We arrived in Mexico City early enough this morning to not only have a quick breakfast at the hotel lounge of refried black beans, corn and rice, ham and eggs, and salsa verde with a side of watermelon, papaya, and pineapple, and green juice, but also to have a quick taco at Super Tacos – A La Parrilla, which we randomly stopped by during our walk around the Reforma area to begin our full day of exploration through Distrito Federal. Super Tacos is exactly what it sounds like – the tacos are not small by any definition; they are made with face-sized, thick, grilled yellow corn tortillas and stuffed with your choice of meat, topped with thick gooey cheese, thinly sliced potatoes, pickled green peppers and onions, huge grilled scallions. We chose chorizo to fill one and thinly sliced skirt steak to fill the second, and our guy cooked everything to order. All the fillings with the exception of the meats were being stewed in meat juices and fats – definitely not vegetarian friendly, but hey, we didn’t come to Mexico to eat vegetarian food. We topped our massive tacos with a brightly hued orange salsa – smokey, a little sweet, and a bit spicy. We made a bit of a mess eating these, but as I was watching other people eat their super tacos while sitting on the unstable plastic stools at our street side stall, I noticed we weren’t alone: there was no clean way to eat these things, which I’m all for since I love getting into my food when the mood is right.

We then wandered through a market and paid about $3 USD for 500 grams of the sweetest and most flavorful jackfruit I’ve had since we were in Thailand for New Year’s Eve 2016. Each bite made me want more and more. It made me wish I had easier and cheaper access to this in New York, where usually for just about six to eight pieces, I’d have to pay about $4 in Chinatown, and only during the summer time. We got lured to a table in the market, seeing everyone drinking big glugs of what they called “sangria,” but it ended up being watermelon agua fresca, much to Chris’s disgust. He holds the opinion that watermelon, among all melons, is the most useless fruit ever known to humankind. I know no one else who thinks this.

So we had this seemingly “authentic” experience, which transitioned into an early evening when we ended up in La Condesa, which is known as the “international” area of town where Mexicans come to eat non-Mexican food. In other words, the area is full of English speakers, really expensive and Westernized spaces and real estate, and expensive prices for everything. After my original seemingly authentic taco joint was found to be closed, we chose to go to another I had bookmarked, which was a spot called El Tizoncito, which was purported to be the “original al pastor taco.” As soon as we arrived, though, we were both immediately let down and annoyed when we saw that pretty much every single patron was white and speaking English, mostly American English and a few in perhaps British English. Damnit – this is when Yelp has led me wrong. We didn’t come to Mexico to surround ourselves with a bunch of Americans and English. But I guess I should have known given that none of the reviews were in Spanish at all. Our moods were immediately ruined, and we decided that since we were already there to settle on just one al pastor taco each; priced at 17 pesos each (just shy of $1USD), they were the most expensive tacos we’d paid for on this trip, which was saying something.

We were eventually saved for our last meal when we decided to go to Casa de Tono, which two different Uber drivers recommended for being very local and authentic to Mexican tastes, and being especially famous for pozole, a traditional Mexican soup-stew that is made from hominy (nixtamalized corn). We ordered a small bowl with a mix of pork parts and head cheese, shredded cabbage, onions, radishes, and squeezed lime, as well as a chicarron (fried pork skin) quesadilla, and two intensely creamy horchatas topped with canela. The pozole, like the chicken soup we had at the Oaxacan market days before, was one of the highlights of what we’ve eaten on this trip, one of those dishes I’d wished I’d had more of in Mexican cuisine that I hadn’t been exposed to much, but had only heard of. Since my first trip to Mexico in 2010, I have had a love of Mexican soups, and the way that the end squeeze of lime complements all the other flavors of the soup has always surprised me and brought a smile to my face.

It felt like a quick and somewhat rushed trip, especially since we easily could have spent four days just in Mexico City, but it’s given Chris more motivation to find (or possibly make up..) work reasons to come back here. Mexico City is like one of those cities that you could always keep coming back to and never get bored of.

