It must be pointed out that this was the first time I’d ever had boba at a non-Asian owned place. Not only was the inside beautiful and designed like a high end coffee shop, I was so thrilled at my discovery that I didn't realize there was another whole sitting area, and only found out online later how beautiful it was. The quality of the boba itself was wonderful as well, with perfect QQ bounciness.
Needless to say, I was more than pleased. As I write this a few days later, I realized that not only had I not been the beneficiary of boba destiny, there are so many boba shops in CDMX that I have a Gong Cha and a Cassava Root not three minutes walk from my apartment, and right next door to each other. Search of "boba" or "cassava" and there will be many options. And I haven't even been to the Asian areas yet.
Boba pearls are made from cassava root and well, it all makes sense now. May boba unite us all. I’ve literally had one a day since arriving, and I have no plans to cut down because each shop I’ve been to has been delightful and often way more beautifully appointed than anything I’ve seen in Taiwan or elsewhere. Boba shops tend to be utilitarian and loud, but these Mexico City ones were oases of calm. My next project should probably be a complete boba guide to the city. Nay, the world!
This is my first solo trip in awhile, now that I think of it. I've always arrived with one other person recently -- Indonesia, Vietnam, Tokyo, Singapore. Despite trying to lure many a person down here, nobody ended up coming so I was left to fend for myself. And what’s one thing you can do while solo? Take a food tour! Victor recommend Eat Mexico to me awhile ago and I booked a tour for that immediate Thursday. I chose the "Narvarte at Night: Tacos, Chelas, and Mezcal" one because, well, it was at night.Usually I like to prowl around for my own food finds but this would be a quick way to get introduced to things. I’ve never actually taken a food tour — do I care that much about food? — and was also partly undertaking it to get the experience, because a friend of mine does food tours in Taipei and I wanted to see what one in Mexico would be like. For a hundred dollars, Eat Mexico will take you to places you’d never wander into on your own.
We visited three taco spots, a cantina, and a mescal bar with our group of six — one Chinese-American (me), one Taiwanese-Malaysian, one Bulgarian, a Texan, a New Zealander, and a New Jerseyite. As it turned out, the Taiwanese-Malaysian went to grad school at Michigan, and both she and her husband (the Bulgarian) went to undergrad in New York. I immediately thought to pair them with one of my Chicago friend couples. Throughout the rest of Thanksgiving weekend, I met no less than five people who currently live in Chicago.
I’ll let you guess which half of the group asked the dumbest shit. But when on a food tour, you can cast no aspersions toward others. Glass houses and all. Two of them didn’t eat anything spicy, so you can imagine how that went. (Note: one of them did turn out to be a huge museum goer and doer-of-touristy things so she did have great insight into activities I should avoid. And she introduced me to Mapster, an app for building personalized lists of stuff to see/do/eat. She was on a see it all mission and for example, the next morning she hit up a five am hot air ballon ride before taking the two hour trip to Teotihuacan. And then she was out all day too... I was very impressed. And exhausted just hearing about it.)
When I asked our guide about when CDMX seemed to have jumped in foreigner popularity, he rolled his eyes and said “five years ago.” I stayed out with him until two, closing down the bar we were at, and it turned out we had lots to discuss. He’s a chef, a writer, a traveler, a late night person, a movie watcher, a reader, a song sharer, and the black sheep of his family. I could not have designed a better starter friend.
The next day, I went off to get my tattoo. I had been dreaming of a tattoo from this artist ever since finding out about his work a decade ago. A few years ago I had an appointment set up in New York but then something happened to his visa. Since then we’d been trading emails about location availability. When he said he’d be in Mexico City in November, I said “close enough” and jumped on it. This was back in June.I thought one session would be enough for a chest piece but as it turned out, we went more for a chest and stomach piece — the entire front side I’d been keeping empty for him — and that ended up taking more time than expected. So I made a second appointment for next week. And thank goodness because this tattoo hurt. It hurt like crazy and I had flashes of regret and panic and sweats and all sorts of other things. Most of my other tattoos — even the ribs one — I’ve been basically catatonic as I sit there and pretend to be a corpse. This was not that. I couldn’t stop my stomach area from reacting and I even let out a gasp when he was drawing the outline of a bird on my right shoulder-chest area.
