Search Results for: tonala
Scarf selling in Tonalá
Sarita bought a scarf from this young entrepreneur in Tonalá, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. As I went for the photo he started posing with his products. Bless! Usually store owners will do anything not to appear in a photo.
Tonala
I had to help her finish it. After devouring my own molcajete de pollo y chorizo…
Fine night out last night to la I Latina with José and Christina. Let´s see what revelry today brings.
Tlaquepaque… Ajijic… Tonala… Tequila… Guadalajara
The John and Jennifer Mexican Tour 2007 continues in fine style taking in local sights, learning exotic vocabulary (“pinche”, “tahona”, “abarrotes”) and honing the use of the pinche subjunctive… I wish pinche telmex would hurry up and double our bandwidth as promised a month ago so I can upload the dozens of pictures without slowing down the interweb to a crawl though…
So in summary (cos it’s getting late, I’m knackered and tomorrow morning there’s a potential breakfast meet up with Ian and family, and the following dates / days might not be quite right…), Sunday was Tlaquepaque for better than average crafts with prices to match followed by a meatfest BBQ on the “lawn”. Monday was rejigging flights and a quick look at Chapultepec’s cows.
Tuesday was Ajijic for crafts and lakeside wandering and breakfast, followed by furniture hunting in Tonalá (a failure, forgot there’s no market on Tuesdays there…) but fun all the same. Evening meal in MaComeNo, highly recommended italian place in Avenida Americas.
And today: mum, dad and me went to Tequila and were v. happy to discover that El Columpio was open for visitors, that’s the olde worlde distillery where they make tequila using centuries-old techniques (so old that they don’t / can’t be bothered to qualify for their product to be labelled Tequila…). A v. friendly bunch there and Cofradia also gave a fine tour through their new museum and cellars. We added another 4 litres to our well stocked bar today…
And while these photos were uploading I read a fine article written by one of my heroes, Simon Pegg, about US/UK humour found via the always interesting Separated by a common language maintained by an American linguist living in England:
Photos will accumulate in my Flickr set here…
Off to Tonalá
The Artichoke place was nice enough, but unfortunately a few hours later I suffered a night of what has now become a fortnightly bout of gastric fun… If I’d know about CEPE’s new scatological bent they’d’ve been very interested. At times this house seems a home for sick gringos…
Anyway, all better now, thanks and heading to the place where Guadalajara was founded the second time, “The place where the sun rises”, Tonalá to go wardrobe shopping with M & D. That’s shopping for wardrobes, not things to wear… Sita’s up to her eyeballs in academia again so she’ll not be coming along but might tag along for jeans shopping in Plaza del Sol this avo. We also decided last night that next weekend we’re going to Barra de Navidad for a change. I’ve not been there for 10 years or so, it was the first time I saw the Pacific Ocean. There were waves and I managed to take the skin off my stomach when I got plunged into the beach by a Pacific breaker. I still vaguely harbour ill feelings toward the waiter at the restaurant who recommended I put salt and lime on the wound to help it heal. Strange how searing pain can help your memories… Anyway I’m older and wiser less young now (nearly 32…) so I’ll not be taking waiters’ advice on matters medical this time round.
Lightning trip to Tonalá
I think we’re all pressied up thanks to a quick trip to the craft market. I just had a chance to explore the non-markety bits like the cemetary which is a much less grand affair than Guadalajara’s Panteon before Sita called me on the mobile to say she was done shopping. Now we’re back and preparing for a BBQ this avo with a few mates of our before we leave.
Last night we stayed in and had a lovely meal cooked by Sita then watched Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney’s take on CBS during the McCarthy witch hunt years quickly followed by one of the bleakest documentaries I’ve seen (at that includes the bloody penguins) called Darwin’s Nightmare all about the extreme poverty in Tanzania around Lake Victoria. I’m a bit behind on my reviews right now, but I’ll have a stab if I get the chance on the road. If you find yourself feeling far too positive about life and the world in general, Darwin’s Nightmare will take your serotonin levels down a few pegs…
Tonala Arts and Crafts Market
Make yerself dizzy watching badly filmed footage from Tonala today, if it looks less busy than usual that’s cos it’s near the edge, the only place where filming from your waist doesn’t result in a permashot of people obstructing the way… You don’t realise how loud it all it till you listen to it in the comfort of your middle class barrio and it’s just the fruit, veggies and DVD bit…
Sita bought plenty of artesania & pressies, including 2 huge mirrors for MX$300 the pair of ’em. No idea how we’ll get those back one day. And also the following DVDs found their way into my hands (reviews soon, and Superman too 3.5 Lulus):
Batman Begins : saw it on 4-8-05 “Formidable rendering of Batman’s backstory. Nice understated CGI too. Yay. 4 Lulus”
Cronicas: (Sebastián Cordero) s’posed to be good
Jarhead: to take my mind off the incipient WW III brewing to the East…
Good night and good luck: Was misadvertised at the cinema and we ended up having a coffee instead
City of God: Saw this before I started reviewing films. One of my all time favourites.
