Polanco, Mexico City

Mexico city was an awesome place and Mexico was an amazing idea for a trip. There was so much to see and do - so much great, cheap, and accessible food. We spent our time going to various museums and eating tacos.

We went to Coyoacan and met my parents' friends. They knew each other from Singapore (the wife was a museum guide as well). They took us around the neighborhood, showed us the mercado (had us eat chapolines), and then took us to their house to eat dinner and taste mezcal. It was quite a nice experience to get a tour from locals.

We took a guided tour to go see Teotihuacan, an ancient multi-thousand year old city that was already in ruins when the Aztecs discovered it. It was pretty cool, but I was somewhat disappointed because most of what we saw was a reconstruction. I learned later that the original person in charge of digging up the Teotihuacan archaeological site used dynamite in order to make faster progress. This destroyed a lot of the fragile ruins.

As is traditional, we also did a walking tour and walked around the Zocalo. Mexico city sits on aztec ruins (the entire city used to be in the middle of a lake, artificially constructed by the aztec people migrating from Aztlan when they saw an eagle land in the lake). The spanish proceeded to empty the lake and build their churches on top of the aztec temples. The aztec temples (made out of a volcanic rock called tezontle) actually floated pretty well on the water. The spanish had to construct their own buildings out of the tezontle because otherwise their buildings would sink. They tore down the aztec temples to use the materials. Even today, mexico city sinks around 5cm per year. It's quite striking - sometimes you can see buildings listing to one side.

We ended the trip at a nice restaurant before my sister left, trying escamole (ant eggs) for the first time.Read more