Photos from Mexico

As promised , pictures from Mexico Guadarajala.

Cottons hanging in sky

Round patterns on fields

View from El Tapatio Balcony

My Spanish Villa

Tlaquepaque
Beautiful sad looking sculptures, wish i can bring them home

Crosses

Woman in the Wind

Blue and wooden doors at Tlaquepaque


Night scene from villa to Guadarajala

Going back to SH tomorrow

I had a long day again today, my second last day of work in Mexico. It started with a 3 party concall involving our customer which lasted 2 hrs and was then followed by an interview of 3 candidates for Mexico rep post. I went for lunch at 1.30pm, cleared tonnes of emails i have received since my laptop was not able to access the net in the past 1 week and then went back to the hotel room to prepare for another concall from 8 pm to 11 pm. My stomach began to feel uncomfortable at 10 pm. I finished the concall as soon as I could and rushed to a restaurant in the hotel and ordered a chicken breast stuffed with mango for dinner. It was good. Perhaps i was too hungry. I sat in the restaurant and the view through the glass wall was really beautiful. The million dots of light at night from the houses on flat land looked just like stars to me who is at the hill top. I never thought that Mexico can be this romantic, and the pig is not here.

I will have a long concall tomorrow morning. After that, i will go to the airport directly. This time i will fly from Guadarajala to Mexico City to Holland to Shanghai, another 24 hours on flight. I began to feel my back is aching again.

Darby

Como Esta ?

I am now in Guadarajala in a resort hotel located on a hill. Guadarajala is a city on a mountain which means it has a cool climate. I have spent a week in Monterrey Mexico and it is hot as hell at 40 deg C, but Guadarajala is a cool 26 deg C.

The journey only become more pleasant when i took the small jet from Monterrey to Guadarajala. I had a long week with long working hrs and slept only for 3 hrs every day in Monterrey. While suffering from jetlag, feeling sleepy at days and not being able to get into sleep mode at night, i still have to meet the customer's management in a meeting room with an agenda that is filled with heated arguments and negotiations. The discussion reached a stalemate finally on Friday, two days before i am due to leave Guadarajala on Sunday and I activated my manager and directors to bring the negotiation to their level for the next meeting. I finally get longer hours of sleep on Saturday night, although i still worked for 8 hrs on Saturday.

Not longer than a minute after the plane departed from the airport to Guadarajala, i can see from the window, the green mountains and rivers below and white clouds hanging in the air like cotton. After leaving the airport, i headed to the hotel immediately. I was really shocked to find that the hotel is like a huge Spanish villa when my cab driver reached the hotel. It is located on a hill that offers a great view of the city. After entering the room, i was overwhelmed by the size of the room and its interior deco and wondered if the company had booked a wrong hotel for me. I have not stayed in a hotel room this big and offers a balcony view of the hill. Check out Hotel El Tapatio if you come to Guadarajala.

After settling down, i took a ride by hotel transport to the art market town nearby, Tlaquepaque. I used to think that Mexico is boring when i was in Monterrey. But my impression was completely reversed when I reached Tlaquepaque, a small town like Ubud in Bali Island that sells fantastic art piece by Mexico aborigines, and littered with good restaurants. Tourists were walking slowly and Spanish is heard everywhere, and i guess i am the only Asian in this town. I bought a painting by Mexican aborigines for 4 USD and 2 red indians head scuplture for 3 USD. I controlled myself hard to avoid getting into a shopping spree as Mexican art is really beautiful. They have tiger heads made of tiny colorful beads planted into clay, beautifully painted cross with jesus christ and without, Mexican peasants paintings and sculptures. I bought an Eiffel Tower in Paris Charles de Gaule Airpot for 10 USD , and i will transfer in Holland airport on Tuesday. I better control myself to avoid bursting my luggage. But i took tonnes of photos of this beautiful town, their doors and buildings are really unique and very mediterranean.

Mexican ppl are a mixture of Spanish, French, Red Indians, etc and most of them are beautiful looking ppl like other Latin Americans, and stunningly goodlooking young boys and girls can be found everywhere. The tv shows always show half naked hunks, swim suit babes like a beauty pageant contest. But it is really a Catholic country where no porn is allowed, no abortions, so the tv is quite boring for a hotel, hehehe. Although born as beautiful people, they always turn themselves into a pig after 30 years due to their large intake of foods and high calories cuisine. The men and ladies older than 30 are always plump and 30% of the ppl is obese.

That's all for today and i hope piggy is doing fine as there is no mail and call from him for a week already.

Darby

Going to Mexico next week

I brought all my subordinates ( 20 persons ) today for dinner at a restaurant nearby, which costs me 200 SGD, very cheap. And everyone has a full stomach when leaving the place. I must thank my clerk who did a good job of choosing the restaurant, booking and ordering dishes, and coordinating. I was not in the mood at all to eat and just listen to their nonsense during the meal, it was quite fun.