It was another early start for us, boarding a 6am domestic flight from Mexico City to Oaxaca to maximize time in this culinary capital of Mexico. It’s my second time in both cities and Chris’s first, but I loved this time perhaps even more than last time because I can reflect on what I experienced in the past and see what still resonates… which is pretty much everything here. Oaxaca is colorful, friendly, rich with history, culture, and gastronomy. It is said that the national dish of mole was created here, that the seven original moles were made in this city, and that the 20+ other varieties around the country can all trace their roots back to this colorful place. The best part of Oaxaca to me is the markets; I generally do not like to compare places I’ve traveled to because to me (and Chris), that’s like saying you have a favorite child; each city and town has its uniqueness, its quirks, its own beauty, something that makes it special that draws you to it. But Oaxaca I can say with certainty is one of my favorite places for markets, next to Sao Paulo, Valencia, and Kyoto. There is something about the way the food is displayed, the way the vendors interact with their customers, the crispness and the scents of the impeccably fresh ingredients, that is so mesmerizing that sucks me in. I could probably just sit in these markets for hours, just inhaling all the scents and watching the interactions of the locals (and eating… yum) and be completely content.

Chris immediately pointed out when we’d walk into the markets how the scents of everything from the greens to the tomatoes and tomatillos to the peppers and mangoes just hit us full force. “There’s no market in the U.S. that is like that,” he said. “There’s no fresh smell like this at all.”

He was definitely right. It seemed as though these fruits and vegetables were, within hours, just plucked or dug out of the ground, brushed off, and put on display for us to witness in all their fresh, crisp glory. The perfume of mangoes, guavas, and pineapples was unmistakably wafting towards us, beckoning us to have a bite or two. We picked up some fresh yellow-fleshed guavas, each no larger than a golf ball, and enjoyed a “round” of pineapple that was, by far, the sweetest, lushest pineapple we had ever eaten. The flesh was translucent and extremely soft, and it just dripped in sugary goodness. We also shared a large cup of freshly made coconut milk, lightly spiced with a hint of canela (Mexican cinnamon). Everything just screamed of freshness, of just readiness, of “I’m ripe and ready: eat me now!” We’ve traveled to markets around the world, and all of them make the U.S.’s markets seem stale and old.

I’ve always understood, because of this, why I’ve read so many accounts of travelers who originally planned to stay in Oaxaca for only one to three days, but ended up extending their time to a full week, if not multiple weeks or months, just to enjoy the gastronomical glories that this place has to offer and the richness of the culture… that oftentimes gets lost when in the U.S.’s eyes, Mexico is marred with “rapists” and “illegals” who are trying to get into the U.S. without the proper process. But we can let ignorant people continue to be ignorant and enjoy this gorgeous culture for what it is while we are so privileged to be here.

We didn’t have the best of luck today with our flight departing for Miami to then connect and bring us to Mexico City. We got on the plane, then almost immediately had to deplane because something was wrong with the engine, and AA ultimately had to cancel a flight to Chicago to use that plane to take us to Miami late. Regardless, we still made it to Mexico City, just about three hours late, but I witnessed one of the biggest displays of white privilege that made me so angry.

Chris and I were seated in business class, which was actually quite empty today. Because I get upgraded a lot, I know that unless a flight is extremely short, such as Boston to New York or San Francisco to Los Angeles, you usually have to “request” an upgrade in order to get upgraded from economy to business class assuming there is availability. I pretty much always do this, and occasionally because I have the highest level of status, I automatically get bumped without requesting an upgrade. That’s a bit rare, though. This woman, tall, blonde, disheveled, maybe in her 30s, clearly overly privileged who just expects to get whatever she wants and loves to have her mind read, got on the plane and stopped in the business class section where we were seated and immediately started whining. “I just don’t understand why I didn’t get upgraded,” she said, in a whiny, high pitched tone, dragging out every syllable slowly and painfully. “I alwaysget upgraded, and it didn’t happen this time. I don’t get it. It just doesn’t make sense because look at all these empty seats up here in business!”

The flight attendant was apologetic, but using some level of rationale, asked her if she actually requested to get upgraded and if she was on the upgrade list.

