day 1: from vancouver to seattle to mexico city

8 Feb 2006 (Wednesday)

Day 1 of the Mexico adventure. The trip starts off with us 3 musketeers (Ben, Alvin and I) having a so-called "farewell" breakfast at Mac's with Simin, Jo-ann and Zineng.



Group photo!



And us 3 musketeers in question.

After tt it's on to Holiday Inn in downtown to board the QuickShuttle (code name for: VERY FUCKING SLOW shuttle) to Seattle, where we would be flying off to Mexico City from.



View of the bus.



And view from the bus.

The bus took over 4 hours to get us from Vancouver to Seattle. It was damn bloody slow, and things were not helped by the fucking guai lan customs officer at the US land border, who irritated the hell out of me. The bus trip alone was enough to tire us out.

Fortunately we managed to get to the Seattle Tacoma International Airport in one piece, albeit tired out, and in time for our flight. We all didn't like the airport - for Ben, it was VERY smoker-unfriendly (he was absolutely miserable smoking outside in the cold), and for the rest of us it was a mess and we wouldn't call it world-class at all. But well. At least I got nice views from the terminal gallery of planes taking off while waiting.



Night sky from the Seattle airport, as we were waiting to board our plane to Los Angeles, where we would be taking the connecting flight to Mexico City from.

Our 6.45pm flight was delayed for almost an hour, but we still managed to get to LA in time to catch our 11.38pm flight on time anyway (smoking rooms available in LAX.) We reached Mexico City around 2.15 am Vancouver time, which was 4.15am Mexico time, and from the Mexico City Airport, we took our first cab to our hotel in Centro Historico (the historical area of Mexico City) - Hotel Gillow. Which Ben booked coz it was a name he could easily pronounce.



That's Ben with the cab driver.

And I liked the hotel, because it was located on the road: Isabel la Catholica. :) Wahaha.

For 3 of us, we got a junior suite. With 2 rooms - 1 with 2 single beds, and 1 with this massive king-size bed. Ben got the room with the king-size bed. Bah.

And this is where I end off with the Day 1 entry, even though it's already over 5 hours into Day 2. But seriously, there's no difference.