Arrival In Quito

Our journey began with a familiar hiccup – another delayed flight. A storm within our flight path forced our plane to fly around it, delaying us an hour. Fortunately, we made the connection and arrived in Quito by afternoon. And another hiccup, our cruise package included an airport transfer, but no one from the cruise company showed up. After learning that Uber was technically not legal in Ecuador but still commonly used, we summoned a ride. Our driver wasn’t concerned, and the ride went off without issue, and we arrived at the hotel.

Brazilian Steakhouse

Dinner that night was at the hotel’s Brazilian steakhouse, Fogo de Chão. It operated on a simple system: green side up on your card meant “more meat, please”, and red meant “stop”. Servers rotated through the tables offering cuts like filet mignon, sirloin, pork ribs, and leg of lamb. Though the selection was impressive, the sheer volume of meat was overwhelming. We left the table stuffed to the brim and almost regretted that extra slice of steak. Afterward, we walked it off by exploring the hotel. Near the pool, hotel staff gave us food for the koi pond. The koi swam up in anticipation, mouths already open, having clearly learned the drill.

Touring Quito’s Historic Centre

The next morning, after a buffet breakfast featuring fresh passion fruit, guava, and plantains – fruits native to Ecuador – we joined our tour group for a full-day city excursion. Our first stop was Plaza San Francisco, located in Quito’s historic centre. On the top of a nearby hill, we noticed a statue with wings – known as the Virgin of Quito, is unique to the region and symbolizes the Immaculate Conception through Andean artistic traditions.

The adjacent church and convent, officially known as the Iglesia y Convento de San Francisco, is among the oldest religious sites in South America, constructed in the 16th century atop an Inca temple. Much of the interior and cloisters were constructed using locally sourced volcanic stone and alabaster. Its central courtyard was tranquil, framed by arches and dotted with trees bearing what looked like lemons and olives – some people even picked and tasted them right off the branches.

The city sits at an altitude of roughly 2,850 metres (9,350 feet) in the Andes, and the effects of high elevation quickly became apparent. Climbing stairs at the convent’s bell tower left me short of breath, apparently a common experience for visitors not yet acclimatized.

Indemini Báez Chocolate

Unlike bulk cacao used in mass-market chocolate, fine-flavour cacao is prized for its complex taste notes—often described as floral, fruity, or nutty—and is grown under specific conditions with greater attention to fermentation and drying. Ecuador is known especially for its Arriba Nacional variety, which has earned a reputation among artisanal and high-end chocolate producers worldwide.

Plaza Grande

Plaza Grande, also known as Independence Square, is surrounded by some of the most important civic buildings in the country, including the Carondelet Palace, which serves as the presidential residence and the seat of government. We also learned about the Ecuadorian political system and the country’s recent presidential transition. Our guide mentioned that voting is mandatory in Ecuador, a measure intended to increase civic engagement.

The guide also mentioned that if we hadn’t already noticed, Ecuador’s official currency is the US Dollar. They adopted it as its official currency in 2000 after a severe economic crisis. We’d brought some U.S. dollars, assuming they’d come in handy for currency exchange, without knowing the official currency prior.

Church of Gold

We also visited La Compañía de Jesús, a Jesuit church famed for its Baroque architecture and lavish gold-covered interior. Built in the 1600s, the church’s ornate design reflects both Spanish influence and local craftsmanship. The interior is said to be covered with more than 50 kilograms of gold leaf, adorning everything from the altars to the intricate ceiling mouldings.

The sheer amount of gold gives the sanctuary a warm, glowing appearance, especially when lit by candlelight. Despite the obvious value, theft isn’t a concern – access is tightly controlled, security is present during opening hours, and the gold is bonded to surfaces in a way that makes removal extremely difficult without causing noticeable damage.

Crater of Life

For lunch, we dined at a restaurant overlooking the Pululahua crater – the lunch was simple, but the view was the real draw. The owner also kept a few llamas on the property – one of them even spat out its grass at me.

Unlike most volcanic craters, this one is inhabited. Pululahua’s fertile soil and sheltered microclimate allow a small community to farm and live within the crater’s walls, shrouded much of the time by drifting clouds.

The City at the Centre of the World

The final stop was Ciudad Mitad del Mundo. This monument was built in the 18th century based on French geodesic measurements to mark the equatorial line. However, later GPS data revealed the true equator lay about 240 metres north.