Afterwards, I consulted with my friend who has his entire upper body tattooed basically and he had this to say:
"Anywhere over bone is always rattling. But areas directly over vital organs, like the gut, stomach liver will always for me be the most intense. Neck was nothing compared to the exposed areas over the yin organs. Even the inner wrists were more staggering. Getting tattooed interestingly provides a unique experiential perspective of where along our naked bodies are truly the most vulnerable and thus sensitive in relation to our nervous system and how that system instinctively goes into a primal, panicked state of shock, desperately trying to make sense of what's happening.That about captures it. And this is from the most physically masochistic I know, who got five ear pierces all at once. It was good to hear my hero express such similar pain from his experiences with the front area. No más! No más!
To me, it's one of the few perfect examples where you can truly feel where the mind and body are split, separated and fragmented from each other. The mind knowing what's happening. But the body in it's own right, wanting nothing but escape, protection and relief. Just talking about and imagining what you just went through makes me a little nauseated."
But I’ll be back for more. The thing is, that pain is intense but short lived. But when you’re under the operating table, all you want is for it to stop. I felt like a wimp for being so delighted to postpone after just four hours getting actually inked. Afterwards I went home to bleed out and sit on the couch for awhile, before I headed out to a bar nearby to meet the couple I liked a lot from last night’s food tour. We talked stand up comedy and if it was historically (or culturally) accurate to call yourself “one-third Asian,” if your upbringing and experiences reflected the typical East Asian cultural experience. I mean, isn’t AMR at least a quarter-Asian by that math?
On day four, Saturday, I took it real slow and Uber Eated in two poke bowls, preparing to just sit at home all day. One for now, one for later. Drifting in and out of sleepiness while going through three hours of Scorsese's newest, The Irishman, I was finally awake enough by eleven to check in on if anyone was doing anything. Also, during this time, I booked the last of my three AirBnbs — matching my friend’s who will arrive in about two weeks — and also matched their flight home. Fully energized by one-thirty, I headed out to find some dancing and walked over just a short distance to enter the absolute perfect spot, Departamento!
At the entrance — cover was five dollars — I was immediately asked by another person in line if I was Japanese. Later when we talked, it turned out the Ecuadorian had lots of family in San Diego. In succession, I met and talked to people who either lived in or hailed from San Diego, Los Angeles, or Chicago. I’ve yet to meet a local except for the tour guide. I was also asked if I was Japanese four times. And Korean once.
The space was cosy, the vibe chill, the music quite good, and the dancing very alright. I ended up staying for two hours, leaving when I realized the place would stay open until five or six, and knowing that I’d likely be back next weekend.
For Sunday, I didn’t really want to go anywhere but many markets were only open on the weekends and I heard they blocked off one of the main streets for bikers. There are tons of bikeshares and scooters in the city and I was dying to try one out. Not knowing any of the neighborhoods yet, I figured I’d check out this gigantic closed off bike thing. Luckily, one boba later, I just tried my hand at the most ubiquitous bike share — $24 for a week — and then was off, cruising along the wide flat streets of the city. It was at precisely this moment that I decided “yes, I can do the CDMX thing.” I don’t know what neighborhoods I rode through but I just pedaled around for about an hour and a half, stopping to refuel on coffee and horchata.Gassed out and with my bike share hitting a return problem, I headed to the closest mall to look for shoes. (I’m going with my friends to a wedding when they come in next week. Strangers are welcome apparently!) Entirely too tired, I decided a movie would do and stepped into the new Woody Allen, A Rainy Day in New York, which stars Timothée Chalamet, Elle Fanning, and Selena Gomez in what will most surely be Allen’s last gasp. The movie was exactly as you’d expect, low level Woody, but it served as a nice break. With the sun setting, I hunted for dinner, which was easy because Swarm told me to head to Cicatriz, a vegetable-forward place that two of my friends had been to before.
I’ve only eaten one meal each with these friends before but one of them used to work at Foursquare and the other is in the industry — so it was easy to just go where they recommend. The "killer fried chicken sandwich” wasn’t that killer — the brother-sister duo are both from the States — but the conversation next to me was. As in it killed me to listen to these two expats talk about literally anything. I wanted to scream, "I can understand you!" I wished hard for sound blocking headphones or the inability to understand English but it was not to be. I'm pretty sure one of them was from Umich also. Both of them had lovely Spanish at their command though. For that I was jealous.
After dinner I went to the nearest supermarket — right next to the wax museum — and got all the classic me essentials: toilet paper, paper towel rolls, contact solution, juice, glass bottles of coffee, one can of soup. With that all taken care of, I was fully settled in. Now to do nothing!