got gummy bears, sour worms, licorice, and more! I definitely recommend the gummy bears (of course), the frogs, coca colas, and the Phantasia pack!

That concludes our 7th day. The next day we’d travel to more German cities – Cologne and Düsseldorf.

Photos:

• Bastogne
• Liège
• Drielandenpunt
• Aachen
• Bonn

Heidelberg

Heidelberg probably has the most picturesque old town in the entire Germany. Out of all the views I’ve seen in Germany, this is one of the best.

The view is from the ruins of a castle that was destroyed during the Thirty Years War (17th century). I believe the old town is mostly in the Baroque style.

For breakfast, we had a very traditional German pastry, known as a Berliner. It’s similar to a doughnut, but without the hole, and it has a jam filling on the inside and powdered sugar on top. They’re super delicious and not insanely sweet like a lot of American doughnuts.

For lunch, we had more traditional German street foods. The top of the bottom image is currywurst, cut up sausage with curry ketchup on top. The flavour is a very savoury sausage with a slight sweet and spicy zing of curry. The bottom of the image is a bratwurst in a breadroll with mustard. Everything about this is better than the American hot dog. Better sausage to bun ratio, better bread, better sausage, and better mustard. And of course, fries are seasoned with mayonnaise instead of ketchup.

After lunch, we drove up the hill across the river from the old town and visited an old ampitheatre. Why is this amptitheatre interesting, you might ask? It’s actually a relic of the Nazi period for holding propaganda performances.

The main allure of Heidelberg itself is its picturesque views both in the old town and up on Heidelberg castle. Visitors can easily enjoy this by strolling through the old town and making their way up to the castle (there is also a tram), which are main attractions of the city.

Zweibrücken

From Heidelberg, we drove to Zweibrücken. It was a slight detour from Luxembourg, where we were actually trying to go, but we had read about a cool observatory decorated like R2D2, so we thought we’d check it out! It would have been cool to look through the telescope – after all the sky was completely clear of any clouds.

Driving to the place was super scenic! Nice rolling countryside hills with towering wind turbines.

From there we continued our drive to Luxembourg.

Luxembourg

We crossed the border into Luxembourg at dusk and stopped by the town of Schengen. This is the place where the Schengen Agreement was signed – the agreement that removed the hard borders between its European member states.

Normally, it’s possible to walk across to the island to see the small exhibit that discusses the Schengen Agreement, but we were super surprised to see the river at such a high tide (it did rain a lot the past couple of days). On the right of the picture, there’s a little shrub, street signs and flagpoles poking out of the water.

By the time we reach Luxembourg City, it was nighttime. To our surprise, the city looked deserted even though it was only 19:00. People walking on the street appeared drunk. There was even a guy taking a leak in the street without even trying to do it in an alley!

We walked around a bit to check out the town, but otherwise, there wasn’t much to do at that hour on a weekday.

We didn’t stay too long in Luxembourg, and we continued our drive to Bastogne, where we’d stay the night.

Photos:

• Heidelberg
• Zweibrücken
• Luxembourg

Our second day takes us to Oosterscheldekering, Ypres, and Dunkirk.

Oosterscheldekering (Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier)

We began our day two heading back into the Netherlands, to a network of storm surge barriers, designed to protect the Netherlands from flooding. Large sets of doors can open and close to control the water flow coming in from the ocean. They’re important because most of the Netherlands sits a few metres above sea level or lower, and thus are prone to flooding.

As we drove in the area of Oosterscheldekering, we encountered a lot of windmills spinning noticeably in the wind. And I wondered where all the old traditional windmills went, as in the ones with a tower made of brick with four rectangular fan blades . Netherlands has a stereotype of having a lot of them. We barely saw any of them and then it occurred to me that most of them were probably upgraded to use modern technology.

Ypres

Our next destination, Ypres, is known for the many battles that occurred there during the First World War, where the Germans introduced chemical weapons in the battlefield in the form of poison gas. During the course of the war, the town was destroyed, mostly by artillery fire.