Still, the site remains symbolic of Ecuador’s connection to the equator – “Ecuador” literally means “equator” in Spanish. When the country gained independence in the 19th century, it chose the name Ecuador to reflect its location on the equatorial line.

That evening, we returned to the hotel for a final dinner in Quito before we left for the Galápagos. The meal was delicious, but it didn’t quite compare to the indulgent buffet from our first night. This brief stop in Quito, nestled high in the Andes and steeped in colonial and Indigenous history, offered a nice intro to Ecuador.

See more of Quito here

At the time we went, Iceland was one of the few countries in the world that allowed vaccinated foreign visitors. All that was needed was proof of vaccination – not even a pre-entry COVID test. The fact that most people were vaccinated meant that most people were not wearing masks in the city, but this was before even the Delta variant – it seems like so long ago now.

I had been itching to go travel somewhere since the pandemic began, and this was a very welcome nudge towards normalcy. Flying with Icelandair was the same as before: the seat and leg room is pretty comfortable, but there’s no food included with the airfare. The only difference is the extra bureacracy related to COVID, which increased how long it took each person to get through immigration, resulting in long lines after the plane. It didn’t help that we arrived so early in the morning that the food places weren’t even open yet and we had to wait in line while hungry. Eventually, we picked up the rental car and drove into Reykjavik for breakfast. We took the day easy by just exploring Reykjavik on foot, and took a nap in the afternoon when the jet lag caught up to us.

That night, we had probably the most memorable meal we’ve ever had at Tapas Barinn. The great thing about tapas is that as tourists, we get to try a little bit of everything as opposed to ordering entrées.

I even got to try some Flóki single malt whiskey. The smokiness from the whiskey actually comes from the barley smoked using sheep dung, a traditional cooking method. I also got to try some more brennivin like my last trip to Iceland – it’s essentially a grain alcohol (40%) and flavoured with caraway seeds, which gives it a sweeter flavour than something like vodka.

I had visited Iceland a couple years ago, but it was in the winter where there was only 4 hours of light per day, and even then the sky looked like dusk.

This time, travelling there in the summer, I didn’t see the night sky the entire time I was there. I could more clearly see and appreciate the nature around me, like the endless fields of moss growing on the rocks, and sheep freely roaming the fields.

It is thought that the Icelandic sheep were introduced to Iceland by the Viking settlers. Farmers allow them to freely roam around in the summer months, and as winter comes, they round them all back up again.

Like my previous trip to Iceland, we travelled along the Ring Road to see the waterfalls, and the volcanic beaches.

This is what the view at Seljalandsfoss looks like in the summer versus the view I saw in the winter. I had no idea Iceland could be so green. In the summer, people can even walk behind the waterfall, between the rock and the falls itself, but in the winter, the trail is closed because of ice.

Skógafoss looks about the same between summer and winter, except the vegetation is greener in summer.

A kitty even came out to hang out with us! As we were walking, the cat just walked up to us and stopped, expecting pets as a payment to pass through. After that, off it went.

Unlike travelling to Iceland in the winter, there were no restrictions (4WD) to drive up to Dyrhólaey in the summer. As we drove up, I could see why. The road was a set of steep switchbacks on gravel roads that were only a little more than two cars width – and there were no guardrails.

From the top, one can see the endless mountains, or watch the waves crash against the beaches of volanic sand.

The next day, we took a Superjeep tour to see ice caves on an active volcano known as Katla. The reason why it’s called Superjeep is because it can deflate its tires (for icy roads), and inflate them back up again depending on the terrain, but otherwise it looks like your typical Ford Excursion but with big tires.

The ice caves were located a ways in from the glacier. In summer, a lot of the ice had melted, revealing the volanic sand and rock underneath.

Only just now as I was writing this, did I realize we were travelling on a literal volcano, but I suppose it’s safe.

As we headed up the volcano, the lush, green vegetation quickly disappeared, revealing a rocky landscape with a mix of ice and black volcanic rock. Grey clouds covered the sky and it began to rain.

Eventually, the tour guide parked the truck, and we began our volcano hike. He brought his ice pick with him and used it several times to cut steps in the ice.