Here’s a state-of-the-art, bleeding edge out-of-the-box, envelope-pushing web design agency in a back street, Felipe’s:
We’ve been planning the trip back, and shall probably only slightly vary the stopping points. Any recommendations for places to stay/eat in Hermosillo and Culiacan?
Brunswick pt I
When you’re writing a blog and you’ve lost momentum, added to the general inertia is the realisation that whatever you’re about to write is probably going to be sitting on the front page for yonks. I’ll try and update regularly enough to knock this off onto page two soon, but I’m not feeling massively inspired right now, so here goes nothing.
I’ve been reprimanded by my own mother (Hi Mum!) for not keeping her up-to-date with the goings on round our way at this blog. “It all seems to be just photos and I’ve seen them before”. So here’s an attempt to assuage my critics.
Brunswick’s a small town. Now the students are back its population has swelled a bit, but basically it’s a high street with a park area, a few restaurants, music shops and a dvd rental place. All surrounded by a few streets of housing, a river, forest and then the sea. One of the most popular places was an ice-cream shop that had a queue from opening to closing time but despite the evident sky-high demand for frozen dairy products it’s closed down ’til next spring. Without wanting to be slanderous, I’m guessing it’s some kind of tax evasion/ money laundering operation. It’d be perfect, Who’d suspect an all-cash ‘mom and pop’ lolly emporium? I would. On our tour of Portland, ME, t’other day the guide mentioned that somewhere nearby there’s lobster-flavoured ice cream to be had. Everyone except Sally made a that-sounds-less-than-delicious face. It probably tastes better than tutti-frutti mind.
If you like seafood, it abounds. If you don’t like seafood, it still abounds. It’s pricier than we were led to believe but that might just be because the entire Maine economy is based on tourism (and blueberries. And toothpicks.) and it’s still high season. I’m no expert, but I have it on good authority that it’s quality stuff and can assure you that it’s a fine source for all your omega oil needs. And sodium. And vinegar. We’ve been working our way round the restaurants. My favourite as of yet is El Camino (their website– warning: MySpace). It does a fine line in (almost) Mexican food and the decor looks like something out of From Dusk till Dawn. Though the food is not the most ‘authentic‘, the music in the background was straight out of a proper cantina’s jukebox and I reckon I recognized a fair few of the decorations as coming directly from Tlaquepaque/Tonala.
We were a bit worried when we arrived that the town centre was all that was on offer in terms of entertainment and supplies. It’s lovely and all that but sometimes you just want to see a film that features Seth Rogan, aliens or 3D glasses, or you need to buy furniture that isn’t lovingly hand-crafted by Maine’s finest carpenters. Soon after exploring we found all manner of malls, superstores and a cinema a few minutes drive outside of the ‘city limits’. Squint a bit and you could be in Downey, CA if it weren’t for all the trees and the general absence of police helicopters circling. There’s a Borders book shop that stocks Word magazine too, which makes me happy. Trader Joes is sadly absent from Maine but there’s one 10 minutes from Boston airport and it’s looking like we’ll be there on a regular basis. I mustn’t go on because according to some forum or other that DrSita read before we got here, one sure way to piss off Mainers is to complain about the chain stores they don’t have.
IKEA’s another one.
Talking of IKEA, my office is full of built-in shelves. I have enough stuff to fill about 2 of them. DrSita has several hundred books so she chose the office upstairs. With no shelves. That’s what I get for not charging enough for my heavy-lifting/removal services.
How’s Atticus you ask? Well he’s settled in nicely. We don’t have much of garden and it’s not fenced but he appreciates the carpeting indoors. It provides the necessary traction for tight turns, rapid acceleration and provides pleasing acoustics for his frequent barking fits. He’s also happy to have a fair few areas where he can run unfettered in the countryside and keep the squirrels on their toes. If squirrels have toes. Claws? Talons? Anyroad, he’s content striking poses for the camera all around the coastline and defending his reduced empire from the likes of pizza delivery boys, Bowdoin college maintenance crews and his old nemesis, the postman.
