Month: October 2005

_And here’s a play-by-play of how the wedding went:_

*2 PM* Arrive back at hotel room. Received irate “Where were you?!” call from Silverlotus. I assure her that the wedding is at 5 and my afternoon is still open and we can still, you know, get married, if she wants.

*3 PM* Called the front desk. I am looking for my dress shirt, which I sent to the rush laundry service two days ago. “Two days is rush in Mexico,” the concierge said.

*4:15 PM* Shirt arrives.

*4:30 PM* Call Shell and Woofer because I can’t get the cuff links into the cuffs of my shirt. We spent many minutes waxing philosophy about how to style my hair.

*5 PM* I’m dressed and heading toward the gazebo where the wedding will take place. Lots of cameras are going off.

*5:10 PM* The afternoon humidity is starting to take its toll. I’m rolling a cube of ice in my hands in an attempt to stay cool. Crowds of rubberneckers start to congregate on the walkways and balconies. Where is the woman??

*5:15 PM* Silverlotus arrives. Yes, she is late for our wedding. All guests abandon me to take pictures.

*5:45 PM* Ceremony was in Spanish and English. Four witnesses to sign official documents. We put in our thumbprints. We are now husband and wife! We imbibe in a bit of congratulatory sparkling wine, and then off to the photo shoots.

*5:50 PM* It starts raining.

*6:20 PM* A little dinner at the Brazilian restaurant, Nayarit. It’s named after the state the Riu is located in. Yes, we are actually a little bit over the border from Jalisco, and so the resort is Riu Jalisco and we still use Central Mountain Time like Vallarta and the rest of Jalisco.

*6:30 PM* They’re making us get up to the buffet to get salad. Including the bride, train and all!

*7:50 PM* All these feral kittens and cats just appeared outside the restaurant window. Half a dozen, maybe more, just staring at us. Apparently they’re strays who live in the resort. This is the first time I’ve seen them. Shell tosses them a bit of chicken, and one brave kitty steals a bit of it.

*8:30PM* Head to Silverlotus’s parent’s suite for a nice jacuzzi bath. Finally I can shed my satin portable oven – I mean, my tuxedo.

*10 PM* We head to the steakhouse for their specialty, the flaming coffee. It’s coffee, chocolate ice cream, and various liqueurs lit on fire.

P.S. Yes, our wedding DJ was called DJ Krusty.

_The following is from my journal from our wedding trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for Wednesday, Sept. 28th_:

And what better to start the final hours of single-dom but to bug out to downtown Puerto Vallarta? Woofer, Shell, JK and I booked a taxi and made our way to the town a dozen kilometres northeast of our resort.

We saw a lot of cars with custom rims. I don’t know why they are so popular. I even saw a vintage VW Beetle with what looked like 21″ dubs.

Another distinctly unique PVR experience: someone asking JK if he “wanted a man”. Vallarta has a big gay population. A monolithic cruise ship came into the harbour today, which meant the vendors would be particularly pushy. Judging from the cat calls “Are you from San Diego?”, “Do you like San Francisco?”, etc., I’m guessing the cruise liner is bringing hundreds of Americanos with their green money.

What we did come for was three things: homegrown premium tequila (fortunately price-controlled), cigarillos, and some Internet access. I had two minutes to check my Gmail and ISP. After nearly a week away from the keyboard, I was surprised I still remembered how to type. 😉

We headed back to the Riu via city bus. As a busker sang “Stand By Me” in the back, I sat in a bakelite molded bench while staring at a giant sticker admonishing me to “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and a replica stained glass vignette of a bleeding Jesus.

P.S. There is a Hooters directly across the street from City Hall.

_The following is from my journal from our wedding trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for Tuesday, Sept. 27th_:

“Travel is all about expectations,” Aunt F said. She should know – she was the travel agent that arranged the trip. She knows that a good vacation is not about the number of ice cubes in your Brown Cow, it’s about achieving a certain state of mind.

Today, we headed to Punta de Mita by taxi. We were basically going to emulate one of the catamaran tour packages at a fraction of the cost. Even the price of the taxi was haggled down to $10 US a person, roundtrip. (Aside: Never pay full price for anything in Mexico, except liquor). We hired a motorboat to the volcanic islands of Las Mieretas off Banderas Bay. We went snorkeling, but what was truly exceptional was how our captain expertly navigated the small boat around the cliffs and crags, and even through the caves of the rocky islands.

