Toronto – Puerto Vallarta Day 1

6:00 – 6:35a.m. – Gan Limo Service
After getting ready in a rush, I came out of my bedroom to check if Yuandong was up. To my surprise, both he and Wanting are up and dressed already. I hadn’t known that Wanting was going to send me to the airport as well…so sweet! What a lovely way to start the day… the three of us hopped onto the Wellesley House car and Yuandong zoomed off to the airport with Wanting and me chattering.

7:00 – 8:30a.m. – Departing Toronto
Checked-in and plonked myself down at the departure gate. While waiting for boarding, I read the paper and response for the session I am going to chair tomorrow; the Four Seasons Hotel Wedding Package that had been e-mailed to me; and started on Gifts Differing.

8:50a.m – 1:25p.m. Transit in Houston
(Houston time – 1hr from T.O.) – Had cold cereal + milk and a banana in-flight. Was engrossed in Gifts Differing for the entire flight while listening to music above the cabin din. Touched down in Houston, Texas. At the airport, I sauntered into Simply Books looking for new reading material (had almost finished Gifts Differing)…and walked out with a souvenir from Houston, Tuesdays With Morrie (which I still hadn’t owned). Lunch was filet-o-fish and a non-sweetened iced-tea. Continued reading Gifts Differing at the gate until meeting Jim and his wife, Mary. Then it was off on our next flight, this time to Mexico!

1:25 – 5:00p.m. Getting barfed on!
We boarded this really tiny plane that has only 3 seats in each row. I was in the very last row on the plane, at a single window seat right next to the lavatory. Good thing it was just a short 2hr 45min flight. I finished Gifts Differing (all 211pages of it) about an hour into the flight. (Feel like writing a book review for this amazing book. I just might!) I decided to take a nap…and I was blissfully resting when I suddenly felt something wet on my arm and thigh. I opened my eyes to the sight of a woman dashing into the lavatory, and the guy across the aisle from me was staring at me in horror. I looked down and…there was vomit on the floor next to me and yep, vomit spatter on my sleeve, hand, and jeans. It was pretty gross *grin*. Flight attendant came and cleaned it up, gave me some anti-bacterial wipes. It wasn’t too bad lah. And thankfully the woman who threw up wasn’t too sick, think it was just momentary air-sickness. Still, quite a way to start my trip, eh?

5:00p.m. – 11:15p.m. Puerto Vallarta
Arrived in Puerto Vallarta, and was very glad to have Jim and Mary for company. They’ve been to Mexico before, and Jim speaks some Spanish. There were smooth-operators accosting us almost at every step trying to sell us some time-share villas. But because they’ve been through it before, Jim and Mary knew to make a bee-line to the official taxi stand and soon we were on our way to our hotel, the Sheraton Buganvilias (that’s Bougainvillea in Spanish, and there are lots of them here).

After checking in and resting a bit, we headed out for dinner. After some persuasion from me, Jim agreed to try having dinner at a local taco cart. John had told me after his Mexico trip 2 years ago that real Mexican tacos were nothing like Taco Bell and at least ten times better. We got a recommendation from a local for a particular taco cart near downtown Puerto Vallarta and made our way there. It was scrumptious! We each started out with just one gringas (taco with minced beef or pork, melted cheese, fried onions etc). They were so good, we each decided to have another round. We were still hankering for more after that, so we tried a chorizo (taco shell with finely chopped sausage and other filling). I had all these with guacamole (I had never known what it was before! It’s sauce made from avocado and it’s heavenly…) and hot sauce. Most amazing thing was that dinner came up to just 12 pesos in total for the three of us, which was about USD$4. :P

The taco stall was really near the beach, and we could see the sun about to set. So after dinner, we went to the beach to watch the sunset…and it was pretty cool. In a space of 3 minutes, the sun dipped below the sea, as if swallowed up whole. We chose to walk along the beach back to our hotel, which was nice at first because we walked barefoot along the soft sandy shore. But halfway through, the beach became very pebbly and we had to put our sandals back on. :P I had never seen such colourful pebbles on a beach before…in the light of dusk, they were shades of white, grey, blue, violet and pink! I couldn’t tell fully how much of the colour was due to the lighting, but they were quite a sight to see. After arriving at the hotel, we decided to have some ice-cream. It was USD$7 each! *sigh* But well, it was beside the sea, on a balmy evening in Mexico…it could have been worse.

And here I am now, typing my blog entry into Word because there is no internet connection in these hotel rooms. *ha ha* I know it’s good to take a break from being wired…but as of now I still haven’t been able to call Singapore successfully, and there’s no way to send an e-mail either. (Thnx for calling ZB for me, Ting!) Will check out the hotel’s business centre tomorrow along with the rest of the delegates who are hunting for internet access :P The change of environment is already starting to have its restful effects on me, I think. Hmm…I think I’m looking forward to the next few days. In fact, I’ve already planned when I can play hooky and take off for some local sights, sounds and tastes. :P For now though, it’s bed-time *yawn*