Played the whole spring break away, didn't do anything constructive. sigh. Had fun though. =)

Mexico
I'm waiting for people to send me photos so I can post some stuff. In the meantime, here are the texts.

Went Baja California with let me count, 3 fr Berkley, 1 fr Stanford and 1 fr Oxford. It's tough to drive in Mexico, not every street has a street name and not every street name is labelled in the right direction, so sometimes you see a street name and have to guess if it's talking about the horizontal or vertical street. So got lost a million times, made a million u-turns, seriously, it's a trip to practise u-turns. I'm very impressed with our driver zhong yu. I'll be so tired after driving from 1 place to another after all the u-turns we make. But he drove us around for all 3 days. Rocks.

First day.
Crossed the border. I didn't even realise that we crossed the border, all we did was stopped next to this immigration officer. He glanced at us and let us pass. Wow. No passports nothing. Anyone can get into Mexico from US. Then after a few u-turns, we found the hostel, a house with a tiny tiny sign. We found it anyway. Guess what? The 6 of us practically booked the whole place. Not a bad hostel, considering it's only $10/ night, great view from the roof. Just that there's no heater and need skills to keep warm at night.. Haha. Went to change money and had our first meal in Mexico, and our first encounter with Spanish-speaking only people.. Any how order, seriously, we don't know what we ordered until the food arrived, and got some great food.

Went around Tijuana, ended up at Revolucion. Got persuaded by this mexican girl to braid my hair. They're really fast, finished with my hair in less than 10 min. Walked down Revolucion and looked at the many many Gentlemen's clubs, many many souvenir shops which need lots of bargaining, and all the Mexicans calling us Amigos and beckoning us to drink their margaritas, buy their souvenirs. Many of them can say something in Chinese, Japanese, Korean. Haha, totally touristy place.

Went to this oops I can't spell his name, Gorje? Anyway it's pronounced as Horhe. This guy's a millionaire and he owns a dog racing place. So we went to tat place and watched greyhound racing. The dogs are big. There's this piece of meat that is dragged along by a machine around the track, then the dogs will be released and they go chasing after that piece of meat until the meat stops and the dogs devour it. We were saying that the dogs will be much better off if they run the other way around the track, can catch the meat faster.. Went back to hostel to play bridge and dai de, of course, that's only after getting lost and circling the roads around the hostel many times.

2nd day
Drove to Rosarita, another popular place for spring breakers. The restaurants actually have banners that say welcome spring breakers. Went to the beach. Long vast beaches and we decided to ride the horses on the beach. Fun, just that none of us could control our horses, the guys want the horses to go faster and karen and I want the horses to not gallop, cos when the horses gallop, the rider is thrown up and down, basically bouncing on the horsie. ouch. Every time the guys ask their horses to move faster, my horse starts running. sian.. then i'll try to stop my horse and the guys' horses stop too. haha. Had my first magarita and tequila sunrise there. A cool drink in the sunny morning. Conclusion: I don't like alcohol.

Then drove to Ensenada hoping to go visit a wine shop and do wine-tasting, but the guy giving the tour was sleeping or something, basically we couldn't do anything there. So bummed around at the waterfront, played at a playground. There are swings! But I didn't dare to go high cos I'm scared that the swing break under my large mass. Didn't get much done at Ensenada, so drove back to Rosarito. The drive has beautiful view of the ocean. Went back to the "best bakery" in Rosarito and bought 30cent breads, they're pretty good. Wish US had bakeries like that. Then went back to TJ for dinner. Wanted to go to Los Altos, this seafood place recommended by Lonely Planet, but was a bit off our budget, so went to this diner across the street. Discovered that I was sunburned by the sun in the beach in the morning. Anyway, the cute young waitor at the diner couldn't speak english, so we all practised our communication skills. Think he's so frustrated at us cos we don't know what we're all talking about, but he's sweet about it all. He looked like he just wanted to die when we called him over time and again. Haha. I ordered a cactus salad. Was terrible. More like pickles than cactus, not like I know what a cactus is supposed to taste like. Anyway, we finished and bought alcohol back to hostel to feast. Some coconut alcohol. My conclusion again: I don't like alcohol.

Day 3
Plan was to go to national park, but weather wasn't so good, so went Mexicali instead. The drive was fantastic. Big rocky mountains. Drove on the cliff edge, quite scary actually. Oh yeah forgot to mention, we were listening to Chinese, Canto, Jap pop and older pop songs throughout the journey, so was quite funny driving through mexico listening to happy SHE songs. Got to Mexicali, and got a glimpse of the bullfighting ring, cos it's not the season and the place is closed. Then went to a shopping mall to eat. They had Panda Express there. The shopping mall is huge, can pass for one in US. Saw a circus on the way to the shopping mall, so we checked the circus out, there's a really handsome white horse and a camel and llamas.. roamed around a bit and went back to TJ. Got really really lost this time in Mexicali, couldn't find the highway, circled until the sunsets before we made it back onto the mountains and drove back in the dark. Phew.. Respect for the driver.