Egypt!

Hi, I made it to Egypt in one piece (complete with luggage!). The first thing I saw after getting my pack was Sarahima's smiling face on the other side of the security gate. She and Annette had arrived from Spain a few hours earlier and waited for me at the airport.
After reuniting, we took a cab to the hostel and slept for a few hours, then this morning we got up and headed to the bus station for a 6 and a half hour bus ride from Cairo to Hurghada. There wasn't much to see out the window, just a lot of sand. I slept on and off for the bus trip and I am still quite exhausted.
So far, Egypt is good. There was a prayer call around 5am and I remembered that they had that in Senegal when I went to see Mary and Dan. Our bus driver played prayer music and the kid who runs the internet cafe is playing it right now. It is really beautiful, a capella melody. I can't tell what's being said because my Arabic isn't what it used to be, but that just makes it more mysterious.
I am grateful to be traveling with friends in this very different part of the world. It is so much easier to navigate the overly aggressive touts and to figure out what to do with more brains thinking about it.
Tomorrow Sarah and Annette are starting their 4 day scuba course and I will walk them to class and maybe do a bit of exploring. I will take some photos and post them in the next few days.

Learning Lessons in NYC

I never thought that i'd be using a TTI technologies computer, but here i am at the HI in NYC doing just that. $1 for 10 minutes! what a rip!
Anyway... I landed safe and sound yesterday afternoon at JFK international. Unfortunately, my baggage did not. In fact, it never left Mexico City and i'm not sure that it has yet. The official story is that our plane was too heavy so they left some of the luggage there and it was coming on the next flight. There were about 40 of us altogether, and I stuck around until the agent entered my form into the computer so I could get a claim number since I don't have a phone and I wasn't really sure what the hostel's phone number or zip code was. This took about 3 hours. I was second to last and the agent confided in me that it was likely that our bags weren't coming anytime soon, because Mexicana had another screw-up earlier in the day. It has been about 24 hours now so at this point I am just hoping that it gets here as in New York before I leave for Cairo tomorrow. On the upside, it is surprising how little I need. I had packed my ipod, book, all the warm clothes I have, an extra pair of underwear, and my passport stuff, and so far I've only bought a few toiletries and a t-shirt and I'm actually pretty comfortable.
I went to the Empire State Building (pity I didn't have my camera) and Times Square and have been walking all over Manhattan. It is cold!!!!! and beautiful. New York is so lovely and the people are so pushy and it's a pretty amazing city.
I had one other major problem today which also worked out. The airline I am flying with tomorrow doesn't seem to have a phone number. I went on a wild goose chase armed with a $20 phone card (almost gone now- thanks again TTI) and still do not know the phone number for them. I was able to confirm my flights tomorrow with the travel agent back in SF. Apparently there is some secret system that travel agents have access to that is directly connected to the airlines' flight information.
So, that is me right now. Cooling my heels waiting for long lost luggage and a flight to Egypt to meet Sarah and Annette. I hope everyone's new year is going great so far. I will post pictures as soon as I have a camera again. Until soon....

¡Que Viva México!

Well, my time in Mexico is almost over. Joon and I both have to catch a plane tomorrow morning. His plane is bound for home, mine to NYC for two days and then on to Egypt.
We have a tv in our hotel room and it is the first tv I have watched in a long while. Today I learned that there is some serious shit going on in Israel and Gaza and I am wondering if it´s really a good idea that I visit Israel right now (or in 2 weeks). So I will discuss with my soon to be travel partners, the amazing Sarahima and Annette, who are traveling the world on a 10 month trip. I will meet them in Egypt on Wednesday and the plan was to work our way overland to Tel Aviv, but we shall see.

The important thing I want to say is that I love Mexico from the bottom of my heart, and I feel so lucky that I got to be here for the last 2 1/2 months, and really I don´t want to leave. So I will come back one day. The things I love about Mexico are too many to count really, but here are a few: cute babies, first class buses which are more comfortable than planes, huevos rancheros, corn on a stick with mayonnaise and cheese and chili powder, fireworks, scary bus rides, people selling stuff on the metro, aztec soup, affordable avocadoes, houses painted every color imaginable, COLOR EVERYWHERE, beautiful, kind people, young men helping old ladies crossing the street, danger (translation: FUN) everywhere you look, and so much more.

I feel especially lucky that my family and Joon got to come here to share it all with me. I am looking forward to seeing Sarahima, Annette, and Molly on soon-to-come parts of my trip.

There is a lot more traveling to come in the next four months, and it should be exciting because I will have no knowledge of the language in any other places I go, so stay tuned!

Me and Joon on one of those ridiculous top of the bus tours today.