The woman, so very polite and well mannered, rolled her eyes at the flight attendant and shot her a dirty look. “No,I didn’t. I never have to do that, and I’ve always been upgraded in the past!” She stormed off to her sad little economy seat in the middle of the plane. I was turning to watch her and the flight attendant and made eye contact with the guy sitting in the row behind me in business, shocked by what we just witnessed, who mouthed to me, “What the fuck is her problem?”

I got so much satisfaction watching that exchange.

I love spoiled entitled brats not getting what they want.

I took a walk with a colleague to Madison Square Park today, and we were talking about the desire to escape and have a mental reset. Chris and I are leaving for Mexico City and Oaxaca tomorrow through Monday for an extended long weekend, and I’d been looking forward to this for the last several weeks. “What are you trying to escape – New York, work, your bubble, or what?” he asked.

“Everything?” I responded, questioning. “All of the above?”

We’re so tied up and absorbed into our day to day lives – everyone is guilty of this no matter what your background, where you live, what you do for a living. It’s hard to step outside of that and think about the world around us and what’s bigger and greater than what we are and what we do. For me, the best mental reset is one in which I can get away from my day-to-day routine, away from what I consider “normality,” and experience a culture, language, lifestyle… life, that is so far removed from my own. That’s what travel is. Immerse yourself in the unknown, the new, the exciting, and completely fall into it and forget what we considered important or essential back at home. Think about how other people live, what passions and priorities others have in worlds away from you, what keeps them up at night, and what drives them. And then, after all of that, think about our differences… but then realize that we’re all doing such different things when at the end of the day, we really want the same things: a roof over our heads, warm food on the table; to be loved and appreciated and respected; to help and provide for others; to feel like we all have some sense of purpose in life.

When we were in South Africa last December, in Cape Town specifically, the water shortage made me think (and feel guilty) about my showers back home, where I’d luxuriate occasionally and not keep track of how long I was exfoliating or conditioning my hair. When outside of Kruger National Park, I got excited at the idea of being far away from any urban place and wondered what life would be like as the rangers and workers of the safari lodge, waking up every morning to the calm of buffalo drinking water in the nearby watering hole, or even a lion sleeping right outside my bedroom window. In Japan, I thought about the salarymen in their plain, uniform-like suits, waking up early, walking their everyday walk/train commute to work, having a long day in front of their computers, drinking late night in bars after a quick rice bowl or ramen, and hitting repeat for the next day and the next day. I also thought about the average Japanese man’s refusal to have sex (or want to get married… and thus the low marriage and birth rate in a country we consider so advanced), and wondered what that would be like if that were the case back in the U.S. The list goes on for every place I’ve visited.

Some people freak out and are alarmed when they are lost in translation, trying to communicate something to someone in another country that does not speak their native language. I actually thrive in that and get excited by it; it’s like a mini adventure to me: get this person to understand what I am saying, and try to figure out what he is telling me. I also tend to smile and laugh more because I find that it lightens the mood of the other person in the event any frustration arises from not being able to understand each other. Warm, open body language disarms them and gets them to trust you, and I suppose it helps a lot that I’m a woman… because how threatening could a petite Asian woman like me be? These situations also force you to be more creative in how you express yourself, whether that’s via facial expressions, gestures, sign language, acting out something. If what is often said by researchers is true that seventy percent of communication is non-verbal, then for all the basic human emotions, desires, and messages, we should be able to suffice without knowing every exact word that comes out of a person’s mouth.

The world is so big and so great – there’s no better way to remind yourself how insignificant you are in the universe than to travel to parts unknown to you and witness humanity outside of your own bubble. I’m not an ignorant ass, though; I’m aware that not everyone can afford to travel, whether it’s due to living paycheck to paycheck like so many people around the world do, or due to commitments with sick family, etc. But for those who can afford to do it, there’s nothing else that is quite like it. There’s so much humility and perspective to be had from it, especially if you choose to fully immerse yourself into your surroundings.

