Visitantes. Dia Cinco.

Well, we woke up Sunday morning and it was the last half day of our trip. Mom had located a ward meeting a short walk from our hotel at 8am, so we walked on over. I don't recall what was in the breakfast buffet that morning, looks like I didn't get a picture. But look how empty the streets were at quarter to 8!

It was very good to go to Mexican church, I had forgotten about the clean smell and prevalence of linoleum in Mexican Mormon churches. And that you have to bring your own hymnal in Mexico. And that the Mexicans will be very eager to share their hymnals with you if you haven't got one.

After church we made our way through a few neighborhoods over to Ave. Reforma. Among other places we passed the Mexico City Ripley's Believe it or Not and Wax Museum. I'd visited there once on my mission. There was a gigantic line there as it was opening. Glad to know it's still doing great business. We went into a supermarket, too, just to see what was up.

The Reforma is a grand avenue stretching from the center of Mexico City to Chapultapec Park and on Sundays it closes down to cars and opens up for pedestrians and cyclists. This is a very metropolitan thing, to close down your streets and let people ride bikes up and down them.

This is Mexico City's stock market

Me and the Angel of Independence

Outdoor dance workout class

Diana the Huntress

And then we walked the whole Reforma in the other direction to get back to el Centro and gave the Centro one last walking around.

We had one last meal at a nice little fonda (actually, it was pretty big) where all the food, from the orangeades to the sope to the tacos to the cubana, were quite big. Our waiter was nice enough to cut us off and tell us we had ordered enough. He knew their food was big!

More of our last little walking around...

At Mexican McDonald's they were selling 10 peso soft serves with Oreo cookie cones. Look out, Ample Hills! McDonald's is coming for you!

Behind the scenes:

One last pair of tacos? Why not?

Back to the hotel and off to the airport

And after some sitting around, off we go! Adios Amigos, thanks for a great time! See you all again soon.

Visitantes. Dia Cuatro.

Ah, another lovely Mexico City morning! And another visit to the Hampton Inn breakfast buffet, today's selection: Make your own chilaquiles bar (plus popcorn chicken, a famous Mexican breakfast staple)!

We had a big plan for Saturday, a big two part plan, and the first part of that two part plan had three subparts itself. Part 1 Subpart 1: The Chapultapec Park Zoo! We got there nice and early before the crowds and before most of the animals had woken up. Just as planned!

This was a VERY loud monkey

You might wonder why we decided to go to what looks like a very normal zoo while on our big trip to Mexico City. That's because...(drumroll)...the Chapultapec Park Zoo has Pandas! And not only does it have pandas, but a long history of in-captivity pandas breeding success, just a great general Mexican Panda history (that's another thing, the Mexico City Pandas aren't loaners from China like most pandas, but owned outright!)

Here I am with Pe Pe and Ying Ying, Mexico City's first two pandas (they're dead now).

Here is Shaun Shaun, the lazy old panda

And this is Xin Xin, the vibrant young panda. By "young" I mean three years younger than Shaun Shaun. And by "vibrant" I mean she was out in her habitat eating bamboo. And after she finished her bamboo, we watched her climb up to her hammock and plop down on her back like a person

Pandas observed, we made our way out of the park past all the vendors setting up in the early morning 

And across the street and down the street a little...

To Plan Part 1, Subpart 2: the Anthropology Museum! An exhaustive and amazing collection of so much old Mexico history. Which would be a lot more interesting to me now that I've begun reading a book on the history of Mexico City, but when I was on the trip nearly felt like anthropology overload. I was so young back then! 

Let those turtles go!

There was a big part of the museum about Teotihuacan, which we were already experts of from our visit two days before.

The strict rules of the ball and hoop game

And there was another part of the museum about the Templo Mayor, which we were already experts on, thanks to our visit the day before.

Most everything at the museum had something to do with human sacrifice. This thing was for keeping cut out hearts and blood in.

Out in the outside parts of the museum there was lots of Indiana Jones looking stuff

Then back outside to head to Plan Part 1, Subpart 3...but first, we pass some food stall and buy an elote. I know you were wondering when we'd get an elote! We picked it out from a bunch on a grill and paid according to its size, just like a Christmas tree!

Okay, last part of the Chapultapec Park plan: A visit to Chapultapec Castle up on top of Chapultapec Hill in Chapultapect Hill. Did you know that "Chapultapec" means "Grasshopper Hill?" Kind of makes me wonder if anything I said in the last few sentences was redundant.

Monkey hats: will they come to America and be popular here, too?

Chapultapec Castle!

Do you see the Anthropology Museum over there in the distance?

Look at that building on the right and how there's those two big spiral staircases in it, in its outside parts. I thought that was very interesting.

Statues of the Niños Heroes who died protecting the castle from Americans. They are a big patriotism deal.

The old original national observatory. It observes the stars, not the nation.

There was a ceremony for awards for teachers going on at the castle while we were there.

Ceiling mural memorial to the Niños Heroes.

We had been walking so much! So glad to find a nice big designated descanso area.

Back down the hill and out of the park we went and to catch ourselves an Uber to the second part of our day.

Part 2 of our day was a visit to Cuoyocan, a quaint and charming and lovely part of town to the south of town. We started our Cuoyocan visit with a visit to the Cuoyocan Market to eat at world famous Tostadas Cuoyocan, an amazing grouping of stalls where a humongous variety of  tostadas are available for rapid delivery and eating.

For busy-ness contrast, here's another part of the market where tostadas were not for sale.

Then we walked down the street to the center of town.

Here's a picture of Mom in front of Cuoyocan (which means "place of the coyotes")'s famous coyote fountain

And here's a picture of me there, too

Guys, guys, I figured out where La Casa de los Tacos moved to!

