Reset search
Nicholas LeeNicholas Lee
SatelliteEdit route
traveled in 8 countries Read more
  • TravelerMexico with James
    Day 21

    Oaxaca, Cafes and Work and Beer

    February 2 in Mexico ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    I just wanted to make this post to commemorate our time in Oaxaca. We've fallen into a routine where we will find some ridiculously aesthetic cafe, work during the day, and then go find some equally ridiculously aesthetic bar and have beers before returning to the hostel. It's a great life and I'll treasure the time I have here.Read more

  • TravelerMexico with James
    Day 16

    El Tule, Mitla and Hierve El Agua

    January 28 in Mexico ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    Our second day in Oaxaca was spent doing tourist things. We booked a tour with our hostel. The tour proceeded to pick up some other people - all women in their 60s - 80s. We were on a senior grandmas trip! There were two dutch women in their 60s and three japanese women in their 70s accompanying us.

    The dutch women both spoke fluent english. Two of the three japanese women spoke english, one spoke french, and the other spoke spanish! Very international.

    We first stopped at El tule, the widest tree in the world. It's been cared for by the community for hundreds of years and is very special to them. It's been around for thousands of years.

    We then proceeded to Mitla, an archaeological site. It was quite well preserved and there were a lot of cool geometric patterns inscribed into the walls. They called them "greco" designs though there is no proof of a connection between them and greek patterns. There was not much restoration - the site itself was in great condition. Interestingly, it seems that the Oaxacan peoples were not as into human sacrifice and violence compared to their Aztec neighbors - there was no mention of human sacrifice, skin flaying, or sacrifice induced warmongering.

    We then went to Hierve El Agua, a petrified waterfall cascade. Similar to stalactites and stalagmites, calcium enriched water would falls down the side of the mountain for generations forming a visually aesthetic stone waterfall. There are also pools of water at the top that you can swim in (which we did!). It was overall very majestic and the mountains in the background were incredibly impressive.

    The tour also involved a buffet (not included), a mezcal tasting, and a demonstration of traditional oaxacan weaving. While these things were obviously gimmicky tourist things, they did seem somewhat authentic and good quality. The food was actually really, really good and the weaving was quite impressive. I bought some mezcal at the mezcal tasting. Overall, a very good tour. Our tour guide was also great - her english was good and she was very good at explaining everything.    Read more

  • TravelerMexico with James
    Day 14–23

    Oaxaca

    January 26 in Mexico ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    After mexico city, James and I flew to Oaxaca. Oaxaca was a very nice change of pace - it's a lot smaller and a lot more laid back. The buildings are extremely colorful. The temperature is also a lot warmer. We've spent the time working out of various beautiful, ornate cafes, sipping beers in front of majestic views of the city, and overall just enjoying ourselves and relaxing. The hostel we are staying at now (Iguana) is much more conducive to meeting fellow travelers compared to the CDMX hostel. It feels a lot more down to earth and people like to go to the rooftop to hangout and talk.Read more

  • TravelerMexico with James
    Day 8

    Club América vs Querétaro

    January 20 in Mexico ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    We went to a mexican soccer game! It was hosted at Azteca stadium, an arena that can fit 86,000 people. To get there, we used mexican public transport which was quite affordable and convenient (the only exception being the second leg of the trip, which for some reason did not accept physical tickets. We needed a charge card. The station did not sell charge cards). Luckily someone was able to help us and let us use their card to get in.

    It was a really cool experience and when Club América scored, flares and sparks would shoot out of the goal.

    The only thing was that our ticket experience absolutely fucking sucked. In order to go, you have to buy the ticket via ticketmaster. I had used the site many times before (like to buy lucha libre tickets for example) so I didn't expect any issues. When we showed up to the venue, it was raining and miserable. I then opened ticketmaster to discover that the site thought I was a bot or using a VPN (I wasn't) and suspended my session. I couldn't re-login, use a different browser, nothing. After trying over and over again, I had the idea of downloading the ticketmaster app to get the ticket that way. This worked which got us into the inner stadium but we still needed to show our tickets again. They wouldn't let us in because we only had the english versions of the tickets because I had downloaded them using the US ticketmaster app. Again, the websit wasn't working so I couldn't access the tickets regularly. 45 minutes of attempts later, I finally had the idea of switching my iphone app store country to Mexico and downloaded mexican ticket master. This finally worked and got us in. 45 minutes late. Better late than never I guess. It was still a fun event. Fuck ticketmaster    Read more

  • TravelerMexico with James
    Day 7

    Lucha Libre

    January 19 in Mexico ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    We went to Lucha Libre which was like mexican WWE. The wrestlers are basically muscled, acrobatic performers and the fights have predetermined outcomes. The flips and acrobatics were really really impressive.

