Day 8: Stirring up a little convo in Oaxaca

Wednesday night dancing in Zocalo, Oaxaca

4 hour bus ride. Arrival in Oaxaca (wa-HA-ka). Another charming little Mexican town that reminds me of Trinidad, Cuba. Lacks the colonial beauty of Puebla, but compensates with strong culture & character. Feels like there are more tourists here and not hard to see why. Oaxaca is famous for its culture, cuisine and artisenal handicrafts. For the first time I have an urge to buy something and faced with the problem of how. How will I carry these things for days to come?
We sat down at Zocalo in front of the grand stone church with colours that looked somewhat washed out.

“Konichiwa!”

I looked over and beside us sat a group of high school latinos, gleeing with curiosity.

“Chino, no japonese” I responded.

Surprised that the asian stranger spoke, they immediately swarmed around us and started chatting. They bombarded us with questions about us, what we do, what we thought of Oaxaca, how long we’ve been here, life in HK & China, etc. We returned our interest with questions about themselves too. One of them, Jonathan (not a typical latin name), knew more than “konichiwa” it turned out, throwing out words like “itatakimasu” and “aiishiteru”, and asking me to explain what they meant! I asked how he knew these words and could’ve guessed the answer – Japanese anime! I taught them the Chinese equivalents and they were eager to use the latter phrase (aiishiteru = i love you = wo ai ni) on the muchacha walking by with her dog. We ended up chatting with the kids for almost an hour in broken espanol. Jonathan pulled out his wallet and handed me an old hundred peso bill – its no longer in circulation nor used in Mexico, so he wanted us to keep it as a souvenir.

This was easily the highlight of not just the day but my entire week in Mexico.

On top of that, also found my favourite sausage in a local market – chorizo! Was planning to take a break from work (ie. blogging & photographing) but obviously couldn’t..

can’t miss the rolls of chorizo on the right..

bbq’d on the spot.. i know this picture don’t like appetizing, but mmmm they were good!!!

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