The town was rebuilt after the war using German war reparations, with the main square following the original design as closely as possible. The In Flanders’ Fields Museum (the big building in the above picture) is a museum dedicated to the First World War.

Dunkerque (Dunkirk)

Our final destination for the day was the French port city of Dunkirk, known for the role it played during the evacuation of Allied forces from France. The Germans had achieved a breakthrough in France and had surrounded the bulk of Allied forces around Dunkirk. The German airforce was tasked to destroy these forces, so that the Germany army could conserve its ground forces for other operations, but the Germans failed to destroy the Allied forces and over 338000 soldiers were successfully evacuated to Britain.

That night, the locals were having a festival, called the “Bal du Chat Noir”, probably loosely translated as “The Black Cat Ball”. It’s so obscure that as of this writing, an English Wikipedia article for this festival doesn’t even exist. The French Wikipedia describes it as a festival to celebrate the opening of the carnival season (i.e. the Christian Carnival), and that it’s local to Dunkirk.

From what I can tell, it’s kind of like the Carnival in Cologne, where people party in the streets dressed up in costumes. There’s no shortage of reasons for people to party!

Stay tuned for day 3!

• Oosterscheldekering
• Ypres
• Dunkirk

There are even drag queens! I thought that was a thing that people went to Bangkok for.

I finally found deep fried insects!! It seems kind of strange to buy food from vendors where their food appear to have been just sitting out in the open for hours in the burning heat, but that seems to be the norm here.

Would you like some rubber poop?

When the rainstorm hit, the shopkeepers were fully prepared. We weren’t. I walked around drenched wearing a T-shirt and shorts.

But I don’t think they were prepared for the wind…

My buddy’s YouTube video gives a pretty good tour of the street markets too. Check it out!

Otherwise, that’s it for street markets in Chiang Mai.
See all the photos here

On my first day of the trip, I headed out along the southern coast of Iceland along the Ring Road. My flight landed early in the morning and because of my poor planning, I would be driving six hours along the Ring Road after 7.5 hour flight. At least the drive was quite scenic during the day!

This was my ride.

Seljalandsfoss

A lot of people come to Iceland to see nature, and waterfalls are among the sights. It reminds me of the kind of waterfalls you’d see in the Pacific Northwest.

Skógafoss

Another waterfall along the Ring Road that’s easily accessible. I’d say it’s even more impressive than the previous one!

There’s also a staircase that takes you to the top of the waterfall, but the view from up there isn’t as interesting.

Solheimasandur Plane Wreck

This place is a bit out of the way. It’s an actual plane wreck of a US navy plane that crashed landed in 1973. It’s on private land and the owners didn’t want to allow vehicle traffic to go there, so it’s a 45 minute walk (one way) from the parking lot alongside the Ring Road. The walk is PRETTY BORING since there is nothing interesting the look at along the way, but it’s pretty worth it when you get to the actual plane wreck. You can even go inside it!

Reynisfjara Beach

This palce is well known for having black sand, and its basalt columns, formed after volcanic activity.

The rest of the drive

It was starting to get dark as I passed the town to Vik, and I ended up spending the night near Diamond Beach, in preparation for the glacier cave tour that I would do the next day. By the time I got there, the roads were pretty much pitch black.

The only place I didn’t get to see that was a part of my plane was Dyrhólaey, which is a small peninsula just off the Ring Road with a view to the ocean with a stone arch on the water, and a lighthouse.

Photos along the Ring Road here

I think the most famous place around here is Antelope Canyon. It is part of the Navajo Nation Reservation so all the tour guides there were Navajo people. I had never seen such rock formations before so this was cool to see. This rock formation looks like a lady with flowing hair.

And this one looks like an eagle.

Nearby was a giant coal plant that employs a lot of Navajo people. But what will they do when the coal jobs run out? Oh wait, Donald Trump is going to bring them back /s

Next did a super short hike (not sure if that distance even counts as a hike) in the blazing forty something degree Celcius heat to the Horsehoe Bend. The colour of the rocks and the water work so well together.