That’ll do me for now. Personally I never read posts as long as this, unless they’re written by Stu who never fails to delight and entertain. Right now it’s all text. I’ll spend the next 10 minutes punctuating it with pretty pictures. Maybe I can fit some bullet points in. I’ll try and write again soon, I’ve been pretty busy of late a-localisin’ and a-webdesignin’ and it shows no sign of letting up anytime soon. Which is a good thing.
Thanks for reading this far. And Mum, I expect a comment now. In Spanish please. Using the subjunctive. Twice. Only if you have time between walking Ramble/Jed and Welsh Society bureaucracy though 😉
Guanatos: Día 3
[flickr]photo:2534426906[/flickr] [flickr]photo:2534434322[/flickr]
Breakfast in El Colibrí, once again molletes… They’re bread rolls cut in half with cheese and frijoles on ’em with the option of salsa mexicana and chorizo. José went for some kind of egg based thing as you can see. Then he went to work and I went to complete the orders received for artesania from Tlaquepaque.
You’ve two options if you’re after Mexican arts and crafts, one is go to Tonalá right on the outskirts of town where everything’s made and there’s lots of cheap shops selling less than perfect stuff, or Tlaquepaque which had its centre recently renovated and is awash with pricey boutiques. I went to t-paque because there’s a bit more to photograph, involves less walking, is slightly closer to the centre and also has a tequila shop where I knew I could get Sita’s 7 Leguas Blanco. I got some jewellery, and something that conformed to Monica’s request for “something metal you can put on the wall”.
I stopped by at la Mata Tinta, a cybercafe/restaurant run by a Scottish bloke (and his wife) who I met last year. He seemed to be thriving, getting the place ready for the forthcoming rainy season. I also took a taxi to the DIF (social security place) to catch up with a mate of mine from my photojournalism course. Nice to see him too and discover a different part of T-Paque, I couldn’t wander much because now it was getting to be the hottest part of the day and I was carrying me camera and lenses and awkwardly shaped wall hangings.
The taxi from Tonala to the centre took forever due to the construction of the Macrobus (or was it macrocamion) that’s causing delays all along the Calzada de Independencia built ready for the Panamerican Games in a few years time. Luckily the taxista had given me a price rather than have the metre running. I still got out of the taxi half a mile before my destination partly because of the heat, partly the traffic, but mainly because he’d started telling me jokes to pass the time… (¿Cuántos chinos hay en China? Ninguno, ¡puros lacios! Don’t even ask for a translation…)
So I checked to see if Anel and Claus were about at Amour Fou, sure enough they were. AF has now closed business but it’s still as hospitable as ever. We went for a swift pint in La Cava and then the plan was to head out to the middle of nowhere to see Aldo’s band plays some covers at the offices of Hewlett Packard, instead everyone’s plans changed and we met up with Jose, Javier, Hugo and co at Los Famosos Equipales and after that to a nearby fiesta on a roof.
And thus was last Friday. Good times. I’m having issues with uploading to Flickr with tags and suchlike, but here’s some of the set of Dia 3.
Sita’s birthday dinner last night was great btw. Shall put a few photos up soon. Thanks for the wellwishing
Tia Tanya’s Torte
I liked this short educational video about what happens to bad gummi bears… Here comes the science… Also, turns out there is a lot of Charlie Brooker on YouTube if you find yourself in a dull moment.
Anyroad, It’s been a quiet day today. Raining off and on, not really photo weather. I just managed to get out and walk the dog and take a couple of pix before the heavens opened again. Last night was grand though, T and J came round and we had a scrabble session and had veggie lasagna and T’s trademark dish, fruit sponge pudding or torte (sp?). We even dusted off some fancy plates from Tonala.
Also did a bit of E-shopping thanks to me sister giving me an Amazon.co.uk voucher. Life on Mars series 1 and 2 should be winging their way over the Atlantic as I write. Marvellous, thanks Beth. Also, Mario, I’ll pass them your way once I’ve seen them.
Obviously mere ingredients and cooking instructions can’t quite express how good Tanya’s torte is but here you go:
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
2 eggs
[generous bit of vanilla – say 1 TBSP]
plums [or apricots, or pears, frozen works if fresh is unavailable]
toppings sugar, lemon juice
preheat oven to 350 deg F
cream butter and sugar in a bowl. add flour, baking powder, salt and
eggs. Beat well
spoon batter into a spring form pan of 8, 9 or 10 inches
place plum halves, skin side up, on top of batter.
sprinkle lightly with sugar and lemon juice
bake 1 hour. remove and cool. refridgerate or freeze if desired.
serve plain or with whipped cream. (to serve a torte that was frozen:
defrost and reheat briefly at 300 Deg F
Secrets revealed below…
Ever wondered how people avoid slowly cooking themselves to death while dressed as Dr. Simi or, in this case, ¿¡Barney!? (from Farmacia Generi-K in Tonalá) what with Mexico´s high temperatures?