Back on dry land, in a small tavern down the potholed street and an open sewer, we further polished the fine art of haggling with the local merchants. They just walk over to you while you’re drinking, plying textiles and baubles at you. Expect them to at least drop 33% off their starting price.

Punta de Mita as very poor. The roads are badly maintained; the onramp onto the highway was half-submerged in a vacuous pot hole. Water is gathered from the frequent rainstorms and stored in thousand-litre black water tanks that seem to top every household.

_The following is from my journal from our wedding trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for Monday, Sept. 26th_:

Due to Mexican legal statutes, we had to take a mandatory blood test. (I later discovered this is to ensure we in fact did not have syphilis.) It was very painful because no blood would come out and the hotel medic kept digging the needle into my vein like he was digging a foxhole. Finally, he just gave up and made a second incision. Worse still, ther was some weird movie on his television involving Winona Ryder in a redneck family.

Oh, and the blood tests were $180 US and no, it was not included in the wedding package.

Afterwards, we bodysurfed the morning away. And ended up with a tan mark on the inside of my elbow where the bandage sat.

To get to London, it’s half an hour on the TTC, 2-3 hours on the VIA train, and another half an hour on London Transit. It’s the least Silverlotus and I could do. After all, we dragged Woofer to our wedding in Mexico. Mind you, in Mexico, it wasn’t cold and rainy. 🙂

We met many of Woofer’s friends and acquaintances as we converged to his new house in north London. Learned how to play mah-jongg. We helped cook a pizza, which just came out of the oven as we were heading out the door to catch the train homeward bound. The crust was unfortunately blackened and burnt – which wasn’t surprising though, considering we set off the smoke detector three times…If you were at the London train station at about 7pm last night, you would have seen two people feverishing eating the toppings off of a pizza.

As a gift, Silverlotus and I got Woofer the Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House, the codex of all matters of the apron and hamper.

The trip was also one down memory lane. It’s been almost two years since I’ve bid London farewell. It’s ironic that the moment I move back to TO, a friend of mine takes my place in the Forest City.

Downtown still has many vacancies, although many shops and restaurants still have stood their ground. There doesn’t seem to be any new ones, though: it’s as if the existing merchants have just moved around and traded spots. Some things haven’t changed at all, to my delight: my ExpressVu satellite dish is still on the wall of our old apartment!

_The following is from my journal from our wedding trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for Sunday, Sept. 25th_:

The food services here are very efficient. One day we’ll have fries. The next day, pureed potatoes (which Silverlotus couldn’t stop eating). The day after that? Cream of potato soup!

I spent the morning riding the waves with Silverlotus. I spent the afternoon waiting for my sister Shell to arrive and get squared away. Later that night, she discovered the liquid bliss known as the Mojito. We played texas hold’em in the sweltering night heat at the bar. I actually won!

Silverlotus has always been a sleep connoisseur, and the pillows here have fallen short of her lofty expectations. “There should be a minimum size you can legally call a pillow,” she grumbled.

_The following is from my journal from our wedding trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for Saturday, Sept. 24th_:

Why are underwater cameras wrapped so tightly in swaddling plastic? The resort if just packed with people, mostly locals. I believe their is a convention going on. An Alcoholics Anonymous convention. Seriously. As one waitress remarked, “One thousand people drink. One thousand don’t!”

The only English channel on the telly is CNN. So I watched Hurricane Rita all morning.

Later in the day, Woofer and I try our hands at an open-faced kayak. The water is as warm as blood. We do pretty well, but we get complacent, and wipe out. Don’t get complacent in a kayak.

_The following is from my journal from our wedding trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for Friday, Sept. 23rd_:

Saw five vintage VW Beetles on the road today. And a jalopy truck with the words “$18,000 FOR SALE” scrawled in its back canopy window. 18,000 pesos, that is.

It’s hot and humid. Really hot. Unfortunately most of the resort, the Rui Jalisco, was open to the elements. We waited in the sweltering nighttime heat to obtain bottles of water (don’t drink the tap water!) and get upgraded to a junior suite. They’re also out of hotel safe keys.

Stood on the tidal line with Woofer and V until 1am, braving the warm night rain, listening to meringue music on the beach, and staring into the black void known as the Pacific.