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

For best results, training should be considered a full time job. One’s entire lifestyle must be directed towards this objective. This lifestyle will also require following the correct training program religiously over time.

All athletes are limited more by their minds more than their bodies

One needs to develop a winning attitude. One needs to combine physical fitness with mental fitness.

This chapter touches on a few mental opportunities for success:

• Motivation – Competitive cycling demands an inner drive to excel. Everything in your life must be focused on the goal
• Dreams, goals, and missions – high performance starts with a dream. This turns into a goal, and ultimately the mission. Are you willing to make any sacrifice, ride any number of miles, or do any workouts deemed beneficial to achieving the goal?
• Believe to achieve – there are bound to be setbacks. One needs to remain confident, patient and mentally tough to power through. Relive each day’s wins, big or small to boost self-confidence
• Mental toughness – when we’re at our limits, fatigue sets in, and the mind tries to make compromises. A fully committed rider gets through it
• Patience – success won’t come quickly. We can introduce incremental change, like: sleeping 30 minutes earlier each day, cutting out 10% of junk food from our diets, etc.
• Commitment and tenacity – there are moments where fatigue says to stop, but the fully commited and tenacious rider finds a way to keep going
• Consistency and routines – the mind and body like regular and standard schedules. Things like jobs, families, and other responsibilities may interfere
• Your high-performance team – surrounding each champion is a network of family, friends, teammates, coaches, etc.

This topic can get rather deep, so there is value in reading other books on the subject and speaking with other successful professionals from all walks of life.

By improving one’s mental approach to cycling, their training and racing will benefit greatly too.

Next: Chapter 2 – Physical performance
Chapter list: Chapter summaries

Cologne (Köln)

Last time I went to Cologne, I celebrated the Carnival and didn’t really see or do anything else. This time, I spent a half day checking out the chocolate museum and have a few beers.

The museum chronicles the history of chocolate, from the cultivation of the cocoa bean, to the industrial machines that produce the chocolate. Visitors can even order their own custom chocolate bar! They pick the kind of chocolate (white, dark, etc.) and can choose a multitude of condiments too.

I honestly was more impressed with the industrial chocolate making machinery more than the chocolate itself. As a graduate of mechatronics engineering, I can certainly appreciate the engineering behind these machines. The movements of each component is precisely controlled to perfectly pick up and drop pieces of chocolate or to pour liquid chocolate into molds, and the subsequently release them.

Afterward, we met up with a friend of mine who decided to move to Germany from America. He was so interested in Germany that he earned his C1 level in the Goethe Insitut examinations (it’s one level below native speaker), and when talking to him, I could always tell his future was in Germany. He found a job working at Deloitte and his German is so good that he doesn’t even speak English at work! Even I can’t do that with my German.

Next up: the bar. You can’t go to Cologne and not try the local brew, Kölsch. Germans outside of Cologne assert that Kölsch shouldn’t be considered a real beer, and honestly, I find it to be just okay. It’s not great and not terrible. A unique part of the Cologne pub culture is that if the waiter sees you with an empty glass, he will automatically serve you another one, regardless of whether you want one or not. The sign that you’re done is to put a coaster over the glass.

We walked around town a bit and went to probably the biggest landmark in town: the Cologne Cathedral. This Cathedral is the second tallest church in Europe (the first is in Ulm, also in Germany), with a height of 157m. It’s hard to imagine the size, but most of the buildings in Cologne aren’t very tall so this building appears to tower over the skyline.

Düsseldorf

Next, we drove to Düsseldorf. All we did there was walk a bit around town, but the streets just kind of look like other cities nearby, like Cologne, except Cologne has a giant cathedral to look at. We did come across a small celebration in the street though. I’m not completely sure, but I think it’s for the massive Carnival celebration that was gonna happen in late February.

The fun started later that night though. We were looking to get some dinner and went to a local pub. It was Friday night and the place was packed – so you can be pretty sure this place is good. Normally, you’d just walk in and sit at any free table – there’s nobody to show you to your seat like in America. There was nothing free anywhere.