Then we took a little walk through the residential parts of town, admiring how good it looked

Sigh. This sticker sure brings back memories.

Here lived one of Cortes's favorite mistresses

Heading back into town, things were sure starting to bustle with high Friday evening energy

"Harry Postres (dessert) Cerveza de Mantequilla (butter beer)"

Coyoacan is renowned for its ice cream. So we hunted some down. Results: Ok.

One thing Coyoacan is known for is Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's Casa Azul, and I understand its pretty cool

But you can find me at Leon Trotsky's house

That night we did some more El Centro walking and went up to Plaza Garibaldi, where all the mariachi hang out, but I forgot to keep my memory card in my camera. So no pictures! I shouldn't have even said anything because now you're so disappointed.

Visitantes. Dia Tres.

Well, I hope everyone's feeling rested and ready to read after a weekend and half a week off from blog posts. I know I'm feeling ready to type and upload photos! 

Friday we woke up with big plans for the morning which were nearly derailed by my discovery that chicken taquitos (and steamed vegetables?) were for breakfast at the hotel breakfast buffet.

Then we made our way through the extremely empty and quiet 8am-ish historic center of Mexico City to our destination...

...El Cardenal, a wonderful classic old school restaurant, renowned for absolutely everything about it, including breakfast.

Death Bread.

Chocolate mixed and poured tableside

For me: Huevos a la Verecruezana...basically chorizo topped enfrijoladas filled with huevos a la Mexicana

For mom: a flor de calabaza omelete

Put El Cardenal on your must list. Basically this was the only meal we needed all day. 
After the restaurant we went back to the hotel for a minute, so here's a good chance for me to finally show you the outside of the hotel.

And then, ready for our day, we headed back out. First stop: the Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico, which I had "discovered" by accident one day on my mission and was always quite curious about. And then a few years ago it turned up in the opening scene of Spectre, so this portion of the morning was our James Bond reality tour.

Then we strolled the Zocalo for a minute. Most of it was taken over for a concert thing they were setting up. (Consider that foreshadowing for my day 5 post)

This was Mom's idea, I didn't make her do it

That's the National Palace, our next major destination.

This is the Metropolitan Cathedral, which we'll visiting a great big of scrolling down later

Walking to the National Palace entrance...

And the insides of the Palace. Basically this is like the US Capitol, but of Mexico. Visitors are free to roam the courtyards and visit the famous Diego Rivera murals. Also: there are so many cats. It's a much more interesting visit than you might think.

matching

Check out the lean on this building, a great example of sinking into the lake beneath the city. Passing by the Zocalo on our way to our next stop it was filling up a little more.

Next Stop: Templo Mayor, the Aztec temple they bumped into while building the Zocalo subway stop. Along with the ruins themselves, there is a museum containing an exhaustive collection of things they found in the temple site, including very goofy looking human sacrifice knives and lots of complete animal skeletons.

After Templo Mayor, we made our way away from the Zocalo as lunch was beginning to happen. We weren't on our way to have lunch, though, we were still too full from that breakfast.

This is a real good menu, we should've eaten here

I was very intrigued by this particular McDonalds burger but never tried it

We would find out that this dog was not there to make friends.

We strolled down Calle Republica de Cuba, which some claim is the birthplace of the Torta Cubana.

And then we wound up in the Quinceñera District, where they discourage taking photographs of their wares.

Next Stop: the Metropolitan Cathedral!

through el Centro again...

Exterior of House of Tiles by day

Next Stop: the Palacio de Correo, which I had once visited on my mission with a companion who needed to send a package home. It's a beauty. It'll make you wish you had a package to send home.

Next, a little walk through Alameda park before a little exploring of the Palacio de Bellas Artes

From there we began walking back to the hotel down Lazaro Cardenas (a street) which always seems to be crushingly crowded and hectic. After a long morning into early afternoon of city walking, being out was beginning to be exhausting. We dipped into "...Fan!!! Center!!", which I had observed from El Moro the night before and become curious about. It turned out to be a six story tall collection of independently run kiosks selling comic books, movies, video games, Japanese treats, etc etc etc just everything nerdy. It was immediately overwhelming and beyond my abilities. And in a collection of so many interesting things, everything just seemed to cancel everything out. One single Fan Center kiosk is probably more interesting than the Fan Center collection on a whole. Or, I don't know, plan two days to look at all of it and tell me what you find. Still, it's very cool that Mexico City can sustain such a bustling market of geekdom. You won't find anything like this in the US. It was very Tokyo.

Fighting our way through the crowds back to the hotel, we dipped into another Pasteleria Ideal and I explored the second floor cake showrooms. Here's just a sampling of what I saw. Imagine this for room after room.

Then, finally, we were back at the hotel. After a bit of a rest, we Uber'd over to the Vasconcelos library, which we had seen on YouTube the night before our trip. It is a tremendously impressive place and was very busily being put to use. Not just a showcase wild fancy modern library with great views and a whale skeleton.

As the library closed I just could NOT get any reception for an Uber, so we walked back to the city center. It wasn't so far.

I had an address for a taco place that sounded good written down, but when we got to it I thought "There is no way I'm making my mother go into there" and we walked back up the street and into a restaurant we had passed on the way down that looked civilized. Although the name of the restaurant was nowhere on the building or the menu or the receipt, I was able to figure out where we were on google maps and it turns out it was a well-regarded restaurant called Bosforo. Lucky accident! It was very dark, it was very hard to see and cut my food. But it was still good. I had rabbit in peanut mole and we shared a few other things.

Then we walked back to the hotel, passing some additional tempting eateries and Mexico City's Chinatown, or approximation thereof.

Day Three was a good but tiring day where the final acts were a little underplanned, and that's ok, but Day Four had a good plan. You'll see.