Kind of near the Horsehoe Bend was the Glen Canyon Dam. A great juxtaposition of natural and the artificial. On the gamer nerd side of things, it also reminded me of the level in Half-Life where Gordon Freeman has to fight through all the soldiers on the dam (video)…

We also went to Bryce Canyon. The pictures don’t really do justice in showing how big the whole canyon is.

On the drive, we saw a ton of cows…

We stopped in Vegas on the way to San Francisco and got the best meal of the whole trip at the Bachannal buffet at the Caesar’s Palace. This was much better than the random fast food we had been having for the few days out in the national parks. I didn’t take many pictures of the buffet, but my friend sure did when he visited a few months back, so check out his video if you want to see what delicious goodness is at this buffet…

That’s pretty much it for this trip.

Photo albums:

• Antelope Canyon
• Bryce Canyon
• Glen Canyon Dam
• Horseshoe Bend
• On the road

STP 2017

In the summer of 2017, two friends and I rode STP over the course of two days (this was my first cycling event ever). At the time, I didn’t really know how to train other than just riding a lot of miles and I never really gave any conscious thought to hydration or nutrition. I clocked in about 1500 km over 70 hours of training from March till July (which was totally below what the official training plan called for).

On the event day, I ate whatever there was at the rest stops and drank the electrolyte drinks. I also ate this supplement called SportLegs that people were giving out. They supposedly improve muscle performance (however, sports dietitian thinks they’re more placebo than anything). I didn’t know anything at the time, and I just ate them anyway.

We were worried that our legs would be too sore to continue on the second day, but on the morning of the second day, we didn’t feel fresh, but nonetheless we made it through both days (with both legs still working!) and we were super happy with ourselves for having accomplished this. We joked that maybe it was the SportLegs (to this day we still don’t know). As we crossed the finish line, I said to my friends, “OK so we’re going to do STP in one day next year right?”. They thought I was joking, but I wasn’t.

The problems begin

The next event that summer was Obliteride 2017, a century ride to raise awareness and fundraise to fight cancer. I figured that since I had done STP, I’d be able to do this ride no problem. This is where problems for me started.

Around the 50 km mark, I started cramping up a little bit, and I still had 110 km to go. I started drinking much much more of the electrolyte drinks and eating, but the cramping just got worse and worse. It’s not that I didn’t have the strength – but each stroke I took, I felt the cramps. But the cramps weren’t SO bad that I couldn’t continue – I just had a terrible finish.

I went to see a physiotherapist to see what was happening, and she took a look, and she could only identify a slight pelvic rotation (my hips were leaning to one side of the bike), but she didn’t think that was the root cause. She couldn’t see anything wrong with the bike fit either, but thought it could have been a lack of training since Obliteride was much hillier than STP. I did the exercises she asked me to do and that was about it. I had also signed up for the Whistler GranFondo and Chilly Hilly as well, but I couldn’t even finish either of them. At one point, my entire right leg locked up on me and I couldn’t bend it for a couple of minutes. I began to worry if I could even continue cycling anymore.

Tackling the problem

I was so fed up with this problem, that I scheduled appointments with different doctors in sports medicine to get their advice. They all suspected that it was a nutrition problem and referred me to a sports dietitian. At my first appointment with the dietitian, she asked me about my lifestyle, how much I ate, exercised, etc. and immediately said, “you’re not eating enough for the exercise you’re doing” (I estimated that I was eating about 2200 calories/day). She wrote out on the whiteboard a high level guideline as to how I should eat.

I saw her for about a month and a half and after following her advice, my problems were solved! In a way, I got the OK from the nutritionist to eat as much as I want, even massive amounts of sodium and sugar, provided that I keep up my level of exercise. Knowing that eating more was the fix, I had no problem with that.

She also got me to measure my sweat rate, so I’d know how much water to replenish during big rides.

Training for STP 2018

I rode sporatically in the winter (I should have followed Rule #5 of the Velominati) and didn’t really start training seriously until June. From January to May, I clocked in only 848 km over 38 hours, which was only a bit less than year before at the same time, but I had started earlier in the year this time.