A group of Germans signaled to us that we could join them and they’d make space for us. I politely told them that it was okay and we could wait, but they started shifting over so we ended up joining them. We chatted with them over drinks and they turned out to be super fun people!

A older couple were having beers with their son in law and his friend until we joined (they were drunk already when we showed up). They were so happy to chat with us and kept telling us how awesome we were for visiting Düsseldorf. One guy kept telling us in his German accent how “North Rhine-Westphalia is the most open-minded place in all of Germany”, how he grew up in Bavaria near Allgäu, but can never go back there because Düsseldorf is just so amazing, and that we should live here permanently.

Germans when they’re drunk, really like speaking English. One of them kept getting stuck on words and he’d ask their friends what the word was in English. I’d translate the words for him each time and eventually one of their friends literally just told him, “don’t ask us, ask him! He knows all the words!” They were super impressed by my German and it’s a pretty great feeling to know that my German is good enough to have these conversations with locals.

My friend on the other hand, could more or less understand what was being said, even though he couldn’t speak the words. In fact, he had a bit of trouble with his pronunciation, to the point that not a single server in any pub we visited in Germany understood him when he tried to order a Radler. This bar was no exception either, and I couldn’t help myself but laugh at his misfortune

As we left, we jokingly said we’d meet again at the same place and same time to have beers together again. I gotta say that most Germans I’ve met have been pretty cool.

That’s all for now!

• Cologne
• Düsseldorf
  

Originally, we had planned on visiting Sedan too. This was where the Germans made their initial breakthrough into France that eventually led to the French surrender. We intended to go to the Museum of the Last Cartridge, the local museum there, thinking that it was about the World War II battle, but actually it was about the Battle of Bazeilles during the Franco Prussian War (which I had never heard of before). In the end, we didn’t have time for it anyway so it was okay that we didn’t go.

The Maginot Line

Not far from Sedan, was a preserved portion of the Maginot Line in northeastern France, known as the Ouvrage La Ferté. The Maginot Line was a series of defensive fortifications stretching along the French border from Luxembourg to Italy built after World War I to protect France from a future German invasion. The location at the Ouvrage La Ferté saw the heaviest fighting during the Battle of France in World War II. It eventually was overwhelmed by German forces and its entire garrison was killed.

It’s exterior still shows the damage from the battle and grass has grown over the craters that were once there. It is possible to tour the inside of the bunker, but it is only available to large group tours.

Driving through the area, it’s pretty common to still see bunkers on the side of the road.

The Ouvrage La Ferté is in a pretty remote location, which makes sense considering it’s a defensive fortification, and because of the rain the night before, we ended up driving on some flooded roads, and even narrow farm roads that even Google Maps didn’t have a name for.

Verdun

From Ouvrage La Ferté, we drove to Verdun. Verdun was the site of another major battle in World War I, and to remember the fallen soldiers, a memorial containing their skeletal remains was constructed.

Unbeknownst to us, the ossuary was actually closed when we arrived, so we never got to go inside. We could only peek through the windows and see was a blurry view of stacks of bones. In front of the monument lies a military cemetery.

Nearby the ossuary is the actual fort that played a role in the Battle of Verdun. The fort fell to the Germans without a fight since the French had abandoned the fort thinking that the fort would have been ineffective against the heavy artillery that the Germans were using. Eventually, the fort was recaptured.

The road leading up to the fort was interesting too because some of the old trenches were preserved. The zig zag of the trenches can still be seen. Its purpose was to ensure that shrapnel exploding inside the trench would be contained. A straight trench would have allowed a clear path for the shrapnel to fly through more of the trench.

From there we drove three and a half hours to Strasbourg, where we’d start our fourth day of our road trip. That’s all for now!

