Archive for April, 2009
April 18th, 2009 by TsuKata
The last touch on the Pooh room is complete:
The series of pictures toward the back is a relatively hard-to-find set of prints released by Disney back in 2001. I wanted them for my apartment when they were released, but I couldn’t afford them at the time. I found them on eBay, though, and I even got them far cheaper than the going rate because the seller quite possibly didn’t realize the value of a complete and undamaged set to collectors. Anyways, the set is called The Four Seasons of Pooh and shows the Pooh characters doing an activity for winter, spring, fall, and summer. I arranged them in a pinwheel both to evoke the cyclical nature of the seasons and, more practically, because it doesn’t require any special coordination on my part to make sure that they’re all straight with each other. 
On the door, I have a hand-painted Pooh Room sign, also obtained on eBay and customized to my chosen text and coloring. The artist did an excellent job of color-matching to the color of the room. I am incredibly impressed. Click this link to see more items from this artist. I promise, you won’t be disappointed in her product or her customer service.
The other Pooh accent in the room is a set of baskets that are lined with Classic Pooh fabric. I got those from Target. I’m using one to hold the spare toilet paper (on the far side of the toilet). One is being used as a magazine rack. The third is on the sink as a catch-all place for things that I use frequently.
Yay! I’m so proud of this room.
April 14th, 2009 by TsuKata
I just wanted to generally give a heads’ up that we may go into a period of silence (or very rare posting) on the blog over the next few months. Twitter will probably get updated more often, just because I can update it from more places…and the micro-blogging lends itself to quick moments of news. Also, for anyone who also follows me under my RL name on Facebook, I am barely on there anymore. You’re better off here. There’s too many people on Facebook that I can’t share things with…namely folks from work.
Anyways, I’m working on a work project with huge visibility (I presented directly to our CEO today), and it is a ton of work. I’m also back to doing more sporadic daytrip-style travel. The project I’m on is cool, and I enjoy working on it, but it keeps me busy. I’m working beyond 50 hour weeks these days.
On top of that, the class that I’m in for school this term is very demanding. We have a large amount of reading every week, plus a paper and presentation due every week. Point being, I’m going to be swamped for the next 10 weeks (school term) at least. It’s very likely that I’ll be swamped until fall with work, too. So, if you are not seeing frequent updates here, I’m just bogged down. Check Twitter for the latest in mini-posting, and I’ll post longer things here as I’m able.
In other news, I got an A in my last class. The perfect 4.0 GPA continues! And, our sign arrived for the Pooh room…click for the picture!
April 5th, 2009 by TsuKata
Author’s note: Well, this post is coming late, but late is better than never. Although I am writing this post on 4/14, I will backdate it to the appropriate date, so don’t be alarmed.
We have been trying for days to have fun dancing. Unfortunately, this resort is not good on nightlife. They do an evening show, which is entertaining, but it’s usually over by 9:30pm. There’s a dance club that they open after that. Every night, they play the same videos until the DJ arrives around 10:30pm. They start with Kid Rock’s Sweet Home Alabama. Then, they play two videos from Katy Perry, followed by Britney Spears’ Circus. A rap song follows. Then, they play Romeo & Juliet. If the DJ hasn’t arrived by then, they loop back to the beginning again. When the DJ arrives, the music turns into 70s and 80s dance music with bass that is way too loud for the tiny room. I guess I wouldn’t mind the bass if it were good music, but we’re talking about really cheesy dance music…stuff from bad weddings. It appeals to their core audience, I’m sure, but younger folks are left in the lurch, I think.
As April 4th was our last day, we decided to do the golf cart tour. This is a free tour offered by the hotel, where they take you around in a golf cart all over the grounds of the resort and nearby golf course. Some other people from Potawatomi had done it and said it was really cool. But, the tour could only hold 10 people each day, and it filled up really fast. I’d called for us to do it on Thursday, but they told me it was full. I asked for Saturday, and they said they put me on a reservation for Saturday. But, I needed to sign a form, and so they told me to show up early to sign the form. When I showed up 20 minutes early on Saturday, they said I should have come when I made the reservation. They’d put me on a wait list instead. Well, I raised a bit of a fuss, because it was our last day to do it, and they very quickly offered to do a second tour for us and the other folks on the waiting list, later in the day. It all worked out in the end.
The golf cart tour was totally worth it, too. We saw a really pretty and serene lagoon. If you’re looking to get married at Playa Mujeres, I recommend the lagoon. They have a nice gazebo, and it’s really lovely. Our guide told us that they used to allow kayaking in the lagoon, but they stopped it because of crocodiles being spotted. We saw two crocodiles on the way back, so we believe them! The tour also goes by a little mini-zoo on the property. The rich family that originally owned the land collected exotic animals. What is left of their collection, several parrots and a giant python, were part of the sale. Excellence resorts is required to take care of the animals until their natural death, so they include them as part of this tour. That family also had a helipad and a giant entrance fountain. Both items are now more like urban ruins. Finally, the tour took us by the construction of the next resort, which will be family-oriented (vs. Excellence Playa Mujeres, which is adults only) and which will have a private boat dock area and customs clearance. I guess it’s somewhat popular for people to sail down from Florida.
When we got back to the resort, we swam and showered for our final swim of the trip. Then, we changed into our last nice outfits for dinner before heading to the lobby bar to meet up with friends. I found a great drink at the bar, called an Alexander & Alexandra. It was a combination of an Alexandra and a Brandy Alexander, frozen in a hurricane glass. It was dee-lish! We both ended up getting toasted at the lobby bar before heading over to dinner at the Lobster House.
