Mexico City - Final Thoughts

Now that we are back home, it's time for the trip recap/tips:

1. Food -- I personally didn't love all the tacos as much as I was hoping to. I generally speaking enjoy all Mexican food though (avocado, Mexican rice, beans, simmered meats, salsa, etc) so it's not like I didn't enjoy any of the meals, I think it was more a realization that the tacos I manage to access from California are pretty good too? That or this is like Thailand where sadly I like American Mexican food more than traditional Mexican food. I will say the corn tortillas and tamalas and really anything seemed way more flavorful than their US counterparts. Food things that were better than I expected: mole, churros, pastries, mangoes, bugs. 

2. Weather -- it rained almost every day, but only for a brief portion and always in the late afternoon or evening. It was kind of nice to always be able to rely on a sunny morning. I'm also glad it wasn't any warmer than it already was -- the heat of the sun in Mexico City was definitely harsher than Bay Area. 

3. Air Quality -- this was a surprise, I wasn't expecting the air quality to be as poor as it was. It definitely reminded me of Beijing from a few decades past. Though I also think part of what I blamed as air quality might have just been me adjusting to the higher altitude? But even during the rains, there was never really a "refreshing" air feeling.

4. History - the pyramids and museum lived up to expectations. And expectations were high. So these truly were world class and worth the visit. We didn't get guides at either of these, but found the English placards and such pretty good, along with frequent consultations with Gemini. 😆 

5. Neighborhoods - Polanco was definitely quiet and safe feeling, though the amount of caged and street food in walkable distance was also lower, but I'm sure that was a direct counter-balance to noise levels. Condessa was very cute and leafy -- I could see why people enjoy staying there. Juarez was a little on the grittier side, I can see why many people generally do not pick the city center for lodging.

6. Fancy restaurants - high points for Quintonil (honestly if they didn't have the bugs I would have liked them less, made it more one of a kind). Really enjoyed value for money and home-cooking taste at Esquina Comun. Rosetta was much better than I was expecting...but I wouldn't put it on Bouchon levels. Maybe it didn't have enough butter. 😆 Masala...was probably not one I would go back to. Some of the flavors just didn't work so well for me. 

7. Cultural - Frida's house was interesting, but if you had one cultural slot to fill, I would choose Ballet Folklorico. I wish I had more time to hit some of the other museums -- like the perfume museum, the museum of modern art, and the murals at the National Palace. 

8. Length of time - I could have filled a couple more days easily (lengthen Puebla to an overnight trip at a minimum) but also felt like we had enough time to hit all the highlights with our one week.

9. Scheduling - feedback from travel mates is that the schedule was certainly full, but that they appreciated the rest/flex downtimes built in everyday. 

10. Transportation - Ubers were very easy and so cheap; Didis did appear to be noticeably even cheaper. But this is like $10 ride vs. $11 or $12 ride difference. The cars were often a little on the older side with A/C sometimes broken (again a nod back to China of 20 years ago).

11. Payment - There was a significantly higher number of places where we needed to use cash. Pyramid entry tickets, lots of markets, taco stands, photographers and drivers. We ended up getting probably around $1000-1500 out in cash for the seven day trip. 

Top 3s for everyone!

R: street vendor mangoes, stracciatella dish at Esquina Comun, VRBO rental. 

L: Handmade journal she bought at the Coyoacan markets, food/bike tour, Google office. 

Baba: Tacos at Los Alexis, Quintonil, family photo shoot. 

Mama: climbing the pyramids, axolotls, drummers and dueling harpists at Ballet Folklorico.

Jiuma: runs in Chapultepec park, climbing to the top of the Teotihuacan pyramid, torta and jugo on the bike tour. 

Jiujiu: Teotihuacan, family photos, the birthday tequila donkey at Mayahuel. 

Laolao & Laoye: Teotihuacan, bike tour, food at Esquina Comun.

But setting aside the foods and sights, I think all of us really enjoyed being able to spend time with each other, especially as we don't get to see a ton of Jiujiu and Jiuma given they're all the way over in Boston -- playing cards, walking around, sharing meals -- true highlight was enjoying all the family time we got!

Capping it out with some of our family shots. Until next trip!

Mexico City - Day 8: Zoo & Departure

Our flight today was at 3:30 so we had some time to do a tiny bit more sight-seeing. So...after we packed up all our stuff, we were off to find the axolotls! Well actually, first we sent Baba and L with all the luggage to Google (they both preferred that to capybaras and axolotls, crazy!). Laolao, Laoye, R and I instead went off to catch as many animals as we could in 2 hours. Beeline for the axolotls!