Despite the summer season, the temperature still felt like a mild winter. But it still meant the ice caves would not be as fully developed as in the winter season, and this could clearly be seen when comparing the ice caves from this trip versus the previous one. In fact, the winter ice cave was really more of a tunnel, while the picture of the summer ice cave was taken from the end of the cave with the camera pointing out.

The ice on top of the volcanic rock looked so alien that several movies used this place as a location for another planet. Rogue One was filmed in the area for the opening scene where young Jyn Erso hides from the stormtroopers. The movie doesn’t show the whole cave, but the similiarity is clear. If the movie had shown the whole cave, one would see why people call it the “Yoda Cave”.

It was nice staying in the cave for a bit as a brief respite from the rain. We made the mistake of wearing jeans for a multi-hour hike in the rain, and our wet clothes just made us even colder. We also got the chance to chat a bit with others on the tour. We met an orthodonist who practised in Greece by the name of Thanos (I wonder if he was aware of the MCU), and another who claimed to be a “voodoo priestess”, whatever that means.

The next morning, the plan was whale and puffin watching. It turned out to be an incredibly bad idea because I apparently get seasick, and didn’t get to see a lot. Even those who did see whales could really only see a small fin barely capturable on camera. Only a small percentage of people get to see the whale flying out of the water and crashing back down. Good thing the puffin watching was on a separate tour so I got to recover from the seasickness, but we decided not to go and instead gave the tickets away to another group that we overheard looking for tickets to the same tour.

Instead, we went to go get some Icelandic hotdogs for lunch. The key things that set it apart are the condiments, and the sausage. In addition to ketchup, and sweet mustard, they also add “remoulade”, similar to mayo with added herbs. The sausage uses lamb, as opposed to chicken/pork/beef.

Next, we headed to the Reykjanes Peninsula and the Blue Lagoon. We reached the tip of the peninsula and stood on the cliff watching the waves crash against the shore. If there was such a thing as the end of the earth, this was it. Despite strong gusts of wind, thousands of birds nested on the side of the cliff. From far away they look like white specks, but one can see them clearly with a good set of binoculars.

Next, we went for a relaxing soak at the Blue Lagoon, a man-made spa fed by water used by a nearby geothermal plant.

The water forms a milky blue colour from the high silica mud, and is supposedly good for the skin. They even sell super overpriced skincare products at the gift shop.

The area is beautiful with all the steam slowly rising from the hot springs with the light cool breeze. It would have felt like a whipping biting wind if not for the hot spring. You just submerge yourself until you feel not too hot and not too cold, and then relax with their cleansing silica face masks and a drink.

After leaving Blue Lagoon, we’d learned there was an active eruption happening at the nearby Fagradalsfjall volcano, and was happening slow enough such that it was OK to go see it.

A short walk from the parking lot led us to the lava flow. The trail continued upstream of the lava flow to the mouth of the volcano.

There were warnings for people to not walk too close to the lava flow because of risks of toxic fumes, but many did it anyway (as did we). Many curious hikers threw rocks on it just to find out that the lava flow had already hardened, even though there were still visible fumes coming out.

The hike turned out to be really long, and we weren’t really prepared to do a multi-hour hike at 20:00 in the cold, wind, and rain. As we reluctantly turned around, we saw people pointing the other and when we looked, we managed to catch a glimpse of the volcano spewing lava from afar. It makes sense now why people call it the “land of ice and fire”

It was surprising to see how watery the lava looked. I expected molten rock to be more viscous. The lava just spewed out in a splash. I felt super lucky to have seen such a sight.

As we walked back, I noticed these hexagonal patterns in the ground. Maybe this is how basalt columns form? From what I’ve read, under certain conditions, the cooling magma can cool in a way that forms these hexagonal shapes.

By the time we reached the parking lot, we were wet and cold (seemed to be a recurring theme by this point). Luckily there was a food truck at the parking lot selling hot soup.

The next morning before heading out to the Golden Circle, we started the day off with a nice brunch at Sandholt.

The unexpected star of the breakfast was the bread. As an amateur baker myself, this is the bread I aspire to make – it’s soft, light and airy with a crisp crust.

Next step along the Golden Circle was Geysir. The geothermal heat creates pressure underground causing the water to explode upward every few minutes. The entire area is filled with geothermal pools, some of which are so hot they’re bubbling from the heat and pressure.