For our last day, we had to give our luggage to the hotel staff at 9am, so it could be prepared and loaded on our group’s bus at 10:30am. We ended up waiting for a full hour for the airport bus, but it’s not like we could have done much else but wait anyways, since everything was packed. When we got to the airport, it was pretty much what you would expect. I bought a few souvenirs for folks at work from the duty-free (because I’d forgotten to get something from them at the market). Then, I bought two sodas for us for the plane.
But…warning to anyone traveling by air from Mexico…in Mexico, you can’t take liquids through security (normal) *and* you can’t take them on the plane. They search you in both places. So, DH and I ended up downing 2 litres of soda right before boarding.
Upon arrival in Milwaukee, we went through customs. The Cuban cigars we bought for a friend got confiscated (it was worth a try), but everything else was fine, including the 4 bottles of liquor from the hotel. Then, we went to the casino for a quick dinner before heading home.
It was a really good trip. We loved the Excellence Playa Mujeres. We may well be spoiled now and unable to enjoy anything less.
Here are the pictures from the trip. This includes everything.
April 3rd, 2009 by TsuKata
Our trip is almost done, and we are so sad!
We decided to blow off Chichen Itza. It’s a 3.5 hour bus ride each way (7 hour round trip), plus it costs a fair amount of money ($65-110 per person) to go. If we were just laying around a normal hotel, it’d be one thing, but we’re living in the lap of luxury here.
On April 1st, we went on a shopping trip that the Potawatomi group coordinated. We went to Plaza 28, which is a big tourist-oriented shopping plaza, with Mexican trinkets and crafts. It’s a place where you haggle, and I have to say that I’m not fond of the haggling. It makes the whole experience very high pressure, because you can’t easily just go and comparison shop. There’s no knowing the price until you start talking it over, and then it’s hard to leave. They’ll chase you down! Also, just for the record, if you are a person who does not get a souvenir, it’s mainly because I didn’t see anything that I thought you would like, and I didn’t want to just bring you some random piece of Mexican crap. We did get what would be good deals in US money…like a t-shirt for our adorable nephew for $2. Still, I don’t like the haggling. Just tell me a price and let’s be done with it. As DH put it, “Shopping is hard. Let’s do math!”
Later that afternoon, I did a spa treatment for my sunburn. It was a hydrating and cooling wrap, with an ice massage and a scalp and face massage. Before the treatment, they have you do this marine therapy circuit. You start in a jacuzzi-like area with jets positioned just at your lower back and calves. Then, you go to this big metal roller bed and lay on it, half in the water, and the bed starts spitting out bubbles so it feels like you’re floating in bubbles. After that, you go through a series of bubbles and waterfalls that massage your legs, back, shoulders, and neck. Last, you go through an ice plunge followed by a warm plunge before settling onto a warming bed to relax. The treatment was nice, but the water circuit was really fun.
On the 2nd, we started our anniversary with breakfast in bed. I had a continental breakfast with sweet rolls, fresh fruit, and English Breakfast tea. DH had scrambled eggs with cheese, ham, bacon, and sausage. Then, we did the usual lolling about and swimming.
We’ve been really enjoying the activities, and we did a few of them that day. I took a towel origami class. It was very windy, which made towel origami challenging. I can’t wait to leave little towel animals at people’s houses when I visit!
We both went to the beach for the first time since we’ve been here. (Well, DH had been for volleyball, but he hadn’t gone in the water.) The sand is very soft, and the water is quite warm, like a bathtub. Even yesterday, when it was cloudy and cool all day, the water was warm. We didn’t stay at the beach long. I like pools better.
Then, DH went to play volleyball while I read and played games on his iPhone. We’ve both gotten addicted to a game called Flight Control. You guide the little planes onto the runway by dragging a route for them, and you try to avoid collisions. The retro aesthetic of the game is very nice. It reminds me of TipTop. I’ve met at least three other Kindle users while I’ve been here. I’m in Kindle country! (You can go to my reading lists on this page to see what I’ve read recently or am reading now.)
Everyone is very friendly. You can’t help but meet people. We met a lesbian couple from Cincinnati, another lesbian couple from Boston, a het couple from Boston, a bunch of people here for a wedding, a couple from Romania, and two friends from Canada…plus the folks we’ve met from Potawatomi. We’ve made two good friends from Potawatomi, a pair of sisters. Oh! And we met the Romanian couple at the Japanese restaurant, where we had Hibachi. You know what is strange? Eating Japanese food, prepared and served by Spanish-speaking Mexicans, while conversing with a Romanian couple, half of whom speaks perfect Spanish and English and the other half of whom speaks only Romanian and broken English. DH discussed football with everyone, because football (soccer) is the universal language.
For our anniversary dinner, we went to the French restaurant. It was very good. Because it was our anniversary, they set us a table with rose petals on it, which was nice. Before that, we played chess with a giant chess set. It was less like chess and more like, “Hey, I didn’t realize you could take my piece from there!” We do not have mad chess skillz.
Today, we have been lazy. We did water aerobics in the pool with a bunch of people. I probably spent more time in the pool today than I have any other day this trip. DH played water polo. Other than that, we just read and relaxed. We’re going to the Tapas restaurant tonight.
Click here for all pictures from this trip.
April 2nd, 2009 by TsuKata
…I married the perfect guy. I adored him then, and I adore him still. Happy anniversary, my dear husband.
(We’re having breakfast in bed today!)