These things are crazy weird looking. 

They are like little dinosaurs who swim and have weed like tentacles around their heads.

Not sure why all of the tanks had little soccer balls...maybe they like playing? 😆

Check out those crazy weed head tentacles!

Aren't they just crazy looking?!?

Now let's run through a bunch of the other animals we saw in quick succession (I have to say, the zoo was laid out very well -- there were new animals every time we turned around, we covered SO many in such a short visit, and all of the animals were so active!)

I always get stopped by the monkeys. Their faces!

Finally got the capybara!

Yeah...he was a little far away. 😆 I guess we will have to take L and R to Brazil at some point to see the little guys in the wild.

Check out the video of the black bears playing around! R said their fighting reminded of her and L. 😆 

 

This itching monkey was hilarious. It is super little also, like maybe the size of a large guinea pig. 

I made a gif!

I was a big fan of the zoo. Great way to spend a morning before our departure from Mexico. News alert: R liked the axolotls so much that she has now convinced Baba to turn our aquarium into an axolotl habitat!

We booked our flights back with points so we unfortunately we had a layover. However - I managed to get a manicure and a shower in at the lounge.

Refreshing end to a great family birthday celebration/spring break! 

We got home at almost midnight -- so glad I got that shower in beforehand.  Very glad we planned it so that we got back on a Friday so that we could relax for a couple days before going back to work/school. 

Next post - final thoughts on CDMX!

Mexico City - Day 7: Puebla

We had a 9:30 call time this morning for our drive out to Puebla in order to make our noon mole lunch. We were originally planning on a 2 day stay in Puebla and I'd gotten all excited about some of the things we would eating...so I felt compelled to add in the day trip still. I forgot to take a photo of the actual murals on the walls -- they were quite entertaining. We picked out Jesse Jackson, Jimmy Carter, and Marilyn Monroe, among others. It was a very nice restaurant decor and ambiance wise. Unfortunately we had a waiter who had a really hard time understanding our order. I think he wasn't used to people just sharing lots of food. It unfortunately meant we had a couple botched orders...too bad because the food was actually quite good! 

I appreciated being able to order multiple moles - really helped us all figure out which were the best. Here's a pumpkin seed green one next to a sweet red one next to the classic mole poblano. Green was the winner hands down. 

This one included a chile one and a chocolate based one -- the red tomato-y one was probably the winner in this round. 

Food presentation was well done. Here's a salad. 

And this was our very last "celebration" dinner for Laoye. I think he aged at least 5 years based on the number of birthday songs and desserts we went through. 😆 

Puebla was a very cute town. Lots of colonial architecture, bright colored houses, no skyscrapers in the downtown area that is focused around the Zocolo. I kind of wish we had kept our original itinerary to stay here overnight for two nights. It seemed like the type of place we would have enjoyed wandering around in more. It was so much cleaner than CDMX, the streets were all more organized, there were a bunch of stores I would have loved to stop in. Maybe it just felt more overall manageable than the huge overwhelming nature of Mexico City. Like we went to some of the best restaurants there and yet no one would know them - everyone seemed to know the Puebla spots. The whole of downtown was like a square mile. 

But before we explore Puebla in greater detail, first a detour to the largest pyramid in the world: Cholula. You ask why you've never heard of it? Well, it's a bit of a misleading title. Basically there IS a gigantic pyramid...but over the years it was forlorn and grass grew over the top...so now its just this big hill that you can climb and the Spanish explorers built a church on the top so you can't really excavate the pyramid underneath either. The view from the top was nice. Here's the famous volcano of Mexico City in the background - typical cone shape of all volcanos. 

L and R had been expecting pyramids to climb like at Teotihuacan -- they were a little upset that we ended up doing a hill climb instead. But their disappointment didn't stop them from looking amazing for photos still!

L tried to go see the ruins underneath, because children under 13 and seniors were supposedly free...but sadly that was only for Mexican citizens. So she had to settle for climbing up to see the church. 

Panoramic view was pretty nice from the top --- this is in the downtown Puebla direction. 

Inside the church. Impressive -- but I have to say, even for someone religious, it's hard to feel excited about too many churches -- they all start seeming quite interchangeable...

After stretching our legs on this brief walk, we headed back to the Pubela historic city center for our self-designed shopping/eating/sight-seeing tour. It started with a visit to La Pasita, legendary for being the oldest bar in Puebla with some very eccentric drinks. 