It’s cool just to just stand in anticipation of the eruption. From looking at it, there’s no indication that it’s going to explode at all, and then it just does. At one point, the wind carried the water toward us and got us all wet, but luckily by the time the water hits the ground, it’s cooled down.

From the Geysir, we drove to Gullfoss. Unlike other waterfalls, this one has a unique feature where the water does a zig zag before hitting the bottom.

There were attempts in the past to build a hydroelectric plant here, but those efforts have not succeeded, and since then, the waterfall is now under government protection.

The last destination of the Golden Circle was Kerið crater. It’s believed that the crater formed through volcanic activity. Once the magma chamber emptied, it collapsed, forming the crater. The accumulation of water is not formed by rainfall, but is actually ground water.

On our last day before we left, we got the chance to try more Icelandic dishes. This time we had some lamb soup, dried fish, fermented shark, and some Einstök white ale, a local craft brew.

It’s not often that I would rave about soup, but I liked it so much I’ve been trying to recreate the flavour at home. It’s savoury soup with vegetables, lamb, and herbs/spices. I can’t say I was a huge fan of the dried fish and fermented shark though. The dried fish is served with butter and its flavour reminds me of super tough beef jerky with a light fish flavour, while the fermented shark has a texture of a ham with a soury tang. Perhaps it’s an acquired taste. The beer was great though.

That’s pretty much it for Iceland. We got the chance to try all sorts of local delicacies, and see a piece of nature we wouldn’t normally see in our part of the world. At the airport duty free, I even got to pick up some Brennivin, and a bottle of the Flóki sheep dung whiskey!

See more pictures of my trip to Iceland here

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

The luwak coffee has no added milk or sugar and is sweet on its own. It tastes like regular black coffee with sugar in it, but then I’m not a coffee drinker, so my taste for it isn’t as nuanced.

The luwak eats the coffee cherry (the fruit that contains the coffee bean), and. The bean itself is partially digested and defecated and then used to make the coffee. Yes, the coffee is actually made from part poop. Plantations send people out into the woods to specifically look for the poop. The guide said 1 kg takes 42 days to produce.

It’s one of the most expensive if not most expensive coffees in the world. Our guide at the plantation called it a “cat-poo-ccino”!! The plantation doesn’t actually charge for any of the tours and samples (except for the cup of luwak coffee), but rather they rely on people buying coffee and tea to make money.

The next stop was the monkey forest. It was really cool to see monkeys running around with humans so close to them.

There was a sign that said to not stare at the monkey for too long, but I clearly forgot…

Monkeys like to play too!

The monkey forest was the coolest place in the whole tour. Mike’s video has even more clips of the monkeys. Check it out below.

The next stop were some rice fields. But a freak rainstorm occurred and cut that way short. At first we thought, it’d be okay with a little, but then it just poured.

The raindrops were HUGE.

15 minutes later, the rain was gone. A bit of a drive later, we reached a waterfall as the conclusion of the tour.

From there we drove back to our accommodations and passed by some more rice fields. Throughout the car ride, we chatted with our guide about sorts of things like the history of Indonesian independence, North American culture, and life in Indonesia. One thing that really stood out to me was that he spoke very fondly about how dad prepared dog meat really and how much he enjoyed eating it. To him, it’s something super normal and part of the culture, but it seems so foreign to us in North America.

This ends our day trip in Ubud. See more of the trip here.

The flight was to arrive in Kuala Lumpur at around 13:00 and we would depart for Bali at 21:50. Arriving at 13:00, we should have been able to arrive in the city via Grab between 14:30 – 15:00, but it took at least an hour at the immigration line so we didn’t get to the city until after 16:00. This would leave us around 5 hours in Kuala Lumpur, which is not great, but not terrible.

We had only eaten breakfast, so by this time, we were starving. So we went to Lot 10. Everything looks super good, but in actually only tasted okay. I thought it’d be on par with my trip to Singapore.

Next, we visited a nearby street market. The market reminded me a lot of Singapore – similar food options (bak kut teh, chili crab, stingray, etc.), which makes sense since Singapore used to be a part of Malaysia.

Our next destination was the iconic Petronas Twin Towers, but all of a sudden out of nowhere, it started pouring with thunder and lightning. At first the thunder was a few kilometers away judging but how long it took to hear the sound, but not long after it was right on top of us.

