According to Wikipedia, Port Moody is a small, crescent-shaped city in Metro Vancouver, located at the east end of Burrard Inlet in British Columbia, Canada. Port Moody is the smallest of the Tri-Cities, bordered by Coquitlam on the east and south, and Burnaby on the west. The villages of Belcarra and Anmore, along with the rugged Coast Mountains, lie to the northwest and north respectively.

My parents were renting a place for a month until they can move into their new place somewhere around the 20th or so. Here are some pictures of the inlet.

Since we wanted to workout and were short of time, we ran to the Budget rental office after running in the Elliott Bay Park in the Seattle Downtown Area; we wanted to leave Seattle by 10AM the latest.

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We ended up leaving Seattle at around 11AM. The only map I had was the Google Maps on my iPhone. We weren’t sure which should have been our destination since there were about 10 choices that Google Maps gave us for Mount Rainier. We just picked a random one; we figured we can find our way once we get around the area. While heading towards the Southern path of the mountain, we made a pit stop at <> to get some lunch. There were 4 or 5 buildings and realized it was a miner town.

<< Google Maps >>

There were not many choices and the choice was obvious: There were a pizza place which was closed, and a pub which was open. Inside the pub was very dark contrasting the bright outdoors. It was so bright such that staring at the entrance door from the inside was as if I was staring at a wall of white fluorescent light. The pub had two segmented areas: the pub and the restaurant. We sat at the pub area just because it was near the bartender to whom we can easily order; we thought the waitress wouldn’t visit the restaurant area often. We wanted to have a quick bite and go on our way so without much thought I ordered the taco specials and my girlfriend a tuna melt sandwich.

The portion of the food was as big as the one which anyone would expect in Cheesecake Factory, for example. I would recommend that place if you have no where else to go in the area; there’s no other choices near the area anyway. We were doubting our Google map path so we asked the waitress at the pub. She suggested that we take the Northern route instead of continuing on the Southern route; she said the view is better.

Here’s picture of the town’s town hall.

On our way with a new path, we stopped by the mud river. The edge of the river was completely in mud of which density was dense enough to support our body weight when we stepped on them.

When we arrived at the entrace of Mount Rainier at which we paid the $5 entrance fee. While waiting for each other in a wee break, we took a look at the list of the trails and their descriptions. After considering a few choices, we decided to get to the Mount Fremount Lookout Trail.

The most of the trail was very rocky. It took us about 2 hours to reach the lookout but the view from there was beautiful.

This is the reservoir from the glacier.

We’ve tried rescheduling our flight. To reschedule, we had to pay $400 extra for each ticket. $800 was more than what we paid for the two way flight for both of us. So we decided to take the last ferry at 12:00AM; get to the airport as fast as we could; check in our bags; and enjoy the club scene in the Cancun hotel district. My girl friend heard about a lot of good things about a place called Coco Bongo which was our venue for the night.

Everything went as planned until we arrived at the airport at around 1:20AM: The airport was closed. I never knew of an international airport that closes until this night. The aiport did not even have a locker room in which we can put our luggage. Fortunately, we had a nice taxi driver who had lived in Texas for a few years just a few months ago. He would watch our luggage and come back at 5AM at the night club. For some reason, he was trustworthy and we trusted him.

We paid $30 each to get into Coco Bongo; for $30 we had all-you-can-drink until 3:30AM or so.

Coco Bongo is famous for being a night club with fancy shows. I wasn’t expecting much but when we got in the party was one that we’ve never experienced or seen before. When we went into the scene, the spider man show was on. One dressed as spider man and the other as the Green Goblin were mimicking a battle from the movie scene.

The most memorable show for the night for me was the Michael Jackson tribute show.

While the shows were going on, I was busy getting drinks: tequila shots as the main drink and beer as refreshments.

The club itself was like a parade.

After clubbing, I had the munchies and decided to try some Mexican street tacos. The beef in the tacos was very spicy and cooked to perfection: soft, moist, and chewy.

The entire night was very eventful with unexpected funs. Also, the taxi driver was waiting for us as he promised.

It was beautiful watching the sunrise from the ferry on our way to Cancun. Watching the sunrise and the dim sun light reflected on the green ocean was an unexpected memorable experience.

We got on the arranged van to our way to where we were supposed to take the bus. It was a tourist department store. We had to purchase the ticket ourselves. While we were waiting, we looked around and I was trying on Mexican hats which nobody bought, at least the people who were in the line to purchase tickets.