Today I can reveal all with this AgaveWeb exclusive aerial shot…
So today we went to get an 8 piece dining set of ceramics from Tonala, just to give them one more thing to inspect as we cross the state lines on Monday. Lovely they are. Almost as good as the Provencale ones from a couple of years ago. I might have to leave my guitar behind to fit them all in the car. We won´t know till Sunday though.
Also, the Sauza family granted us a last minute interview and so we´re off to Tequila for the last time tomorrow afternoon before our last meal for a good while in La Matera and then other stuff.
Still to sell on the furniture front: 2 x computer desks, 2 x chairs, 1 kitchen cabinet, 1 folding table and kitchen bits and pieces. Sunday is going to be hectic. And tomorrow. And Saturday. And not to mention Monday…
I can´t post without mentioning Monday´s entertainment, as you´ll see in the post below we were expecting a quietish meal with our Flickr friends, we got there and all was calm then one by one the patio filled up with familiar faces dressed as angels, devils, kings, shepherds, and er mermaids… I didn´t know what the merry hell was going on for a good few minutes. It turns out they´d all got together and planned a Pastorela, a nativity play crossed with a Christmas panto in our honour. It was hilarious and such an unexpected and lovely send off. My appreciation for the peeps in this good town knows no bounds. I promised not to make the photos too public, but if you´re not in my Flickr contacts shout out and I´ll email you the link, and if you are a contact, then click away hence.
We´ve really been spoilt for friends here in Guadalajara, more than anywhere I´ve ever lived and I sincerely hope we can return the favour wherever we find ourselves next.
Righty, we´re off for tacos then down the pub cantina.
No news from Colorado yet, for the record.
Meg’n’Matt’n’Stu’n’Anne
are coming to town v. soon. Highlights to follow…
So what else is going on round Garibaldi way, well I’ve been slaving over a hot computer, luckily this time not mine but Meghan’s. It was suffering from being about 2 years old and needing declogging. I got meself a bottle of tequila and some lovely furniture from Tonala for my troubles. And now it’s behaving itself slightly better…
And that’s about it. Daniel’s just finished cooking some kind of pasta affair so we’re off to devour that. May blog a bit later though this evening I threatened to put the Shaun of the Dead DVD on. British comedy at its best. But not for everyone apparently. Hot Fuzz was fantastic too.
FlickrInspector
I just chanced upon a Flickr app that tells you all kinds of things about your Flickr photos, profile and stuff… I love checking stats on me blog and photos and stuff and thanks to this gizmo I found out some of my photos are being used around the web, all properly attributed and everything, just the way things should be.
The most prestigious is a photo of Tonalá on Wikipedia’s English Tonalá page, and probably the least prestigious would be the “sex shop and mariscos” one over here, it’s also one of me most popular photos. There’re also a few phototour related ones too. There’s a blog using my Victor Jara design to illustrate a post on copyright infringement… Hope Victor’s family aren’t too litiginous…
Anyroad, if you’ve got a Flickr account, check it out.
Damn, it’s quiet round Guanatos way
Seems like everyone’s gone or is going to the beach. Anyroad, not complaining, I’ve had my fair share of holidays of late. Still waiting for various projects to materialise. Next week should be busy if the people who’ve said they’ve stuff for me to do give me stuff…
So today I played a lot of Scrabble, getting back in the 1000s again. There’s a shake-up of the SOWPODS (UK/international -USA version) allowed words in a month or so so that’s going to throw me off for 
a bit if they mess with my 2-letter words. I’d like to put in a request for “Zot”, Sita assures me it’s the sound anteaters make and it must have been an oversight when they wrote the dictionary.
Also got inspired by a comment on this flowery photo saying that they look like Trollz so I did meself a photoshopped hybrid monstery thing:
And also I started buggering around with the e-commerce plugin for wordpress. Seems alright, i’m having some issues with permalinks and .htaccess, but nothing insurmountable. They hard part is thinking of products. Vaguely considering some framed photography with frames from Tonala. Very, very much in progress here don’t be surprised to see an illegible mess…
And if things stay quiet this week, then I’ll be rejigging this blog page yet again, cos I can’t get it to display right in (accursed, plagues be upon it) IE 6.