We got on a Grab to head over there, but the sudden rainstorm brought traffic to a complete stop and it was barely moving. After being in the car for 30 mins and having gone less than a kilometer, the driver advised that we head to the airport directly as there wouldn’t be enough time to hit up the twin towers and make our flight. We reluctantly agreed.

During the car ride, I chatted with the driver about living in Kuala Lumpur. The driver was Cantonese in enthnicity but was born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, which I didn’t expect at all. I had forgotten about how stuck we were in traffic while chatting with the driver (at one point the driver took a bathroom break and left the keys in the ignition).

Eventually, I looked on Google Maps, and saw there was no way we’d make it to the airport by car. We decided to get dropped off at the metro station in the pouring rain and we’d take public transit the rest of the way. Check it out in Mike’s video (the raining part starts at ~5:10).

That was pretty much our trip to Kuala Lumpur. After a big delay at the airport and the freak rainstorm, we really only had 3 hours in the city to do stuff, which was too bad. See the rest of the photos here.

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

First stop: the dam just off of the Stone Arch Bridge.

When I rented a bike, I expected a city cruiser, not a full carbon fiber road bike with Ultegra Di2 and electronic shifting! Not sure what year the bike was, but a new one would probably cost around $5000 USD.

I headed south, past the University of Minneapolis and eventually to Minnehaha Falls. A couple had brought a Lego Thor and Loki for some photos and I managed to snap a picture of it too. Perfect timing for Avengers Infinity War opening weekend I guess.

I really lucked out on the weather because there had been a giant snow storm a week or two before. It wasn’t too warm nor too cold either. Hot enough for sunburns though.

Eventually I made my way to Fort Snelling.

Then I headed west to bike past some lakes. Even though the weather was just a bit colder than T-shirt weather, there was still ice on the lakes slowly melting.

I had read online that Minneapolis has places that serve camel meat, so I ventured to the Midtown Global Market to find it. To be honest the meat didn’t look that appetizing and it tasted just like regular lean meat with nothing distinct about it.

Next I made my way to the sculpture park, where the famous cherry on a spoon sculpture is.

Nearby, was the Basilica of Saint Mary. And I thought cool looking churches was a European thing!!

In total, I biked around 70km on a really fancy bike and toured a lot of stuff in the city. Before flying out the next day, I spent some time at the Mall of America. Most awesome Lego store is right here.

The centre of the mall is an indoor amusement park!!

Unluckily for me, I somehow got sick the day after the bike ride, so I was quite impatient to go home that day. It’s no fun getting on a plane while sick… Once I got home, I didn’t even unpack and went straight to bed.

Link to photos: here

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

This year’s competition problem involved the following scenario: normally solar panels are able to rotate toward the sun, but sometimes they get stuck, therefore it requires people to go out there and rotate them manually.  Also, undersea transmission lines sometimes get severed and also require manual repairs.  Our task was to build an autonomous vehicle using a VeX Robotics Kit in about 5 hours to use in a small scale arena emulating similar conditions.  A wooden pole represented the solar panel, that we had to rotate and a plastic pipe represented the transmission line.  To “repair” the transmission line, we had to build a repair module using newspaper and popsicle sticks that could physically cover up the pipe.  Additionally, in order to reach the transmission line, the vehicle would have to cross a rice field (represented by uncooked rice) and cross a river (ensuring that no electronics get damaged, they had to be above the “water line” at all times – represented by the dip in the arena).  After designing our vehicle, we would also have to present our design to the judges.

When I heard what the problem was, I thought to myself, “this is an impossible problem given the time we have to build it ands lots of teams aren’t going to be able to perform the task”.  I guess it was supposed to be like that.  The problem couldn’t be too easy or otherwise everyone would be able to do it.  Despite the difficult task, we approached it with a super chill attitude throughout the entire competition.

As a group, we planned out what we wanted to do.  We thought that it would be straightforward to go across the river, but it turned out that it wasn’t that straightforward.  We had trouble keeping our electronics above the “water”.  The line follower kit we used could follow the black line quite accurately, but it had to be about an inch above the ground.

To make matters worse, the wheels kept falling out.  Normally, one should just have to insert the shaft into the motor clutch and connect the clutch to the motor, but the connection was quite loose. 

