And we're off!

It's been a nice relaxing time for us here at the house in Mexico over the last four weeks. We met some new friends, kept up with our daily exercise program, and got all of our internet projects complete.

And today, we will take the bus into the big tamale (Mexico City) and fly to Toronto overnight tonight.

Our upcoming flight to Toronto

I never told you this story. 

Our flight to Toronto tomorrow is with Aeromexico. But (against my better judgement), I had originally booked with Air Canada. I won't make that mistake again.

No wonder retirees move to cheaper countries

I follow a few facebook and youtube groups of expats and retirees who use their government retirement benefits to make a better life for themselves in a less expensive country, and some have posted their income from those sources. 

I noticed that the Americans seem to get a lot more income than Canadians, so I did some digging.

Our upcoming Canada trip

Our five hour AeroMexico flight departs at 11:15pm on Wednesday the 19th and we arrive in Toronto at 6:20am the morning of the 20th.

Then we take a local GO bus from the airport to the Ontario Northlands terminal for our 9:30am departure to Gravenhurst, Ontario where our son will pick us up. That's a two and a half hour bus ride.

Was it worth it?

When we return to Mexico on October 5th, we will have had our house here for one full year. So now we can do the math as to whether or not it was worth it to us from a financial perspective... and from an enjoyment of life perspective.

We're headed back to Canada on Wednesday for six weeks, so we now know how many nights of that one year we will have spent in the Mexico house.

Just an update

Not much happening around here. We continue to do our morning 5 km (3 mile) powerwalk, and our daily exercise routine.

And we've been watching a lot of Blue Jays baseball... they've not had a good season, especially compared to last year but they've won 10 of their last 15 games, so maybe things are turning around in time to manage a playoff spot by the end of September. 

Could we live there?

One of the ways we rate a country and our experience there is by asking the question "could we live there?"

So, we've just been to three new countries... China, Hong Kong, and Japan, and here is the answer to that question regarding these countries...

Have never been to a Mushroom Festival before

Our friends Fernando and Jessie invited us to go with them to a mushroom festival in the indigenous villages of San Simon and San Antonio, in the mountains about 20 kms north of here.

And they also invited some new friends, Chris and Michelle, an American couple who live here in Valle de Bravo.

A little update on our South America camper

So we got the ATV back from the mechanic, and took it for a drive into town yesterday morning. It fired up right away, but didn't seem to idle properly, and even died while we were getting on it ready to go. It had never done that before.

We rode it into town and back without a problem, but it's not running right. A little disappointed, but already spoke to the mechanic and will be bringing it back to him on Monday.

Got the ATV back from the mechanic

Well, we haven't been able to solve the problem we're having with accessing this blog. If you're reading this, you're one of the lucky ones!

Anyhow, this is our daily diary, so even if it's just for ourselves, we want to keep it going.

Photos around our neighborhood

I've mentioned that we do a 5 km (3 mile) circular power walk every day while we're here at the house. It's actually uphill from the lakeshore to the town of El Arco, so it gets the heart pumping a little bit more than if we were totally on flat ground.

Most of the regular vendors recognize us and say good morning as we pass.

The older you get, the more important it is...

Over the coming months, we will both turn 65 years old. Ruth in November, and me in February... and we will then be official senior citizens! We'll be able to retire and travel the world...LOL! 

Regular readers here know that we try and stay physically active. And while traveling, we find that it's fairly easy to get in a sufficient amount of cardio exercise... but the muscular exercise has been lacking.

We hopped on the ATV and drove to the other side of the lake

Instead of our daily 5 km (3 mile) power walk, we decided to drive over to to the community of Avandaro and go for a hike to the Velo de Novia waterfall.

We've been there before, but not for many years, and never during rainy season.

July Expenses

Well, we knew July was going to be an expensive month, and that's exactly what it was.

We started the month in China, and ended it in Mexico... with stops in Hong Kong, Japan, and Canada in between. So we were in a total of five countries in July! No wonder it was expensive.

Enjoying this time of year in Mexico

First of all, yes, we know that there has been some kind of glitch accessing this blog. But if you're reading this then you've obviously got through it. 

This happened once before, a few months ago, and it resolved itself on its own after a couple of days. Hopefully this time will be the same.

I'm pretty sure we've made our decision...

The other day, our blog post went over some of the different types of vehicles that we were looking at as possibilities for our South American motorhome or campervan.

Well it didn't take much research to narrow the list of possibilities.

How much did it cost for three weeks in China?

We recently spent three weeks in four different regions of China. We arrived in Chengdu, then took the train to Xi'an, then flew to Zhangjiajie, then took the train to Guilin.

I won't include the cost of getting to and from China. That's useless information, because it depends on where you're coming from and going to! And this doesn't include our three days in Hong Kong.

Sunday market day

They were calling for a thunderstorm after lunch, so we got out early and did our five km (3 mile) power walk around our nearby town of El Arco.

It's not a nature walk, but I commented to Ruth yesterday that it's much more interesting than the same distance walk we used to do every day when we were house sitting near Ottawa the last few years.

It's definitely going to be fun designing and having an RV built exactly the way we want it!

Our original plan was to take Igor to South America, provided we were happy with him so far. But we've decided that Igor isn't the right vehicle. He'll do fine for us this coming winter in Central America, but South America presents a new set of problems.

The first problem is shipping him from Panama to either Venezuela or Colombia. 

Two projects on the go...

So, we're going to be here at home in Valle de Bravo for almost four weeks, and I've got two large internet research projects on the go. I actually started them while we were enduring the heat in Japan and we were stuck indoors most of the time.

At our location here in Mexico, there is no heat to endure. However it is rainy season, and we do average a couple of hours of rain every day. 

Happy to be home!

Having not had a "home" to come back to for almost twenty years, it's a bit of an odd feeling. The anticipation of going on a trip has always been there during that time, but we've never really had that feeling of "oh, I can't wait to get home" for a really long time.

But that feeling was strong over the past week, and now here we are!

Not sure when you'll hear from us again

We've got a travel marathon coming up over the next 48 hours or so. 

We have a three hour train ride to Narita Airport tomorrow morning, then at 3:45pm in the afternoon we have an almost nine hour flight to Vancouver... where we will arrive at 8:45am... the same day!

How do we search for accommodation and trains etc?

The other day, someone asked how we search for things like accommodation, trains, airfare etc. I think they were asking regarding our China trip, but this applies to any country really.

In doing the research for China specifically, I kept coming up with references to www.trip.com. And I knew of trip.com, but hadn't used it before. 

Always something to look forward to

We're using this time in Kofu to just relax and take it easy, although we have managed to get out a little bit just for the sake of getting out. Despite the high temperatures. Actually, yesterday was only a high of 31C (88F), so much more bearable.

It's actually funny how 31C feels not bad when you've been dealing with 36 or 37C!

China... the good, the bad... and the ugly!

I wanted to get this written while the trip was relatively fresh in my mind.

We spent three weeks in China... our first ever visit. But I can tell you right off the top that it likely won't be our last.

Grocery shopping in Japan

Thursday was another baking hot day. We eventually made it outside into the 36C (97F) heat to walk to a different grocery store than the one we had been at the day we arrived in Kofu.

This one didn't have great reviews, and yet we found it to be well stocked, if not a little pricier than the one the day before.

The morning in Tokyo, then train to Kofu

One of the things we're getting tired of is restaurant meals. More specifically, finding ones that suit our tastes and our budget while keeping Ruth's gluten free status in mind.

It's truly a job, especially in some of these Asian countries. So for breakfast yesterday, we kept our expectations low and did the hotel buffet.