I should have taken a photo of the menu, but one shot was literally just a question mark because they couldn't tell you what was in it. We went for some classics (the one with the cheese cube) and some not (pineapple and apple, I believe).

Apparently Baba felt the classic was decent (I did not agree, it was not good). I thought all of them were way too sweet. I guess the shot of tequila we had at Mayahuel was really sweet too...maybe this is a Mexican tequila thing?

After our shots, we walked around the eastern side of Puebla a bit, starting with the Alley of the Frogs (known for its colorful buildings and weekend market). 

There were some street musicians but otherwise pretty quiet. Much less crowded compared to Mexico City. We stopped at La California, which supposedly had a great "cremita" pudding. I was really anticipating this...(notice that my smile below in the picture is BEFORE we tried it). It was sort of like a creme brulee? But not that good. I would not recommend - unless you just want to say you tried it.

We stopped in a few pottery places next where I got a spoon rest and Jiuma picked up a small plate. Then we headed to the Chapel of the Rosary, known for how gilded the interior is:

Again, I was a bit underwhelmed...so we went to the Alley of the Sweets instead, hoping for a better fit for our tastes -- it literally is a small street where each shop sells candy and desserts.

Full of smiles with anticipation...but...I have to say the little candies and cookies looked better than they tasted, at least in my opinion. Perhaps Mexican candies/sweets is just not our thing? (Outside of churros).

We kept going, now in search of substantial food, Puebla's famous food scene needs to redeem itself! We passed the Zocolo along the way:

Also got the twins some bubble tea -- turns out "half sweetness" in Mexico is like no sugar at all. 😆 Next time we will know!

We made it to one of the top cemitas places in the city -- these were in fact pretty good. They are these HUGE sandwiches, bread freshly baked, ingredients plentiful, and it was fun watching them all get made right in front of us.

Look at the size of that thing! Bigger than L's head!

And the final stop was for some al pastor tacos. Jiujiu really wanted to catch a taco place with the gyro-type set up for carving the meats. 

These were actually quite good as well. Jiujiu says best tacos of the trip after the ones they got while we were at the museum. I personally really enjoyed the pineapple -- though overall I have to say I like my carnitas and shrimp tacos more than al pastor.

And with that it was adios to Puebla and back to the city. The 2.5-3 hour drive each way was pretty endless...luckily R and I passed the time very easily by binging on Pursuit of Jade episodes the entire way. 😆 

Was the day trip worth it? I enjoyed going to Puebla - I really liked the little Mexican town feel. The one shopping street next to the Zocolo actually reminded me a bit of Myeongdong! The rest of the town also reminded me a bit of Belize, but without the golf carts. 😆 Jiuma thought the Alley of the Frogs reminded her of a place in Colombia. 

But was it with the drive? Possibly not. I'd probably recommend it as an overnight trip if others are visiting CDMX. 

We were home by about 9pm - highly recommend our private driver service again for large groups - super nice folks and very convenient. We managed to stay up for a few more hours of cards (Jiujiu and Jiuma introduced us to this new game, the Crew, which is a collaborative/collective-goal concept, pretty fun! Might be a Christmas gift in the future!). 

And then off to bed. Tomorrow we depart for home. 😢 

Mexico City - Day 6: Xochimilco & Ballet Folklorico

Today our morning activity was a family photoshoot -- I was quite impressed with how professional the setup was - our photographer even had a second assistant who carried around the portable light umbrella. I can't wait to see the results! Here's one preview:

I thought an hour would be way too long but it actually went by pretty quickly. So many combinations to get through. 😆 

We rewarded ourselves with some more churros afterwards. This time in ice cream sandwich form!

It was almost noon so we decided to do some street tacos as well. The tacos here were all coated in the meat oil so they were more like wet burritos. Conclusion: not as good as some of the others we've had. Not bad certainly, but not one of our favorites.

Today's afternoon activity was boat rides in Xochimilco. All of the boats were so colorful. Watch out if you're coming that 1) it's quite a long ways away, in hindsight we should have come earlier in the day to avoid traffic. 2) the motorcycle touts trying to convince you that the dock is under construction and you can only go with them to a different dock are incessant. You have to just instruct your Uber driver very firmly to ignore them (they will stay with your car for like 10-15 min trying to convince you). 

Maybe also check that you're going to Embarcadero Nativitas...not Xochimilco downtown. One of our ubers may have been sent to Xochimilco city by mistake...but moving on!