After Chichen Itza, we stopped by at some town in which the Spanish settled during the colonial time and some underground cave.

On our way to Chichen Itza, the tour guide kindly asked us not to buy anything from the site as the owner of the site, the Barbecheno family who sold parts of the National monument in the black market benefits from the sales. He told us that Chichen Itaza is a sacred ground on which having merchants selling products on the site is wrong and a disgrace. He insisted that we buy from the place where the tourist bus is heading towards. The place we went to had prices twice as expensive as the ones at the historical ruins. I thought it was a propaganda to prevent people from getting the same products at a higher price; however, a couple of Google searches reveal that what the tour guide claimed is true.

I’m in for a bottle of tequila.

When we finally arrived at Chichen Itza, it was around 12PM when the sun was the strongest during the day. We were sweating like a condensed bottle of ice water in heat. I was glad that we packed a gallon of water. While touring the site, the tour guide gave us a great explanation of the Mayan history and their culture. On every building we went to, the tour guide gave us a thorough explanation. It’s unfortunate that I don’t remember half of what he said; because it was excruciatingly hot such that I wasn’t able to concentration much. I felt as if I was in a steam sauna.

After Chichen Itza, we went to a town in which the Spanish settled during the colonial times, and an underground cave in which we were allowed to swim.

I took some pictures of the Catholic church in the town.

The entrance to the cave.

Inside the cave was very cool.

So we walked towards one of the rental golf cart solicitors and negotiated with the rental price. The first one said $45 for 5 hours. The price was already discounted from what was listed on a white board on the wall with green and black letters. We said we would think about it and went to the other one a block away. We said the other merchant would give us 5 hours for $40 and we got a deal at $35. Deals do work in towns of which economy relies solely on tourist. It’s fun making deals.

Here’s me getting a tutorial on how to operate the golf cart.

We obtained a pamphlet that had the map of the island. There were two tourist attractions of our interest: the Mayan post which is located at the east end of the island, and the Tortuganja which is the sea turtle reservation area.

We first arrived at the Tortuganja. This was my first time touching a live sea turtle. The shell felt like wet suede leather.

This is where the eggs are protected under surveillance.

There are many pools in which the turtles remain. Each pool carries a group of turtles of the same age.

This is where the full grown sea turtles are put into.

This is inside the aquarium of Tortuganja. These are infant sea turtles.

After hanging around the area for about an hour, we took off to the Mayan post. On our way, we encountered the island made of PAT plastic bottles. I remember seeing the island on a Korean TV show called “Around the World” some 10 years ago.

When we arrived at the east end of the island at which the Mayan post is located, we were impressed other than the ocean view.

There was a light house of which we decided to go on top. The view was amazing as shown in the pictures below.

On our way back to the hotel for a late lunch, we passed by a few beaches at the east end. The view of the beaches made us in dire need of our bathing suits ever more.

While having lunch, we decided that we need to go to a major Mayan ruin, Chichen Itza, and the hotel hooked us up with a tour bus deal for $70 per person. We had to wake up at 5AM in the morning to make it to Cancun by 8am from which the tourist bus leaves. We were told that it would take about 3 hours to get to Chichen Itza from Cancun.

One thing we learned on the first day of our trip is to have our bathing suit with us on our carry on luggage. Our bathing suits were in the checked-in luggage and we didn’t get to enjoy the warm blue clear ocean. Also, I was wearing jeans which made walking around feel like having a lower body wet sauna.

Here’s a picture of the hotel in which we stayed.

In the morning, we had the breakfast buffet.

After breakfast, we went for a walk around town. When we were walking towards our hotel from the ferry dock last night, I identified the island as an authentic ocean front village in which people are relaxed as if they are oblivious of commitments and time. I wanted to capture, at least, the architecture of the island that represents my initial impression of the island life.

Here’s the beach in front of the hotel.

Here are the pictures of the town near the hotel.