Also planned this week, making a bit more of an effort to find Jesus in San Martin de los Flores on Friday. This time I’ll have a map…
Other stuff… Spanish phrase of the week, courtesy of the taxi driver from the airport: Una lluvia mojapendejos. A type of rain that only idiots* would get wet in. Ie. short and sweet.
* insert regional slang of choice here. Twunt for example…
Adios mamá y papá
Well, if you can fit more into 3 weeks that we did with my folks, then you have my admiration. From Ajijic to Zacatecas we did pretty well what with sight-seeing, gastronomy, celebrations, social events and even cultural “stuff”.
Yesterday we planned to go to Magdalena to see the opal mines, but the Guachimontones in Teuchitlán proved to be a full day out in themselves. They date from around 1,500 BC and since no writings have been discovered are a fairly mysterious bunch of ruins. For the equinox (incidently, clocks go forward tonight I think, well they do in the States anyroad, and Mexico tends to be in sync just to harmonise business hours…*EDIT* nope, 1st of April…) there’s going to be all kinds of celebrations over that way. Get there by heading out of Gwod towards Tequila on the carretera libre and taking the Ameca turn off, then about 2km after Tala turn off right at the Pemex, and follow the signs to Teuchitlán and beyond up into the hills. We’ll definitely be back if only to try taste the wares at the pulqueria on the way to the site…
So, here’s a very public MUCHISIMAS GRACIAS to Mum and Dad from Sita and me for what I hope were mutually beneficial holidays giving us the chance to see no end of places we certainly wouldn’t have had the funds to visit and all in the finest of company. Have a lovely time with Sally, Martin, Atticus and the buns and we’ll skype yas soon 😀
In addition to the hour+ of slideshows set to music DVD (available from all good record shops) everything’s backed up over at Flickr… Tulum and thereabouts here and then Weeks 2 and 3 (Ajijic, Tlaquepaque, Tonalá, Zacatecas, La Quemada, Tequila, y mucho más…) here.
Según el sapo es la pedrada
On the photo tour, Eliazar told me a new (to me) Spanish phrase: “Dependiendo del sapo, así es la pedrada“. The stone you throw depends on the size of toad. I’m not confident enough to use this phrase yet, but I think it means something like you have scale what you’re using to the problem you’re facing. There’s no point in throwing a small stone at a large toad, nor a huge stone at a tiny toad… Maybe…?
If anyone reading can give an example, I’d be glad to see it commented. Even the usually excellent WordReference.com draws a blank on this one… A search for sapo gets you:
sapo m Zool toad ♦ LOC: fam (despotricar) echar sapos y culebras, to curse and swear:
Which is another one I’d not heard, “To throw toads and snakes”, to curse and swear… or better still, “effing and blinding”.
Yesterday after Tonalá, dining, decorating and skyping the world we were going to have our subjunctive class, however we ended up watching about a dozen+ back-to-back episodes of Bones on DVD. Strangely apt after driving past the new (¿?) Jaliscan Forensic Science Building on Lazaro Cardenas. CSI Guanatos indeed… Now there’s a series I’d like to watch…
Some of yesterday’s purchases… a metal agave thing, DVD shelf, and shining star things.
Fototur Tapatio 01-07
Well, that was a lovely afternoon wandering round the city centre of Guadalajara (Guanatos to its denizens) and meeting likeminded souls. While sipping Coronas con sal y limon in La Fuente El Charro Negro and Eliazar turned up with cameras in tow and we decided to go off snapping shots of the centre, from La Fuente to Las Cabaas to San Juan de Dios. A couple more Flickreros joined us in the cabaas and we watched life unfold in San Juan. I hope we can do it again some time. Thanks to everyone for coming, looking forward to your photos…
Here’re some of my faves:
Then we had dinner at La Divina Tentación, a v. nice restaurant, though we got there at 8 and left at 9:30ish and were the only customers there. Outnumbered 3 to 1 by waiters. Good food and not hugely pricey. Recommended…
Today Sita and I went on a lightning trip to Tonalá where we bought more trinkets to decorate the homestead with, including a copper agave thing (photo one of these days…) which we bargained down from 300 pesos to 200, then came back to a shiny clean house thanks to M & D’s Herculean efforts. And a rug which “really ties the room together…”
Later today: giving a private class to Monica and Daniel on the delights of the subjunctive mood. In Starbucks, for our sins…