I made a plan for myself where I would do intervals twice a week with a big ride on the weekend (in June alone I clocked in 577 km over 25 hours). Two of the big training rides I had were century rides, where I got to work out the specifics in my nutrition and hydration plan. In total, I rode about 1600 km over 73 hours, not counting the intervals.

Three weeks before the event date, I started sleeping earlier and earlier (by about 15-30 minutes each day) to get myself used to waking up early since I would have to be on the road by 5:30am on event day.

Two days before the ride, I started carb loading (as per instructions from the dietitian).

My emotional state

I didn’t like the fact that training took so much time out of my week. I was already spending 10+ hours on the saddle, and I was beginning to feel mentally tired from all willpower required. The intervals drained me mentally even more because of the mental focus I needed to force myself to spin as hard as I could. It’s so easy to just stop when things get tough, and interval training was more mentally draining than any training ride I did.

As the event date drew closer, thoughts of my possible failure creeped into my mind, getting stronger day by day. I couldn’t think of anything else. I thought back to the wise words of Sun Tzu:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

知彼知己，百戰不殆；不知彼而知己，一勝一負；不知彼，不知己，每戰必殆。

I even started meditating to calm my mind. My coworkers could tell that I was more distracted than usual and provided me with good encouragement.

Race day

My friend and I started the ride around 5:30 am, and because there were so many cyclists on the road, drafting propelled us quickly and we made it to the halfway point around 2:30 pm. I still felt pretty fresh at that time which was good.

I knew that most riders do the ride in 2 days, so I expected not to be able to draft behind other riders. By about 200 km, I started feeling tired, but I knew I had to keep going. There was still 120 km to go.

I wasn’t having fun anymore. At this point, it was just a grueling grind to the finish, where the finish line was hours away. I wanted the day to be over. and thought to myself, “this too shall pass”. Looking at my bike computer frequently to see how far we’ve gone made it worse – slowly watching the distance ticking upward while thinking “when will this end?”

The temperature that day went up to a max of around 38 degrees Celsius. We rode in the burning heat, slowly becoming more and more dehydrated. I wanted the sun to set faster, so that it’d be cooler.

Judging by the dozens of people we saw at rest areas, we figured our pace was pretty good. But as we went further along, there were less and less people at the rest stops. Either they bailed, or they were much faster than us.

The finish line would close at 9 pm, and there was no way I’d get to the finish line in time. I wish I had trained harder.

For most of the last third, we rode mainly on our own, occasionally seeing another rider, whom we’d ride behind just to get an extra bit of a boost.

At the last rest area, there was almost nobody, maybe like a dozen people at most, but we were only some 25 km away. We could do this.

My friend and I would swap taking the lead every five minutes so that we could balance out the wind load between the two of us. The fact that the two of us rode together allowed us to talk to each other and help lift each other up. I think that helped a greal deal mentally and emotionally.

At dusk, we finally entered Portland. We were now just 30 minutes away from the finish line. We joined a group of other riders and rode together till the end.

I called out to the other riders with encouraging words like, “yeah! We’re almost there wooo”, but looking back I think I sounded too happy (despite my true feelings of misery) and the people around me probably thought I was a jerk for being so happy while they felt miserable.

Finally we reached the finish line at 10:30 pm. People were still there and cheering us on as we arrived. I almost shed a tear. I was overjoyed having finally achieving this goal.

Other friends who drove to Portland met us at the finish line and could see our happiness despite how filthy we were. We weren’t even hungry nor thirsty. We were in no mood to do anything. We just wanted to sleep. My friend was told that he sounded brain dead because he replied with one word answers and lacked the concentrated gaze that he normally had, whereas I was still considered having a sound mind.

The next morning, I woke up with quite the hangover even though I drank no alcohol. I was just REALLY REALLY dehydrated from the bike ride in the blazing heat.

After this entire ordeal, I told myself, “I’m not going to do this again next year”. I didn’t get back on the bike until late August – I think STP scarred me a little bit. I definitely don’t regret having done this at all, and I’m still very proud of what I did.