After having a good rest for about a week this week (my boss left for Spore for his home trip), I am going to fly to Mexico next week, and will be staying for a week there. The purposes are to visit 2 customers to resolve issues, and at the same time I will be interviewing a rep so that we do not have to send ppl there again. I am alone now in the office at 9pm on a Friday night preparing the work for the trip to come and feeling quite sleepy as it has been a long day today.

The job is rewarding as i get to lead and change things , but it is also very stressful cause any wrong decision made will get me terminated. It did not occur to me that i will be in this kind of position one day. I will be quite reluctant to take up the post if i knew the job scope is so heavy beforehand. But i have really nothing to lose and just want to give it a try now, as not everyone has the chance to do the work i am doing now. I am a lucky person, at least this is what i feel now. And if i fail and get terminated one day, at most i will pack and go home. I did not have this feeling at all in the past when i was in Shenzhen.

Besides the work itself, the living environment is much better, and I just hope my family/piggy/friends will be able to enjoy themselves here with me. Shanghai is a great place to live with a lover, but i am alone.

I have promised to show the photos of my neighborhood and here is it. My condo is the red building next to the church , and the church is just next to Ramada Hotel. The park and the river are just in front of the church.







Darby

Home

I was googling for a gay love poem one weekday morning to send to darby, hoping to cheer up his day. I found "Home" by Duane Simolke. Darby liked it and asked that I reproduced it in the blog. So here it is.


When I lie beside him,
His knee presses
Against the underside
Of my knee,
His hand presses
Against my chest,
As if holding me together.
If I wake,
And he isn't beside me,
I'll curl up
Like a frightened child,
Lost in the dark,
Afraid to move.
If I wake,
And he isn't beside me,
The thickest blanket
Won't keep me warm.
But I wake,
And find him
Beside me.
He holds me together.

Simple as it is, I reckon I can understand the appeal this poem holds for darby. Intimacy of the type described in the poem is possible if you have the company of your other half/partner day to day. This is something heterosexual couples enjoy constantly but oh so difficult to achieve for gay lovers/couples who are not staying together. I think I speak for myself too. About the yearning for a regular stable couplehood - living our lives together and doing things together.

The way to go is to get a house where both darby and I can call Home. That day will come and we are both working our ways towards this goal.

Mcdull

i am going back to Shanghai tomorrow

Finally i finished my work in Korea. I am allowed to go back tomorrow noon at 2 pm Korea time and expect to reach SH at 3 pm (Korea is faster than us by 1 hr). My customer is not pleased with the lot received by them today at 7 pm and want to reject the lot. I can see it is not healthy here, but the improvement made is greater than the last shipment. I just hope my boss would not be upset about the result, as i know my subordinate is working very hard for this project.

So far i have a good trip this time. I forgot to bring my credit card and has no cash to pay the hotel deposit, but a Korean man in the airport limousine helped me to call the hotel i am staying at for a discount and to waive the deposit. I realised he is a friend of the hotel owner, and the staff there did not even bother to check my ID when I checked in. The gentleman also called my customer to pick me up from the bus stop. It was very kind of him as he did not have to do that.

My customer was very kind to me too and offerred to pay for the hotel fees, which i rejected of course. Luckily today, the other customer who was stationed at my plant hand carried the cash from my company to rescue me. I now have enough cash to pay for the expenses , but not enough time to shop.

I have eaten :
Day 1. Korean style chinese foods ( Zha Jiang Mia / Fried sauce noodles, Ta Zhu Rou / Sweet sour pork , and Ice Lychees )
Day 2. Steam boat noodles and Bi Bi Bap
Day 3. Cold noodles and Barbercue pork
All paid by customers. And they fetched me to and from hotel every day.

The Korean ppl are quite generous ppl overall, and i think it s unbelieveable as their life is so hectic and stressful. And i hope there would not be any trip in the near future as i am really tired recently after moving in to my apartment.


Darby

I dun wan to eat Kimchi anymore

i arrived at Korea, Gun Po yesterday, and i have been eating Kimchi Kimchi Kimchi. It is ok for me to eat it once in a while and i will enjoy it, but for consecutively 2 days i have been eating only Kimchi as the appetiser/side dish/main course/soup/ dessert ... It is quite sickening, and i am not very happy about it. I think there should be more choices besides Kimchi, altho Korean ppl make great cuisine, be it western or eastern. Besides that,i should be back on Tues, i.e today to Shanghai, but due to the customer request, i need to stay until Thurs. I kinda miss my bed in my apartment now. The longer stay also means more Kimchi. God dun save the queen, save me first.

Other that that, Gun Po is a peaceful small town like Toa Payoh. I went for a stroll tonight and found a very big wet market, full of unknown and interesting objects. Edible and not edible.
The hotel tv keeps playing Korean Drama, and i must admit their actors and actress are looking terrifically beautiful, but the ppl on the street are just so so. This is my fourth time to Korea. Like last time, i have a bleeding nose due to the dry weather again, and not because of Korean man.


Darby