Mexico Madness!

On Friday night, I went to 'Luche Libre' at Mexico City Arena, which I cannot say enough about! There were 6 fights in total, 2 female and 4 male, and the women were so much more vicious than the men. They were tearing each other apart! I have two specific highlights I would like to share; one fighter was a tiny man dressed as a blue bear (I'm unsure of the politically correct way to say this but he was a very small man, dwarf, midget etc), and his tag team partner would lift him up onto the ropes so he could jump down onto the opponents. Sheer brilliance. Then, the 'main event' was 'Mistico', supposedly the best fighter in Mexico right now. He got beaten up quite badly during the first round but really showed his prowess during the second and third round by doing some crazy wrestling moves that made the crowd go wild! My voice was hoarse after screaming and cheering so much! I am so grateful that I got the chance to see this as it is entrenched in Mexican culture and I would highly recommend that anybody visiting Mexico should make the effort to go. They confiscated our cameras before we went inside, so sadly the only memories I have are in my mind.

I arrived in Beijing last night after a mammoth journey that involved me crying 3 times...I think it was the tiredness more than anything else because I made the genius decision to not sleep on Saturday night and go straight to the airport in Mexico City for my Sunday morning flight, which I swiftly regretted! Anyway, I arrived in Vancouver to change planes, to find that my flight was delayed by 8 hours due to typhoon weather in China. Thankfully, I had my clicker and used the time to do some McGuire contacts which made the delay go quite quickly and I had lots of conversations with random strangers.

Before arriving in Beijing I had heard that no one speaks English but I wasnt sure how true this was. I got off the airport shuttle at my designated stop, and had written the name and address of my hostel on a sheet of paper in Chinese characters, but 5 taxi drivers later, I was slightly worried that no one understood my handwriting either. Starting to panic, as it was 2am by this time, I met two lovely Chinese boys who could speak English, and they did everything they could to help me. Once they knew where the hotel was, they translated to a taxi driver who took me to a dirt road not lit with any lights, and the hostel was at the end of it. As I walked down this dark road with all my belongings strapped to my back, I reflected on how I am completely at the mercy of the kindness of strangers, and every time, people surprise me with their generosity. I will forever be thankful to those two boys who didn't have to help me but did, and I know I'll never forget their faces as I was driving away in the taxi and they shouted 'WELCOME TO BEIJING!'