Bienvenidas a la Vida Mexicana!: day 6: all together now: "tlaquepaque"!

13 Feb 2006 (Monday)

We were supposed to take a bus out to the town of Tequila, 50 km away from Guadalajara, today. Tequila is after all, THE place where the alcohol tequila is distilled from the agave cactus, and this town has god knows how many breweries and how many tequila-tasting tours.

We would have, had we woken up at 8am.

We however, all slept in till almost 12pm. I guess it was the influence of the alcohol.

So it was too late to bus out to Tequila and back in time to still catch our evening bus to Puerto Vallarta.

We therefore consulted Lonely Planet and decided to adjourn to Tlaquepaque, 7 km from Guadalajara.

Tlaque-WHAT?

"T-la-kay-pa-kay". That's how you pronounce it. Of course, it takes a little getting used to pronouncing.

Now, thing about Ben and I is tt we can both pass off as locals, Ben especially. It's worked pretty well so far coz we haven't been assaulted and the locals have been really really warm and friendly, even when our communication tactics are limited to exaggerated finger pointing, hand gestures, and looks of desperation. But looking like a local may also have its downside.

Like when not being able to pronounce "Tlaquepaque" gets you scolded by a taxi-driver, the way Ben was, before the taxi-driver later asked and was placated by the fact tt we were Chinos, not Mexicano.

Wahaha.

Said taxi-driver.

And this is the Church of San Pedro (Saint Peter) in the Centro Historico (yes, every city and town seems to have one) of Tlaquepaque.

This is the Church of the Sanctuary of the Virgin Mary. Located just opposit San Pedro's (I was serious when I said you could find a whole bunch of churches just around the block. Literally).

In Tlaquepaque, we did a lot of walking. We'd visited the mercado there, and we'd just explored the streets.

But better yet... We had a very yummy seafood lunch at this seafood restaurant, our first in a long long LONG time.

And it was a very pretty restaurant, as you can see.

Alvin and Ben just relaxing and munching of free biscuits and bread as we wait for our food.

And our food... Shrimp...

Crab...

Rockafeller oysters...

Ooh did someone say "crab"??? Heh heh heh.

Three of us altogether. With the food. Before it goes "poof".

And of course...

Nothing is complete without ze cappucino!!!

After lunch, it was back to more walking and exploring of the little unique stores around Tlaquepaque.

We walked...

We saw interesting things within the shops...

And without the shops...

And including cute fat men who make me feel slightly better about my relative body size (wahaha). :)

Ben bought this pretty star-shaped paper weight for Zineng, but he lost it somewhere along the way while we were exploring the diff shops. We stopped to rest for a while with coffee after hours of walking and after discovering tt fact...

And Ben was taking pictures of us before and after the coffee arrived.

Before.

After.

Wahaha.

Ben with HIS frappucino.

And all three... Sorry lah brother... You are too big to siam the camera!

Anyway after the coffee we attempted to find the paper weight, but all our efforts were fruitless. In the end we had to take a cab back to our hotel to formally collect our stuff, and then it was onward ho to the bus terminal to catch our 5-hour bus to Puerto Vallarta, the final stop on our trip.