A pretty house in Condesa- fancy neighborhood in DF.

happy new year!

wow, i can`t believe it´s 2009. i guess it`s because i wasn`t really thinking about it, but it seems like the whole year just snuck right past me.
joon and i had a great new year in the zòcalo, where there were plenty of fireworks and kids, teenagers, and families all enjoying them. once again mexico outdoes the us with danger/fun. joon bought every type of firework available, and more than once sparks flew onto his clothes. miraculously, he escaped with all ten fingers.
tomorrow we head for mexico city, the belly of the beast that is mexico. we will spend two days there and then joon has to head back to sf and i go on to nyc. i am looking forward to spending two days in my home country, where i plan to eat bagels, drink coffee, see the empire state building, and watch american movies (without subtitles). i don`t think that i`m prepared for the freezing cold weather of new york, especially after i`ve been spoiled with 80 degree weather every day in oaxaca, but i have a jacket, hat, gloves and a scarf, and i`ll take my chances.
i am hoping that everyone at home is safe and warm and enjoying the rose parade on tv. i miss you all and hope that you have a great new year!

Tsang family Xmas 2008

The chapulines catches Joon`s eye...

Seriously considering it....

Eating the chapulines!

For the record, Joon is only the 2nd non-Oaxacan i have met so far who was brave enough to put a chapuline in his mouth. The Oaxacans love them- they are fried grasshoppers with some red stuff on them (chile?)- and I actually see people standing around with a ziploc bag just munching on them. Joon did not like them all that much, but he gets extra credit for trying it.

The family all arrived in these last few days, and we have been walking and eating our way through Oaxaca. Here is a shot of Joon, Derek, and my mom eating at a sidewalk stand on Christmas morning.

Lunchtime at the 20 de noviembre market- my dad and Derek enjoying menudo soup.

Joon after he finished his enchilada at Central de Abastos market.

On the way home from Central de Abastos, we stopped at the nieves area to cool off with some ice cream.

Then we all headed home for our daily nap/resting period while my mom, notorious for her endless reserves of energy, stayed out wandering the streets. This is our daily routine.

Christmas was weird, being in a different country and all, but wonderful. We went out for dinner and I had some really great soup.

I have a pretty awful cough that started this morning. It is a dry, itchy cough. So far I`ve been drinking tea with lemon and honey and using cough drops. If anyone has any other suggestions for remedies, I will be happy to hear them.

Hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas!

oaxaca 9

Jenny, Juri, Nora, Erin, and Kaori at the fair.

The entire spanish school sampling ´nieves´ (translation: oaxacan ice cream) outside La Soledad church.

hello, once again i am having trouble with my camera. my other memory stick is arriving on wednesday with joon so for now i am holding out on buying another. hopefully it is just a memory stick thing. we shall see.

the family gets here tomorrow evening! i am looking forward to it very much.

also, gracie from the hostel back at home is coming to pto escondido with her family and we are going to try to meet up in the next couple of weeks. i am so lucky to get to be with loved ones on this trip.

the other night some friends and i went to the fair. it was a lot of fun. i realized that i don´t usually go on rides or play games at the fair, because everything always costs so much. but this time i have the exchange rate in my favor, so i went on two rides and played the best shooting game of all time. there are these glass cases, with little bands made of dolls in them, and if you hit the target, the band plays a song for you. i tried to take a picture of this wonderful invention, but that is when my camera decided it wasn´t going to cooperate anymore.

i am putting yet more fascinating stencils up. i don´t understand how there is so much! and it is all so cool i have to share it. i showed my pictures to nora the other day and she asked me where i see all of them. she grew up here and said that she has never seen it before. i guess i´m just on the look-out for it. she also enlightened me to the fact that in times of political turbulence, people tend to use the image of benito juarez (considered one of oaxaca´s great leaders). back in 2006 there was a lot of stuff going on in oaxaca, and maybe that is when all these stencils started showing up?

anyway, in the next few days you will be seeing a lot of photos of me and my family doing touristy stuff for the holidays. i hope everyone is doing well and that you have a nice holiday season.

Oaxaca 8/ Posadas

Hi! Tomorrow is my last day of class at Oaxaca International. I´m feeling pretty sad about it. I really like the people at the school and my classmates, and learning Spanish. I really want to be fluent one day and I think I will have to move to a Spanish speaking country to do it. The good news is, I found out today that I have learned all the verb tenses there are, so now all that´s left is perfecting my subjuntivo and beefing up on vocabulary and slang.

Here is a photo of the courtyard of my apt. building. I saw doña Lulu yesterday, putting up more Christmas decorations and she confessed to me that she loves to put them up, but hates to take them down. I understand completely. The building looks really nice with all the lights and angels and the 3 kings.My door is the open one on the bottom left.

Two nights ago some teachers from the school took us to the first posada of the year. It is a Christmas tradition where women from the community (las madrinas) get together and put on a little neighborhood party. They make food, drinks, and get music and piñatas going. They do all this out of the goodness of their hearts, for the community and for the sake of tradition. It is sort of like a SF street fair except no one is charging you any money for anything. Mexicans are so cool!Here´s a photo of my ponche. I hope I´m spelling that right. It is like a tea with cinnamon, sugarcane, and some unidentified fruits. Kind of like cider.

Here´s a picture of one of my teachers, Nora, and one of my classmates, Erin.

A shot of the madrinas passing out food. There was media tortas (half sandwiches) and tamales. mmmmmmm....

Krazy Kaori showing her media torta and tamale.

An action shot of grammar class. Kaori, Juri, me and our teacher Judith. We have grammar for 2 hours, a short break, then conversation for 2 hours.

Oops- this picture is supposed to be in the ´posters for simone´ post.