Alright, now let’s get the tickets for the game

“Don’t worry about the tickets for the game”, my friend said. Next thing we know, the tickets were all sold out to season ticket holders. Our other friend found some tickets on viagogo, BUT, we didn’t know if they were fake. We needed a new plan. “It’s OK, we can buy tickets off scalpers on the black market”, my friend says. The black market sounded all well and good until the news reported armed robberies occurring where scalpers were robbed of their legitimate tickets which were now worth a couple hundred US dollars, a value that is a large chunk of a typical local’s monthly salary. We could now only rely on the viagogo tickets being legitimate. Then there is me, the clueless foreigner in his country and doesn’t speak any Spanish, who can only helplessly watch events unfold without knowing at all how to help.

In our already not-so-good situation, a representative from viagogo calls us and said that the tickets can only be picked up at 5pm close to downtown. The problem was that the stadium is on the edge of the city and the game starts at 6pm. There was no way to go to the pickup location for the tickets AND get to the game on time because traffic on game day would be terrible. My friend calls the viagogo representative and tells him the situation and guilts him into letting us pick up the tickets earlier by saying how we trusted the company with these tickets and whatnot and the rep agrees to let us pick up the tickets earlier. Whether or not the rep was sincere in that offer we didn’t know. We needed a plan B in case we really had to pick up the tickets at 5pm. This is where our plan got SUPER elaborate. We spent a good hour brainstorming a good plan and this is what we came up with:

The guy who bought the tickets (the American), would have to ride a motorcycle to the ticket pickup location, pick up the tickets, and go to the stadium, while the rest of us would get to the stadium early with a van so that when the bike arrived with the tickets, we could hide the bike inside the van. When his dad heard the plan, he began to scold him saying how crazy it was, and in his scolding, I heard a word come up over and over again. When I looked it up, I found out it was profanity. Awesome! My Mexican friend called all of his connections that he had to see how we’d get our hands on a van and a motorcycle. According to him, “he knows a lot of people, people owe him favours”. The problem with that plan was that the guy who had the van got into an accident (whether or not that was true, we’ll never know), which suddenly broke our whole plan.

Okay, so what if he rode a bicycle to pick up the tickets? He’d have to ride 12km from the pick up location to the stadium in terrible traffic. Not to mention the person riding the bike isn’t familiar with traffic in Mexico (traffic that does not respect bikers), and that most streets don’t have stop signs or lights. Throw in some lack of sleep – the guy would be flying in that morning in an overnight flight from LA. He was up to the challenge. My Mexican friend summarized the whole plan into a PowerPoint, calling it “the story to be told about this amazing adventure”. We wouldn’t be able to execute this plan until the day of the game. In the meantime, my Mexican friend showed me around.

Lake Chapala

Lake Chapala is Mexico’s largest freshwater lake, and for whatever reason, there is a substantial population of Canadian and American retirees here.

Tequila

Got to see some Agave fields (and eat some Agave too!) on a tour at the Jose Cuervo Distillery in a town called Tequila (where the name of the alcohol comes from). I made the tour guide speak English because I was the only guy on the tour who didn’t know Spanish.

Driving in Mexico?!

At one point, my friend’s brother asked me if I wanted to drive. I thought to myself, “okay, so there are no stop signs anywhere, I have no idea where to stop, and based on the driving I’ve seen, nobody really follows the rules on the road”. I drove anyway!

Knowing that I was a complete newb on the road in Mexico, my friend and his brother were both very watchful to make sure I was stopping at the right times. They had practically memorized all the places where cars should and shouldn’t stop. I had no clue whatsoever. I stopped and went when they told me to.

Later on, we saw police cars stopped on the side of the street in front of us. My friends just told me to play it cool and just drive normally. I also realized I didn’t have ID on me, so if I had gotten pulled over or something, I would have had to pay $100 USD just to get out. But luckily, nothing happened.