• Maginot Line
• Verdun

Outside of India though, not many would have heard of the Jallianwalla Bagh – at least in English speaking countries. There’s a good reason for that though. In 1919, the British massacred unarmed civilians, killing at least 400 with over 1000 injured. Approximately 1650 rounds were fired on 20000 people.

Before the massacre, the area was mainly a public courtyard, but now it is a memorial of national significance. The brick building has white squares marked along the wall – each square marks a spot where a bullet impacted.

Nearby the garden, is the Golden Temple, a holy place in Sikhism. Anybody who goes inside the temple complex must enter barefoot and cleanse their feet by walking through a stream of holy water flowing in front of the door. Once inside, one can admire the golden plates of the temple reflecting the ambient light.

The Golden Temple is only a five minute walk from the Jallianwala Bagh, but when we visited the temple at night, we couldn’t actually see our destination clearly and actually got scammed by an autowalla offering to take us there! We didn’t need the car at all!

Just outside of the temple is yet another sight to behold. Literally dozens of people sleeping outside. Likely these are people who have just made the pilgrimage to the temple.

Unfortunately, there were too many people lining up to go inside the temple itself – it would have been amazing.

See more of Amritsar here

The tour started at 9am, and since it was winter, the sun was only starting to rise at around 10am. Our tour guide was a fellow from France who fell in love with an Icelandic girl and moved to Iceland to be with her. Now he works as a tour guide and has aspirations to run his own tour company.

As a part of the tour, we got all the gear. Hiking boots with crampons, an icepick and a harness in case we fell and needed a rope to get back out. I didn’t have real waterproof pants, and the next best thing I had were water resistant bike pants with jeans underneath.

When we walked over large patches of ice, we’d have the crampons on, and when the terrain went back to rocks, we’d take them off. Along the way, I chatted with the tour guide and the other tourists. One guy was visiting from Dallas, Texas and does work in the film industry doing post processing work. I had no idea that kind of profession paid that much considering he was travelling around Iceland and talked about his Porsche!

After about 30 minutes of walking, we got to the first cave. The cave walls were made of ice, but were either black or blue depending on how much volcanic ash was inside the ice.

Here’s another cave.

And another.

For the last stop of the tour, we reached the coast and got an amazing view of the glacier touching the water.

Afterward, we walked back all the way to where we parked and drove back to the meeting point. We thanked the tour guide and wished him all the best in starting his tour company. Next, I drove back to Reykjavik in the snow.

That snow eventually turned into heavy heavy wind and rain. As chance would have it, that’s when I needed to fill up my car. I stopped by the gas station to fill up only to realize that my inferior American credit card wouldn’t work on those machines because my card didn’t have a pin set up. The gas station didn’t have an attendant either. Luckily I found another gas station further down the road, and I was able to fill up and continue the rest of my journey.

Photos: here

This was the weather on the night I got there… Very pleasant…

The next morning we went on a nice scenic drive through the mountains to chill at the sulphur hot springs.

We spent a good couple hours just sitting in the outdoor hot springs. The water temperature was like hot tub temperature while it was lightly snowing outside.

We stayed overnight in a nearby town.

The next day we ate at a very hilariously named restaurant…

Went on a scenic drive and a light hike around some frozen lakes.

Then at night, because I like South Park so much, we went to Casa Bonita. South Park’s depiction of Casa Bonita was quite accurate.

The cliff divers are real!!

We even ate at the so-called “South Park table”, the same table that Cartman eats at when he is dreaming about going to Casa Bonita.

Classic American breakfast. 16 oz Steak and eggs.

Our last day in Denver is when we actually spent time IN Denver. Strolling down 16th street mall.

Then we wandered into the state capitol. One of the hallways had photos of every president of the United States. All but one. Since each portrait is funded by donation, it might be a while before the current asshat president will get his picture put up.

Managed to get a peek at an actual discussion between politicians. I saw a guy defending a climate bill while nobody listened. And then I wondered if that’s what it was like at the federal level too…

In the afternoon, we rented a GTR and zoomed around the mountains. My friend and I took turns driving this supercar.

