November 11-18: Riviera Maya, Mexico

So, I guess it's about time I wrote about Mexico huh? Alright, I'll try my best to remember what happened there. It's not really fresh in my mind anymore. I couldn't update earlier because, well I had other things to do than blog and tell the world about my trip to the Riviera Maya, Mexico.

Also, this is a VERY long post. Just warning you. :)

The beach on a cloudy day

From November 11-18, I went to the Riviera Maya for vacation, but more importantly, for my sister's wedding. Caralen and her new husband, Keith, decided to make her dream come true and have a destination wedding on a beach and they decided on Mexico as their destination.

My family left for the airport on November 11 at 3.30am for a 6.30am flight (I think). No problems at the gates or anything and the flight was alright. I had an aisle seat and the guy sitting in the middle was so freaking annoying. He kept on taking up all MY leg room. Why he didn't use his own is beyond me! And I couldn't sleep on the flight because ppl walking down the aisle would bump into me too. So I didn't really get a lot of shut eye on the flight as I anticipated. I was really in and out. They played Pirates of the Caribbean 2, I wasn't really into it.

Waiting for our flight at Pearson International

So we land in Cancun, Mexico. Man, the gush of the heat just HIT me hard, I was like..this is nice. LOL! It was goooood! So we went through customs and all that junk right, and off to the resort we go. It took about an hour and a bit to get there. Slept on the bus real good.

We arrive at the Grand Palladium resort in the Riviera Maya. The lobby just looks wonderful. Took one look at the map and I knew we were gonna get lost looking for our room. But that's ok, we explore. :) We got to the resort just a little after noon. Mexico time is actually an hour behind Eastern time.

Kantenah Lobby

The resort is beautiful and huge. There's four different sections of the resort, Kantenah, Colonial, White Sands, and Riviera. We stayed at the Kantenah.

On the first day, we all had lunch together at the buffet and then we headed out to the pools and the beach to explore a bit of our area. Then we all met up for dinner and then a meeting in the evening at a bar, Churchill Bar. The meeting was kinda like an info session and a meet n' greet of the people that have made the trip down.

People consisted of family and close friends, as well as friends that were able to make it down for the trip. So it was all really cool. :) It was fun.

Every night some of the guys would play poker at the sports bar. I never took part any night because I didn't feel like shelling out $5 every night. Instead I would watch the shows and play some pool, or go back to my room and watch some movies that were showing on the tube.

Everyday was pretty exhausting because there was so much to do there.

Some of the other things that we did in while there was playing pool volleyball, waterpolo, basketball, soccer, football, chillin' at the spa. Those were just some of the things I did. Other things kinda outside the resort as in the beach was just playing catch with the football in the ocean, with tropical fishes swimming around, it was pretty cool! Also, went kayaking, which was pretty fun, and feeding the fishes.

The biggest thing I think I did there was the trip outside of the resort on the Tuesday. Most of the wedding people went on this trip to Coba, Mexico. This is where one of the Mayan Ruins of Mexico was. So we went there, it was about an hour away from the resort, which isn't too bad. So we get there, and yeah it involved a lot of walking.

The first thing we saw was some sort of a ring/ball game the Mayan's played. The basic principle of the game was that you gotta hit this leather ball with your hips through this ring on a slanted wall.

The Mayan Game

Then we saw the second highest pyramid they have uncovered. There's still a lot of uncovering of the Mayan empire left to do. They have to be really careful when they're excavating 'cuz they're so fragile. Now, most of the empire is covered in jungle.

Anyway..we saw a couple more buildings, blahblahblah, haha..then we get to the main event of the hike. The tallest pyramid there. What was cool was that we were able to actually climb this pyramid. So I did that, and man, it was pretty steep. I literally had to climb up with my feet and my hands. Then coming down was pretty scary since it was so steep, but luckily there's a rope guide that we could hold on to on the way down. Thank goodness. I think I almost slipped on the rocks coming down, but thank goodness I was holding on to that rope!

The view from the base

The view from the middle

The view from the top

After visiting the ruins, we went to this cave. It's called a Cenote. They're actually a freshwater-filled limestone sinkhole. Kinda like a well. The Mayan people used these cenotes to get their water. So we went there and we were actually able to go swimming in the cenote. It's becoming a popular attraction, and it was pretty cool. It wasn't that dark down there 'cuz there were flood lights everywhere. In order to keep it clean and preserved we were to take showers before we went down to get all the suntan lotion and bug spray off our bodies. So we went down there for about half hour to go for a swim. It was nice because it was pretty hot that day, so it was a great way to cool off. There was a platform that we could jump off of if we dared. It didn't look very high, but once you get up there and actually jump off it, it's pretty damn high!! As soon as I jumped off the platform the first time, I was like..OH CRAP! Haha, it was so high. Believe or not, there was actually a higher platform that we could jump off of, but we had to sign a waiver form before we could do that. No one went off that one..it'd just be crazy! But yeah, the first time I jumped, I bruised my thigh. It stung like crazy when I hit the water. The second time I jumped, I tweaked my already hurt ankle, but I was ok after a while. Apparently, when I jumped, I was the one that made the most noise when I hit the water. HAHA..couple people from my party came up and told me that. HAHA..I thought that was kinda funny.

Going down to the cenote

People in the cenote

After the swim it's time for lunch. We had lunch at this restaurant that served us Mayan type food. It was..interesting, but I wouldn't eat it again if I had a choice. It had to do with chicken. I don't even know how to describe it.

We headed back into Coba after lunch to visit a Mayan village. We visited two different families and we were able to take a look around their homes and meet the family. Their way of life is definately changing seeing that they're starting to use electricity and such. But their way of life is still pretty simple and basic. They don't really need much, and they're very content with what they have.