Picking up the tickets

Now it was time to execute the plan. My friend called the Viagogo rep in the morning and he says that we can pick up the tickets at noon. Okay, so no problem. We went and picked up the tickets while in the back of our minds we were still wondering if the tickets are fake. If the tickets were fake, then our whole plan would be meaningless.

We meet the rep and he gives us the tickets. We closely inspect them, and everything looks good. We were in a bit of a disbelief. Everything seemed too easy. But we wouldn’t know if the tickets were real for sure until we actually go to the ticket counter. At this point, we wouldn’t have to execute our crazy bike plan, and could only wait and see when we got to the stadium. With the couple of hours until the game, we spent some time walking around the city center of Guadalajara.

Touring the city center

Lots of people out and about on a hot day. We went in May, statistically the hottest time of year in Guadalajara.

The local boy/girl scouts were running a recycling campaign or something.

Game time

After lunch, my friend’s dad drove us to the game. As expected, the traffic was real bad. On the way there, as my friend’s dad drove, he says to us that he’s going to break a bunch of traffic rules and not learn from him. He then proceeds to cut a bunch of lanes, crossing the hatched areas on the road, and cuts in in front of people. He even made use of an handicapped sign on his car to get into the parking lot quicker even though he wasn’t handicapped at all (seniors just get those because they’re above a certain age). With his epic driving, we got to the stadium right on time.

Now, the moment of truth. The guard checking the tickets would be the one to tell us if the tickets were real or not. As we got closer, we got more and more nervous. The guard scanned our tickets and waved us through. What a relief. We didn’t need any of our contingency plans after all. Logically, everything went smoother than we could have possibly imagined. Now it was time to enjoy the game!

The entire crowd pretty much supported the home team, and there was a small section of Tigres fans, probably about 50-100 people only. Tons of people waved Chivas flags, and some even waved the French flag because it had the same colours as the Chivas jersey. We all bought jerseys for the game too!

As the game went on, the crowd cheered and chanted, “dale dale dale rebaño!”, which roughly means “let’s go herd [of goats]” (chivas means goats). At one point, when it looked like the Tigres were making a comeback, the crowd cheered even harder. With an amazing 2-1 finish (4-3 aggregate), the Chivas had beaten the Tigres to win their 12th championship!

Celebration

That night, large crowds gathered at the Minerva statue in the city to celebrate the team’s big win. My friend’s dad said he’s never seen the crowd this big in a long time. To celebrate, the dad made us all tequila cocktails (there was probably 3-4 shots worth of tequila in that) before we headed out and had a great time. As the only Asians in the city (my American friend is of Japanese descent), we stood out a lot and people occasionally said random phrases to us in different Asian languages. I guess that’s what happens when two Asians show up with Chivas jerseys!

Last, but not least, the food

My first meal when I arrived in Mexico: Menudo. My friend thought my stomach wouldn’t be able to handle it, because the meat in the soup was tripe. But, nope! Chinese people eat tripe all the time!

Not exactly a meal that I had, but there is a running joke that a guy can take a girl out with roses and a can of Jack Daniels. Once that joke caught on, the store intentionally started putting roses next to the Jack Daniels in the store.

Tacos with carnitas and guacamole? Sign me up!

Lonches. Basically a sandwich with meat inside served with a dipping sauce on the side (can also just be poured onto the plate to let the bread soak). The bread used is a kind local to Guadalajara (birote/bolillo).

Then there are tortas ahogadas. Very similar to lonches. It has a the same bread, but this one is way meatier and the sauce is a tiny bit of spice.

Ceviche! A dish with raw fish cured in lemon/lime with added spices. Can’t say no to seafood!

My friend’s mom also cooked food for us and I totally wish I had taken some pictures of that food. She cooked a pork stew and I wish I knew what was in the sauce! Both parents encouraged me to eat so much and they showed so much hospitality! They kept offering me more and more food until I was super stuffed. Good thing my friend’s brother taught me “estoy bien”! This was definitely one of the best trips I ever had – full of excitement and not just doing touristy things. Having a local show you around really helps!

Link to photo album: here