One of the nicest things about coming down to Miami for work is that I get to stay at a beach front property where I usually have a room that overlooks the beach. It also means that since I’m on the east coast, and Miami is on the east side of Florida, that I get to see the sun rise if I wake up early enough. I woke up just in time to see the sun rise this morning, and also had my morning workout, which ended with a long walk on the beach. I sat outside on the sand for a while and really just soaked the sun, the air, and the sounds in, and kind of reveled in how lucky I was. Yes, work can get really stressful, as it has been in the last few weeks. Yes, work travel can be extremely tiring and lonely. But the fact that I can have moments like this when I can travel for work is amazing, and I’m so grateful for it.  Seeing the sun rise fully, and knowing I have one more morning of it waiting for me tomorrow have made this trip really worth it. And today is also my one-year work anniversary, so I feel like this trip was even more special because of it.

It was in the 50s when I departed Boston today. I had my warm coat and scarf on, and as we touched down at LaGuardia this afternoon, I could already feel the heat. It was so strange — to leave New York when it was cold and drizzling and to come back when it’s over 70 degrees and sunny. I immediately felt like I had to peel all my layers off to feel comfortable.

That’s the awkward thing about transitional seasons like spring and autumn. It’s hard to know what to dress and how to dress, especially when traveling to different cities as unpredictable as those in the Northeast. But it was encouraging to see the beginning of cherry blossoms lining the Back Bay when I was heading to lunch with a partner today. I’m ready to be done with all my cold-climate clothing and wear lighter clothes again. I’m ready for some change.

When in transit yesterday, my manager sent me several Slack messages to ask where I was, and if I could join the mandatory meeting that was on my calendar. I had communicated I’d be on a plane at that time, but the meeting sounded really urgent. As soon as I landed, I called her on her mobile phone, and the big news she wanted to announce is that she’s leaving the organization. I wasn’t quite sure how to react, but I knew that this was not necessarily the best news given that she had barely been here for nine months.

In the tech world, every startup, even the late stage startups, feels like revolving doors. People are constantly coming and going. It’s hard to know who to trust and confide in because they may just peace out the next day. And when it’s your manager who leaves, it’s normal to question the stability of the team and what the future holds for your own position.

For the most part, my day-to-day doesn’t change. But I’m wondering what the overall impact will be to our team and the general feelings around the organization around her departure. No matter where you are, the rumor mill still continues to rotate.

I arrived in Boston today for my short work trip, and at check-in, they let me know that there would be a daily complimentary “wine hour” from 5-6pm each day, where the team would serve local wines of the region and some small bites during this time. The tradition began when the hotel first opened many decades ago, and the hotel owner wanted to make his guests feel welcome, as though he was hosting them in his own house, so he served wine and appetizers to all his guests to make them feel comfortable. Now, it’s expanded to all the locations and is considered “wine hour” across Boston. For those who are unacquainted, Boston is extremely puritanical, and the term “happy hour” is pretty much banned and illegal. So no bar or restaurant can advertise that they have a “happy hour,” and instead, some places who want to entertain the notion of a “happy hour” have to come up with pseudonyms like “wine hour” or “beer hour” to be legal and kosher.

Boston is a great place to visit. Because of stupid laws like that noted above, I’m so happy I don’t live in that area anymore.

Two days in a row, due to customer meetings and personal travel, I’ve had to wake up at 4am for early morning flights that depart at 6:30am. I originally planned to take a late morning flight back to New York from Orlando, but because I had to connect, it would have wasted too much time, and I’d have less time to do all the work that’s been piling up in my email inbox. So I opted for an early morning return to be more efficient.

The crappy part about changing flights within 24 hours is that the picking of seats is limited, plus the chance of getting upgraded to business or first class based on my level of status is probably not going to be great because other people would have already been confirmed for upgrades. And I found out exactly how important it was to have TSE pre-check in Orlando during spring break: the regular security line at the Orlando airport was so long that I couldn’t even see the beginning of it when I arrived at the airport; the TSE pre-check line had 2 people before me when I arrived. If I didn’t have TSE pre-check, there was no way I would have made my flight in time, even with an hour arrival before flight departure.