    There's this notion of the good guys (los tecnicos) vs the bad guys (los rudos)
    Part of the experience is to scream "putaaaaa" at los rudos and "chinga to madre" at the performers. What an experience.    Read more

  • TravelerMexico with James
    Day 1–5

    Mexico City

    January 13 in Mexico ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    After my siblings left, James came to mexico city. We were originally going to go to the hostel, but my parents still had the airbnb for a few nights. So instead, we reduced our stay at the hostel and stayed at the airbnb. It was quite nice - during the day we went out and worked. We went to various sites around Polanco and Condesa. We went together to Coyoacan and saw the Frida Kahlo house. At night, we would meet my parents for dinner and then go back to the airbnb to play mahjong.

    Some other things we did was visit the Nacional Museo de Antropologia (my second time, it's a massive museum with so much stuff).

    After my parents left, James and I went to a hostel in Centro called Casa de Pepe. We each had capsule like beds which was nice for privacy. Unfortunately, James proceeded to get sick for an entire week. He spent a lot of the week recovering and took some time off. As soon as he got better, I got sick for a week. Being sick in a hostel actually sucks so much... just not having privacy and feeling like shit is not fun.

    On the bright side though, centro has so much amazing cheap food. You can consistently get really good tacos for 10-15 pesos per taco. Awesome. We spent time exploring centro, recovering, and eating good food.

    We spent our time in Mexico City working. Uber/didi is super cheap so we would venture out (mostly to Polanco and Condesa), go to a cafe, and hangout there most of the day. It was really nice and the weather was consistently great.    Read more

  • TravelerMexico with the fam!
    Day 1–9

    Polanco, Mexico City

    January 2 in Mexico ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    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

  • TravelerLA with Steph + the Fam
    Day 16

    New Years

    January 1 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    Luckily, we were able to recover from our sickness in time for new years. Steph had to go back, but we (the Lees) proceeded to go to Tustin to see the extended family. It was quite nice to see everyone - Andy smoked meat and prepared a DIY taco spread. Dinner was really good and we spent a lot of the time just chilling, playing with the kids, and milling around.

    On new years day, we did our traditional Sebae and then went to the park to play some basketball. We then ate at a restaurant before returning to Los Angeles.    Read more

  • TravelerLA with Steph + the Fam
    Day 1

    Steph in LA

    December 17, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    I went to LA from Toronto first, after my birthday (Lewis took me out to a brazilian steakhouse in the Danforth, really appreciate of that!)

    In LA, we all stayed at my Aunt's condo near Larchmont. My siblings came one by one and then Steph flew in from Vancouver. Before steph came, we all went out to celebrate my birthday at Lawries. My mom wanted to include Steph, but unfortunately there were no other available reservations for the dates that Steph was there.

    I was able to go to universal studios with steph (and skip out on Imo's charity thing). It was pretty fun. I think Steph was a bit disappointed because the park was smaller than that of Florida. I personally remember the park having more fun rides...however most of the rides we went on were the exact same. They had you sit down and stare at a screen. The chair you were on shook around and floated around into different rooms sometimes, but the main attraction was the screen which gave off the image of motion. Overall quite disappointing and I don't think I would go back to Universal Studios California. Other than the rides though, it was pretty fun. We had butter beer and went to super mario world.

    Now comes the crappy part: Steph briefly met my aunt, but thats it. We all unfortunately got sick...Steph (and only steph) tested positive for covid. The next week was spent having her stay in isolation in the guest room. We all stayed at home and did our best to recover. Christmas was cancelled as Mia did not want our family spreading our sickness due to potential covid concerns. I spent the majority of that week just recovering, playing mahjong, and bringing Steph food and catering to her needs. Steph then went home and did not get to meet anyone. It really was a shitty situation...    Read more

  • TravelerMontreal - Peggy Gou
    Day 1–5

    Montreal again

    August 30, 2023 in Canada

    Pretty decent Montreal trip. Something about Montreal keeps making me go back. I think it's the magic of the place - during the summer, it's absolutely alive. It's just a wonderful, magical, beautiful place and I will always want to go back.

    My time there was mainly composed of staying with James. Graham/Alexa flew in and stayed at James' as well - James had to leave to see his brother's graduation. We went to go see Peggy Gou live at off picnique which was pretty cool. We also all saw Ghida and partied with her and her friend for a bit.

    I also got to see Ali! I chilled with him and went on an incredibly bug-filled bike ride with him back to his family's home on Nun's Island. I don't remember if it was this trip or last trip? I think it was last trip - Ali invited me to have lunch with his family. "Lunch" happened a 5pm...but I'm not complaining. His family cooked Beef Koobideh and created an absolutely incredible, incredible spread for a ton of people. I love persian food. It's an absolute treat to be able to enjoy his mom's cooking.    Read more

Join us:

FindPenguins for iOSFindPenguins for Android

  • 2024© FindPenguins
  • Home
  • About us
  • Blog
  • Group Tracking
  • Press
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy & Cookies
  • Support
  • Legal notice
  • English