So that was the adventure outside of the resort to Coba, Mexico. As for other things on the trip, there were a la carte dinners. We were allowed to book three for the trip. We ate at the Brazilian, a Steakhouse, and the Mediterranean, if I remember correctly. There was a fourth for the wedding, and that one was Italian-themed.

The Brazilian was the first one up. All I can say about this one is..*drool*. Ok I didn't say anything, but instead, I drooled. It was awesome to say the least. THE LEAST! How can you go wrong with 10 different types of meats coming out continuously. It's all-you-can-eat too. The thing with this is that you're giving this card with red and green on either side. If you keep the card on the green side, it means, "Keep the meat coming!" If you turn to the red side, it means, "I'm full, STOP!" Meat consisted of: beef, chicken, sausage, turkey, pork..there's a couple more that I can't even think of right now, but the most weirdest thing I ate was rabbit. Didn't like it at all. It was just weird. But man, other than that, it was fantastic.

Up next was the Steakhouse. Everyone actually ate at this restaurant at the request of the bride and the groom. We all thought that we were gonna get this one big section to ourselves, but it turned out that they split us all up because they had to distribute the parties for the servers. I guess it makes sense for tips and all that. But anyway, steakhouse was pretty good, I had the filet mignon, but I don't think they had the bacon. Oh well, whatever. Lol, it was still good! :D

The Mediterranean was a huge disappointment for us and for me. For us because we missed out on the nice special they had, which our server didn't tell us about. Actually our server was terrible from the start. We asked for the specials and tells us there isn't one, and then some of us ordered the same kind of soup, but she comes back and tells us that they're out of it. So we're kinda like ok right. But later in the evening, we find out from another table from our party that they actually DO have a special (a platter of shrimp), and that they DID have the soup some of us ordered. So that really pissed us off. So we didn't give that restaurant good reviews ('cuz after every meal we fill out a evaluation survey). For myself, I only had a main dish, and the main dish I ordered, it turns out that I didn't even like it. But I was lucky enough to be able to switch with my sister for it. I didn't enjoy this restaurant.

Now, this is the moment you guys have been waiting for. Well, I think moreso for the ladies that read my blog.

November 15, 2006: The Wedding Day.

The groom, Keith, stayed over in my room for the night. He and my sister switched since you all know tradition. The groom is not to see the bride on the wedding day.

The 15th started off early as Keith had requested all the groomsmen's presence for breakfast at the White Sands buffet at about 9.30am.

After the buffet, we all had a canoe race. There was 8 of us, Keith, Ricky, Steve, Bernard, Darrin, Sheldon, Jay, and myself. Sheldon is actually not a groomsman, but he's Keith's cousin. So, we all took off our shades to make the teams by random draw. I ended up pairing up with Darrin. It's harder to canoe with me 'cuz I can't hear a thing when I'm in the water, so suffice to say, we finished last. Lol..we fell into the water too. Yup, we capsized. Hahaha, but that's ok, we weren't the only ones to capsize, Keith and Jay flipped over too, they were actually the first.

When we finished canoeing, we went to the pool to just chill out and get all the saltwater out of our trunks and whatnot, so we played a game. It turned into a punching game if you messed up. So we played the name game, so choose a category and name ppl in it. If you didn't come up with a name on time, you get beats and every time someone else comes up with a name, you get extra beats. LOL..

By the time we got tired of this game, it was lunch time. Keith and I skipped lunch and went back to our rooms. Keith skipped 'cuz he didn't want to risk running into Caralen. I skipped 'cuz I was still full from breakfast. So we just hung out in our room. Took turns taking showers from the day, and just relaxed, slowly getting ready for the big event.

The wedding was slated for 3pm. At around 2.30pm, we got all the groomsmen to meet in my room for photos and for the videographer who took some videos of us just hanging out and stuff before the wedding.

The Groomsmen standing in their order

We headed to the altar at around 2.45pm, and it looked nice. Beautiful. The sun was out, not a rain cloud in the sky, it wasn't windy, it was perfect.

We waited for the bride and the bridesmaids to come, and they finally arrived at about quarter after 3. The ceremony has begun! I couldn't stop smiling the whole time. I was so happy for my sister and Keith. The ceremony itself was short and sweet. It was hot.

The Altar & Ceremony

After the ceremony was done, we did our photoshoots. Some of them were the gayest things I've ever had to do for a photo. For example, looking out into the ocean, running on the beach, walking away...but I guess the photos did turn out ok right? Lol..

The Wedding Party

Looking out into the ocean (Part 1)

Looking out into the ocean (Part 2)

Bride, Groom, Bridesmaids, & Groomsmen

After, the reception was for 6.30pm at the Italian restaurant at the White Sands. We ate outdoors on a patio. We took up the whole patio. Throughout the reception various people went up to the front and gave their speeches. My brother and I went up at the same time and gave our speeches near the end.

The first dance was held back at Kantenah's buffet area, Caralen and Keith danced to Alicia Keys' If I Ain't Got You.

The first dance

And that was the evening, and that was the wedding!

The new family, Laws and Chius

To sum up, the trip to Mexico was a blast. It was so much fun, and I think it would've been a lot more fun if I didn't hurt my ankle playing basketball on the second day, but I didn't let that deny my fun. I sucked it up and continued on with my vacation, and played more sports later in the week. The trip was fantastic and I really wouldn't mind going back sometime in my life. The wedding was beautiful. I couldn't have asked God for a more perfect day for my sister. Actually, I wish my sister felt a little bit better on that day since she was feeling a little sick. But other than that, it was fantastic.

The Party