L, R, and Jiuma were kind of obsessed with the dogs running along the banks. Here's a photo to remember them by:

Xochimilco is a UNESCO national heritage site for the chinampas that remain from the historical times. We didn't visit the heritage ecological section though -- we were told that would take a good 4 hours to get to. Instead, we did the party boat version: beers, quesadillas, and elote. Happy to report this street corn was MUCH better than the Coyoacan attempt. 

Armed with some snacks and a bucket of beer, we were off on our 1.5 hour float!

We passed by a lot of locals, some of whom were large groups that booked multiple boats and tied them together. Here is a group of 6 boats with a mariachi band in the middle for entertainment. 

It started raining a bit while we were out but the little raindrops were actually kind of nice...creating a lilies on the water painting kind of vibe. 

We didn't have enough time to go to the real Island of the Dolls but we did pass by this miniature one. Even this was enough to give off spooky haunted vibes. 

There were lots of the normal taco and elote floating vendors, but we also saw flower vendors, pulque vendors, and an eagle and his keeper as well - 150 pesos to pose with the eagle!

 

All in all, we enjoyed the boat ride experience, but wish it hadn't taken so long to get there/back. I think for other travelers, you should really strongly strongly consider adding it combined with something else (like a trip to Puebla or Coyoacan). Since we could only fit it in here, it was fun, but felt the drive "cost" was a little high. We went straight from the boat ride to our dinner reservation at Masala y Maiz -- our fourth Michelin experience of the trip. It was a little bit odd because their kitchen actually closes at 6, so we were a little rushed in the ordering. But since they offered to choose our menu for us, that worked out okay. 

Here are the appetizers -- an heirloom tomato and cucumber salad. Very good, though after so many days of heavy meals, we may have been overly biased towards a dish of vegetables.

Peel and eat shrimp - this was very very good. I liked the sweet and buttery dipping sauce too. 

Twist on tuna tartare - you break the tortilla chip on top and then scoop up the fish underneath with them. I enjoyed this, but as before, it's hard to make a tartare I don't enjoy. 

This was the potato fritter, with some peas mixed in the base and lamb on top. I recall thinking it was okay, but not extremely memorable. 

And of course no Indian fusion meal could happen without a twist on a samosa. I thought the beef version was quite good, would recommend. 

And they started us off with these boiled peanuts. Laoye always enjoys a good boiled peanut but they weren't as flavorful as the ones we are used to in China.

Moving onto the mains - this was their Chile Relleno -- we were a little torn on whether the pepper skin was meant to be eaten. It came with tortillas to be made into burritos. I personally didn't care for this dish, it was a little bitter and not very flavorful otherwise. 

The chicken on the other hand I really enjoyed. I wish we had gotten a third order. The dipping sauce was also quite good. And the orange sauce underneath was also super yummy with the included bread popovers. 

This is how R looked when we were forcing her to try some new things.

This is what the expression was specifically caused by, some very tasty mussels. Not as good as the Quintonil mussel dish, but still decent.

We also got two desserts -- neither of these were favorites for anyone. The chocolate was too bitter and the rice pudding like dish was a bit bland. 

After dinner, the more cultured of us had tickets to go see the Ballet Folklorico. We walked about 10 min from the restaurant over to the Palace of Fine Arts for the performance. Along the way, there was a night market of sorts where L and R finally got to pick up some Spanish books. 

It was nice being able to see the Palace lit up at night against the dark sky. 

Even before the show started, there was a pretty cool light show using the glass curtain -- I'm told it's made of thousands of Tiffany pieces!

I regret not taking a photo of the drummers and almost Hawaiian or Taiwanese-like first dance performance. It was a pretty cool way to start. Definitely did NOT seem like classic Mexico folklorico dancing. But most of the other acts were more traditional. The staging and lighting and so on were top notch.

I must admit I lost the plot a bit not being Mexican. At first there were nods to revolutionaries which I sort of got. But then at some point these folks with crazy heads came out...as well as a devil? And a she-devil? And then there was a deer-like animal being chased and killed...

At the end it went back to traditional dancing. Such amazing colors!

I didn't expect so much of the show to be focused on the musicians -- the singers had several pieces focused just on their singing and the musician/orchestra/band also had quite a few numbers where they were the stars. I think my favorite act all night was the dueling harps! Who knew that was even a thing!

Grand finale where everyone was taking their bows. Only the front two rows are dancers. The next two rows are the choir/vocal performers, and then the last row are the orchestra/band performers.

I'd recommend visitors coming to Mexico City to see the show once -- I do kind of wish it had been about 10-20 min shorter at the end (90 min, no intermission) but we were all highly entertained.

 

It was quite late by the time we got home. Immediately to bed -- tomorrow is our Puebla day!