One of our teammates spent about 3 and a half hours trying to fix the wheels and he succeeded. It took up a lot of time that we needed for the other design tasks, but we couldn’t leave that alone since movement along the ground was a critical function.

In the meantime, we brainstormed how we would rotate the vehicle to face different directions when needed, how we would pick up the repair module, and how we would rotate the solar panel, and how to protect the line followers while crossing the river.    We also had to think of what we were going to say for the presentation.

We couldn’t really get the rotation to be accurate without using an encoder (which would increase our product cost), so we tried to see what we could do without being able to rotate the vehicle.  We could drive straight toward the solar panel, rotate it, and return to the base.  If we focused on just this task, we didn’t have to figure out how to figure out the other tasks.  We figured that most teams wouldn’t be able to perform that task anyway.  With that in mind we modified our design drastically and came up with something that kind of worked.

The end reached high enough such that we could just bump into the top of the solar panel and rotate it and then go back to the base.  We didn’t need to worry about the other task of repairing the underwater transmission line.  There wasn’t enough time for that.

When it came to the presentation, we talked about our design and answered the questions quite well, but one of the competitors asked us a question that a lot of people seemed to feel was a very jerk question to ask.  He asked “how would the client feel that we delivered a product that could not meet all the stated requirements?”  I guess he was bitter that my team beat his team last year and felt threatened by me this time around.  We answered the question by saying that it’s better to do one task well, than to fail at both. 

In the competition, a lot of teams did in fact fail the tasks and did absolutely nothing.  When it came time for our device to compete, we did what we could.  It did reach the solar panel and rotate it a bit, but not enough to rotate it all the way.   It couldn’t even complete one task, although we had tested it before and saw that it did work.

The winning team (the same team as the guy who asked us that terrible question), used a design that would travel align the walls, past the river and to the broken line.  It picked up the repair module (shaped like a table) using a flat pad to slide underneath to pick it up.  It managed to do a 90 degree turn by following the wall (push sensors would tell the vehicle that it had in fact touched a wall).  It was clear that their design won out over everyone else’s, and they totally deserved the win.

The past two months of weather in Stuttgart saw a majority if days that were partly cloudy without a lot of sunshine and a lot of random rain.  Since the beginning of last week, the temperature in Stuttgart rose from a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius to a phenomenal 30 degrees Celsius over the course of a day.  Also part of this dramatic change was the sudden disappearance of all the clouds.  This weather persisted for a few days and I was beginning to think that summer in Stuttgart finally arrived.

Last Wednesday, I noticed on the weather report that Stuttgart would get more rain today and when I saw that I thought it was kind of strange.  As usual though, the forecast here was generally pretty accurate.  As predicted, it started raining as I got to work.  The rain was so light that it may as well not be considered rain.  Not long after, the weather reverted to the 30 degree sunshine.  That was disappointing.  I wanted more rain.

Later that day, as I was leaving work, the bright summer sky was overrun by a large gathering of storm clouds.  A large rainstorm started pretty much around the same time I decided to leave work. I walked from the research building to the main building, which usually takes about a minute, and during that time, it rained so hard that everywhere that my umbrella didn’t cover was soaking wet, namely my jeans from the knees down.  I could squeeze the pant leg and water would gush out like a wet towel.

Like everyone else, I waited for the bus by the guard booth at the gate under shelter.  Looking out, everyone could see the rain turn into hail.  Hail the size of loonies rained down.  The sound of the hail hitting cars just made a loud and persistent rattling noise.

When the bus came, everyone opened their umbrellas and ran to the bus.  While inside, we could still hear the loud rattling from the impact of the hail and we were all thankful that we didn’t have to be outside anymore.

As the bus passed under an overpass, we could see the drain on the overpass disposing the drainage water onto the side of the road beneath it and because of that, it ended up flooding the road.

About halfway down the mountain, the rain stopped and almost immediately, a rainbow appeared.  After getting off the bus, I started feeling the intense summer heat again.  The wet ground now just reflected the intense summer like a giant mirror.

I don’t think I’ve ever encountered that large of a rainstorm in recent memory and definitely not one where it started hailing in 30 degree weather.  Haven’t been that soaked from rain before either.  It was really like movie rain – it comes out of nowhere all of a sudden and gets everyone soaked, but it stops really quickly.