I had trouble keeping the camera still in the turn. At one point, the car readout showed that we were pulling 0.5G’s of acceleration!

The rental company has a guy that drives a lead car while guests renting different super cars follow them on their route. Their route was quite well planned and took us on a nice windy mountain road that led up to a lake. Along with us for the ride was a Lamborghini.

The rental company’s garage has even more amazing cars.

Denver was quite a relaxing trip, which is quite different from my usual trips where I’m walking for the entire day. In a blink of an eye I was back on the plane headed back home.

Link to photos: here

Someone told me that the pastries were really good, and they were totally correct!!

This is the Danish Parliament building. They also allow a small number of people to go up to the top of that tower for free!! We did have to wait for about 20 minutes though, but I think that was a not so well known destination.

Everybody says that Nyhavn is a must-see destination. It’s definitely gorgeous, but everything around here is super pricey!!

Amalienborg is the home of the Danish royal family. Sometimes people see the Crown Prince of Denmark going in an out of the palace dressed like a normal person. The building with the dome at the back is the Marble Church.

These palace guards walked right by me!! Can’t imagine wearing the full uniform on a blazing hot day…

Next up, was a chill bike ride around the city going at a slow 10 km/h. The weather really cooperated with us! It was a weird change going from wearing a full bicycle kit while riding my roadbike to wearing street clothes and riding this commuter with a basket on top…

Randomly stumbled upon this really cool looking fountain, known as Gefionspringvandet.

We rode through this old school star-shaped fortress that has been turned into a nice greenspace!

North of there was the Little Mermaid statue that everybody talks about. Everybody says it’s a must-see attraction, but the most underwhelming. They make it look so big in the pictures but in reality it’s tiny.

We rode past a military installation and saw this interesting sign… They’re really up to date with this drone stuff.

I was in Copenhagen around the same time as Chester Bennington from Linkin Park passed away. He even left a mark on the people in Copenhagen.

There’s a reason why people say Copenhagen is the bike capital of the world.

The white buildings in the distance is Paper Island – a hipster place to hang out and eat food.

It’s so busy here…

To my surprise, I found an ostrich burger… It definitely had a light taste. I’ve heard it tastes a lot like beef, but I didn’t get that impression.

Next, we went to Freetown Christiania – an area that the people there self proclaim as autonomous. The area was formed by squatters on land used by the military. Today it is a kind of like area where the police in Copenhagen don’t really enforce their jurisdiction (although they can), and it is governed by the people who belong to that community who have created their own rules. All the houses have graffiti on them, the paint on the walls is slowly flaking off, and every house has tons of advertisement posters painted on them. The people in the community are either hobos or hippies and sometimes it’s hard to tell which – and they’re probably all high as a kite. If you’re looking for a wild party, you’ll probably find it here. It’s a shame that I wasn’t allowed to take photos inside.

Inside the city hall, there is an astronomical clock. The fastest gear completes a revolution every ten seconds and the slowest every 25,753 years. I have no idea what kind of information it shows, but I can appreciate the mechanisms as someone who studied mechanical engineering!

This was probably the best meal on the entire trip. A sampler of the most Danish food ever at Skindbuksen. When we went in, we were the only people inside who looked like tourists and everybody else looked local, which was a good sign, but we stood out. The owner of the restaurant came by with a giant plate of delicious food and loudly said to us, “this is what we eat in Denmark, you should try this!”. For a brief moment, our interaction with him gathered the attention of the entire restaurant, while it felt like all the locals were just judging us tourists… It was a tad awkward. BUT the food was absolutely delicious. There was pickled herring, deep fried fish filet, smoked salmon, roasted pork, and pork filet! The other tables were looking at our food with jealousy.

At the bar in our hostel, we met someone who was working in Silicon Valley as a software engineer who happened to be working and travelling. She told me she graduated at UC Berkeley and so I asked her if she had seen the Amazon store there (this). She told me how awesome it was to have something like that there and to her surprise, I revealed that I am actually one of the engineers who worked on it!