After looking at various packages in Expedia, I’ve decided on Isla Mujeres. I actually didn’t know Isla Mujeres would have been an island. I didn’t recognize Isla which means Island. Oops. Also, I didn’t realize we had to take a ferry from Cancun to get to the island until the day before the trip. Taking the ferry was the biggest concern when we arrived at Cancun at around 10PM; we thought the ferry service would stop at around our time of arrival. Also, it took some time at the Cancun airport to report our luggage not arriving with our flight and to notify the airline of our hotel address to which the luggage will be delivered. We had 3 connecting flights from Seattle,WA to Ontario, CA; from Ontario, CA to Dallas,TX; and from Dallas,TX to Cancun, Mexico. On Ontario,CA, the flight was delayed for 2 hours. When we arrived in Dallas, TX, we had a special shuttle service on the runaway to make it to our Cancun flight which was, fortunately, delayed as well. The Cancun flight took off about 20 minutes after arriving in Dallas. The time in between our arrival and departure was not enough to have our luggage transfer from one flight to another.

It’s unfortunate that I completely forgot to take pictures of the airport.

At the airport we learned that the ferries to the island from Cancun operates every 30 minutes and the last ferry is at 12:00am.

Here’s the ticketing booth of the ferry on the Cancun side.

We were hungry and we were glad that there was a McDonalds just across the ticketing booth.

Here’s the ferry dock.

While waiting for our ferry to arrive, I realized that there was an event on which the winner gets both the car and the motorcycle. The car is a Nissan and I haven’t seen such a model in my life. I wasn’t actually motivated to enter in the contest as you can see.

The ferry was two stories high. The seatings in the first floor was indoors and the first floor was very well air conditioned. Inside, it felt as if we were in the fridge so we decided to go on the second floor which was out door. We also wanted to enjoy the night scene.

Here’s the inside of the ferry.

Here’s the photo from the ferry while leaving the port.

The night scene on the hotel district in Cancun seen from the ferry.

When we arrived at the hotel, we were booked for the wrong type of room. It seems like one side made the mistake during communicating which room we booked. Expedia says we booked for an ocean view for which I paid a premium but the Hotel says we booked for the same type of room with no ocean view. The hotel personnel was courteous enough to give us a free upgrade the next day when rooms became available. Apparently, there was a wedding event in the hotel and the hotel was fully booked.

The atmosphere was very humid making it unbearable not to take a shower before going to sleep.

I wasn’t able to get a representative picture of the traffic before the game. This is the only picture that I have.

The North Gate view of the Qwest Field where the game was played.

Here’s the lineup through the North Gate. I had a aluminum canteen full of water which I had to throw away. =(

This is the view of the “tower” – of which name I just made up – after passing the ticketing turnstile.

Here’s the view of people coming through the turnstile.

This is a shot taken while trying to figure out which stairs to take to get to our seats.

We were sitting near the edge of the stadium perimeters; these were cheap corporate seats.

Here the players from both sides enter.

I just wanted to take a shot at the North side panel.

The 2nd half was a game of the substitutes; all the lineup players were on the bench. It was a bit boring.

It was so boring such that the crowd started the human wave.

Here’s a shot taken on our way out of the stadium shortly after the game. The night view of Seattle is beautiful as much as the day view.

After getting out of the stadium perimeters, we went for a quick drink at a bar called Fado.

shot inside the plane to Toronto

North York inside the plane

Pearson Airport

Parent’s house backyard:

I don’t prefer to eat outside when I’m home but today was an exception.

Fried Rice:

Spicy Chicken with Black Bean Sauce:

Spicy Shrimp:

This is one of the things I hate about Toronto: Traffic Jam.

Downtown random shot:

Part of Korea town in the downtown area:

Soon Tofu:

Forgot where this was… hmmm

Desert place:

Area of Toronto equivalent to Time Square of New York.

Inside Toronto air port:

One thing that’s hard to find around here in Seattle.

Inside the flight to Vancouver. This flight had AC plugs.

Nice birght day.

The flight from Vancouver to Seattle. Shitty plane.

Buses from the Airport to the shuttle stop.

Long hallway to the ticketing kiosks.

Kiosks:

Some pictures inside the shuttle stop:

The ticket:

Had a nice late night dinner with a couple of friends in Seattle:

Here’s the showcase of all types of meat served in this restaurant.

The curtains had been drawn when we were seated; by the time when our appetizers arrived, they have lifted the curtains for us to enjoy the view of Lake Union.

I forgot the name of this dish. It’s oysters with blue cheese and some other ingredients. It’s similar to a ‘Kaki Motoyaki’ which I can get only in Vancouver; I wasn’t able to find any in Toronto.

I had the prime steak with horseradish and, a plain steamed broccoli. What you see on the top right is the lobster mash potatoes. I was able to chew on the lobsters; the lobster chunks were real and huge.

Some scenes on our way back.