Rio, Salvador 12/10 -25, 2009

New orleans 11/26-30 2009

Best thing done in New orleans:

Barbecue shrimp (twice) (not traditional barbecue sauce however)
Hurricane katrina tour
A dozen crabs and one pound of shrimp in one dinner

New orleans is very unique.

Booked hotel in bourbon & orleans. Half block to the cathedral at Jackson square.
Beignet at Cafe de monde is great, had that every Morning.
Sunday brunch at the court of two sisters with live jazz was so-so. Not recommended. They do have shrimp omelets.
First night when we got there, (thanksgiving night), had dinner at gumbo shop, very average place. Had to go to oyster bar afterwards to get two dozens of raw oysters to fill up my stomach.

When we took taxi to come to New orleans, the taxi driver recommended deanie's seafood in French quarter. It was good. Taxi drivers really know where to go eat. HIghly recommend barbecue shrimp. Very yummy. I ordered half of mixed fried seafood, when it was served, I thought the waiter misunderstood and brought up a full plate! I could only finish half of the half order - very rare.

Bourbon street was full of young african americans. holding either hand grenades or hurricane in hand, they were enjoying their after-thanksgiving time. I came across some film students filming on bourbon street, with at least 10 diffferent fancy lights for a small short scene. We went to few bars and clubs on bourbon, quite nice.

The streetcar going to garden district from french quarter was very nice. We went to see the lafayette cemetery and a few historical houses around that area. On the way back, we stopped at the World war II museum. Not too impressed, we didn't take the tour.

One of the highlights of the trip is buying crabs and shrimps from a local store near Lake pontchartrain. I don't recall its name now but it was on Lake ave, almost to the end of the roads towards the lake. First we took street car to Metarie cemeteries. Without knowing how to get there, we asked a lady where to take the bus to the lake area. She pointed to a van stopping on the side of the road. and that was it. We took that van (bus) to the lake area, and a guy in the van kindly showed us how to get to the lake ave. I bought a dozen crabs and two pounds of shrimp, george finished more than one pound of shrimp and i finished the rest, with only one crab left. One of best crabs eating ever, all crabs are full of eggs, yummy!

The katrina tour was great - george's idea. This lady, by herself, was driving and talking on the speaker, without stopping for the whole three hours! Born in New orleans, she was so knowledgable about what happened before and after the katrina, five stars! We had an aligator sausage and a hurricane during the break. There were still so many houses that are not recovered and probably will never be recovered after Katrina. Nowadays the population is 2/3 of that before the hurricane.

We also took a boat ride (free) crossing mississippi river to Algiers, a very quiet neighborhood. We also visited Jean lafitte NHP and Jazz NHP headquarter that is in French quarter.

One thing to memorize is the gay bar around uptown area call the phoenix/eagle - interesting place, esp. 2nd floor.

Mexico city 4/9 - 4/12 2009

It was a terrible mistake that I didn't write down anything about that trip made in April 2009 - it was a great trip and Mexico city is a great city.

Based on my blurred aged memory, I dig out the followings:

No visa needed to enter the country with green card: that was best thing for me traveling in Canada and Mexico. Besides that almost everywhere needs visa with my Chinese passport. What a privilege to be born as an American! Especially if you are a white straight man - your life is so guaranteed to be good if you follow the rules...

Mexico city has the best subway system I ever saw, clean, safe, convenient and organized, better than NYC and Barcelona in this way.

Several places we visited:

Plaza de la constitucion, Zocalo
There was some gathering for the party when we visited - many people dressed up and practiced dancing and music stuff. The palacio la nacional has Diego's great painting. There was also a big garden behind it. Metropolitan cathedral...

Templo mayor
ruins of ancient city right in the middle of downtown

Alameda park
Many many pedestrians and vendors

Latin-American tower (Torre latino)
37th floor, no place to sit for a drink, left.

Chapultepec park & National museum of anthropology
Muy muy crowded in the park and mucho mucho vendors. Great museum.

Gay bars/clubs
two places: zona rosa, a whole street of gay bars. we had dinner outside of a generally fancy restaurant with a classical US rock stars music background. Lipstick is one of the upscale ones, crowded and expensive to get in. we like a bar across the street of lipstick, with small room and crowded boys dancing...
Another place is in central historical area. We went to three ones on one street: oasis? butterflies?
The first one is local one with mostly young crowd
2nd one is most of older man with hustlers around
3rd one, mixed crowd, with a lot of tables...
not as nice as zona rosa in general...