That’s it for Copenhagen!

Photo album: Copenhagen

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

The weirdest part about boarding the plane: all the flight attendants just assumed I was Korean and spoke Korean to me, but changed to English for anyone that didn’t look Chinese/Japanese/Korean. I guess better to do that than to wrongly assume and speak English to actual Koreans. What’s cool about a Korean airline is that they serve Korean food like Bibimbap too. Oh, and they also asked me if I had a Samsung Galaxy Note 7. I guess that makes sense. Exploding plane… not good…

I arrived in Hanoi at night, and after a terrible night of jet lagged sleep, my adventure began.

Crossing the street on busy streets without traffic lights

Probably the biggest WTF moment I had was when I noticed that there are exactly zero traffic lights at intersections and there’s like a hundred people on mopeds crossing these intersections. People here are somehow magically able to weave through each other while crossing the intersection. People crossing the street just walk at a constant pace and just let the drivers drive around them.

The first time I crossed the street, it was like a giant leap of faith. As I’m crossing the street, I’m thinking “I wonder if this is what it feels like to know your life is about to end”. After I crossed, I thought, “Oh that wasn’t so bad”. But then there are like a dozen more intersections to cross before getting to the destination. After a while though, it definitely got easier.

There’s so many people here and the air pollution is epic

I thought I was used to large Asian cities (e.g. Hong Kong, Tokyo, etc.), but Hanoi is on a different level. The average population density of Hong Kong is about 6000 people/square km, but in Hanoi, it’s about 15000. For some reason though, it doesn’t seem like there are as many people walking around as in Hong Kong or Tokyo. Maybe it’s because they’re all driving their mopeds. It’s so crowded here that some people live in front of an unused railway track.

The streets are way less spacious too. People are always selling stuff on the side of the street, or people are parking their mopeds everywhere, so it makes it really hard to just walk in a straight line along the sidewalk. And as you’re walking, you’re constantly smelling exhaust.

Lots of cheap stuff

The street markets are often selling cheap knockoffs of things. People on the street were selling tons of North Face jackets. Apparently, they are made in Vietnam, but I have no idea whether or not the jackets here are real though, but they sure felt real. And they only cost $35 USD. I picked up two football jerseys for Bayern München and Borussia Dortmund for about $5 USD each. Dong Xuan market is another place selling tons of cheap stuff. Stores are tiny, but full of merchandise stacked up and the walkways are super narrow, but to our western standards, everything is super cheap. This is a city where a regular guy like me can walk into a Louis Vuitton store without being judged by all the people working there.

I almost bought this “Lepin” Millenium Falcon for $40 USD. The lady wouldn’t budge on her price =/.

On weekends, there’s a night market selling more cheap stuff.

They’ve got a really cool lake in the middle of the city

It was definitely the most scenic part of Hanoi that I went to.

On weekends afternoons and nights, everybody is going to Hoan Kiem Lake to hang out with their family and friends. At night, the lake lights up real good.

Of course, there’s the food

A while ago, there was a story about Barack Obama and Anthony Bourdain eating dinner in Hanoi. Since that happened, the restaurant they went to, Bún chả Hương Liên, became famous and tons of people went there to eat the “Obama Special” – Bún chả and spring rolls. A local guide we met later in the trip told us that this restaurant is overrated, but I thought it was good. Thanks Obama!

There was also this barbecue place. There’s a giant selection of meats with different cuts and you pick which ones you want and it all gets cooked on a giant barbecue platter. Aside from the usual beef, chicken, pork, they had an entire frog. Looking back, I should have ordered it. Frog is definitely up there on my list of delicious exotic meats. If I knew Vietnamese, I would have asked them if they had dog meat because I would have ordered that for sure. We ended up picking up a few things that looked good, but had no idea what they were. One of them tasted like beef and was kind of chewy and reminded me of beef intestines that I ate in Osaka.

At one point in the trip, we got a volunteer tour guide to take us around the city to eat stuff. We help them practice their English and pay for their food, and they show us around – it’s a pretty cool idea. Our guide took us to try some fried eel in a salad and some eel soup.

Our guide also took us to eat this Vietnamese version of a steamed rice roll. Not as good as the kind I eat at Dim Sum.

Everybody knows Pho. It’s a lot different than the ones I eat in Vancouver and not very comparable. The ones I ate in Hanoi were generally plainer and was less savoury. It also costs about $2.50 USD. Some people prefer this taste over the kind we get in the western world, but I would disagree.

By far the best meal of the whole trip was at “The Hung Snake Restaurant“. Yep, I got to eat an entire snake – a bamboo snake. A guy came with a sack with a snake inside. He took it out and let me hold onto it to “play” with it before eating. Sure, okay, playing with a snake is great and all, but that thing was frickin poisonous and the entire time, I was just kind of freaked out and hoped that thing didn’t bite me.

The next thing you know, the guy takes out a platter with scissors and knives like in a surgery and cuts open the snake. As it bleeds to death, he drains its blood into a glass, THEN takes out its beating heart and puts it into another glass. FINALLY, he cuts out part of the stomach and drains its stomach bile into another glass. He hands me the glass with the still beating heart and tells me to eat it. It was exactly what I came here for and it was amazing. I only wish I had chewed the heart before swallowing it instead of swallowing it whole like he told me to.

The blood and bile were mixed with some sort of alcohol and I drank those too. My friend on the other hand, could not bear to watch the snake get murdered like that and barely ate any of it when the food actually came. More for me :). All sorts of snake bits were used with different cooking styles: grilled meat, deep fried bones, deep fried skin, snake tail boiled into a soup, sauteed meat, spring rolls, steamed meat, the stomach, etc. Everything was GREAT. A++, would eat again – the king cobra next time.

In addition to snake, I also wanted to try cat meat. I asked the staff at our hostel and he told me that he knew that people did eat that sort of stuff, but wasn’t able to tell me where. Too bad. I also missed out on this silkworm omelette that they only serve in the mornings. Everywhere I saw a cat or a dog, I’d wonder if people would kidnap them and cook them =/

As usual, I drank the local beer. The Beer Corner is a popular place. It was weird to see a kid who looked about 12 pour my beer. Apparently that’s allowed around here.

Their way of life can be very simple

Just some kids playing Tug of War.

Let’s cut some hair on the side of the street.

Unique history and culture

This is a country where for so much of their history, they were conquered by someone: China, France, Japan, etc. The French left behind some of their architecture too.

Since Vietnam is a communist country, of course there has to be a statue of Lenin.

There was also an influence from Confucianism here. Enough for there to be a Confucian temple, which is also the site of the Imperial Academy, the first national university of Vietnam.

How fitting that when we were there, there were groups of students posing for pictures for graduation.

They’re really proud about going up against their enemies and winning

From going to museums there, they are really happy about finally having their own country back again. There were so many exhibits about their triumphs against the colonialists, against the Japanese, and eventually against the Americans. They even claim that the Americans fabricated the Gulf of Tonkin Incident as an excuse to fight in Vietnam. That could very well have been true, but everything just seemed super biased. During the war, the North Vietnamese shot down a B-52, which they proudly display.

There’s even a bit of a B-52 in the water where it crashed. The buidings in the back are also super narrow, which was because buildings were taxed on their width (not sure if this is still the case though).

They also like to point out all the terrible things that their French conquerors did to them at the Prison Museum.

The body of Ho Chi Minh is preserved and displayed in the mausoleum. When we were there though, his body had been transported to Russia for some work, and so it wasn’t on display.

At their military museum, they went on about how they fought a war against American imperialism and showed off the weapons they used. And of course, every time I see a tank, I think “cuz baby you’re a firreeeworkkkkk” and drinking margaritas.

I think that sums up the visit to Hanoi real good!

Link to photo album: here