Let Me Introduce You to My Chapala

As you can tell from my lack of posts, sometimes its hard to over come writer's block, or maybe it could be procrastination. Whatever it is, I'm hoping its over.

I was chatting with some new friends a few weeks back who just moved to this area with their family. For those who are not familiar with the Lake Chapala area, it is a popular place for retirees. Not so popular for expats with young children. Anyways, they had a lot of questions for me since I'm the "old timer", hahaha! So that got me thinking about all the information I had gathered living here for the last 10 years.

So, let me introduce you to "My Chapala". This is going to be a series of posts highlighting parts of Chapala that would be helpful for families with young children. I will take you to all my favourite places to shop, our doctor, our dentist, our mechanic and whatever else I can think of that would be useful information (or just fun to read about).

Let me start off with our family doctor, Dr. Oscar Ibarra. His title at his clinic is pediatrician, however, I see him more as a family physician. He was the one who I saw when I had my appendix episode. Anyways, he is a very personable doctor and his clinic is open 24hr/7 days a week. I have had to drop in for my son's ear infection late at night and there was a doctor on duty (although the on duty doctor may not speak any english). I have also dropped in on a Sunday afternoon and the nurse called Dr. Oscar in from his home. He was there within 15 minutes! All this service and I was not charged extra, just his regular consulting fee.


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The clinic is located at MIGUEL MARTÍNEZ 530 TEL 765-4001. This is the street where the Chapala Bus station is located. It is 2 1/2 blocks east of the main street.

Yikes! Its been Five Months

My poor, poor blog. I've neglected you so. With the blink of an eye (okay maybe many, many blinks) five months has passed since I last shared my life with you. Needless to say, 2011 has been a busy year for this family.

Brief update, my boys have finished school last week. Son #1 will be starting 3rd grade next year and Son #2 will begin his final year in Kindergarden. This is a good lead in to a common question I get asked by readers who contact me. How do I feel about the education that my boys are getting here?

My two boys go to private school here. Son #1 goes to Instituto Loyola de Chapala. It is a bilingual school. They study everything required by the Secretary of Education plus English, Math and Science in English. Am I 100% happy with this school, no but I don't think I would be 100% happy with any school. Is my son happy? Extremely so. He LOVES his school, his teachers and his friends. This year they started a choir group. He was selected to be in choir. He was ecstatic.


Here he is with his choir teacher after their performance for the graduation ceremonies.

Son #2 goes to Centro Escolar Decroly. This is a kindergarden and daycare school only. It is also bilingual. Although it is more work having my two boys at different schools, I believe it was the right choice for my son. Son #2 was a shy child and he needed a smaller school with fewer students to help him come out of his shell. And I am so happy to see my son grow in the last two years at this school.


He was chosen from his class to be the flag bearer at the graduation ceremony! He has certainly come a long ways out of his shell.



So, to answer the question of how satisfied am I with the education my boys are getting. My son's smiling face says it all.

I Was Glowing

Last week, I went with my friends to the Mercado del Abastos in Guadalajara. The Abastos is a large(and I mean LARGE) wholesale and retail market. It spans for many, many blocks and is where you can find and buy all kinds of fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, seafood, imported goods, dry goods, baking supplies, well you get the idea. Its like Costo but with way more stuff and way bigger.

Well, the last few times I went, I was pretty happy because there is one vegetable stand that carries chinese vegetables like choi sum, gai lan, mustard green, shanghai bak choi, and the usual daikon and napa cabbage. Its hit or miss on what I find each time I go, but its a nice surprise everytime I go.

This last week, according to my friends, I was "positively glowing" because there was a new shop that carried all kinds of Chinese dry goods! And, for most items, I don't have to take out a mortgage to afford to buy them. They had chinese dried shrimp, mushrooms, pickled vegetables, chinese sausage, chinese bacon, jasmin rice, glutinous rice, rice flour, sweet rice flour and the list goes on. I was like a kid in the candy store with too many choices. Good thing I had extra cash!

Just in time for Chinese New Year. Right now, I have some pork belly marinading in the fridge. Tomorrow, we're having roast pork with the crispy crackling skin with hoisin sauce. Yum, yum!

Happy New Year and Kung Hei Fat Choy!!!

Who needs Holloween when We have Posadas

The 16th of December is the start of Posadas in all the villages and cities throughout Mexico. In each neighbourhood the residents get together to reenact the night Mary and Joseph wondered through Bethlehem looking for a place to spend the night. Often, a Mary and Joseph is chosen from the children living within each neighbourhood. They will go from house to house asking if they have room for them to spend the night. Each house will respond with "No, no there is no room here", until they reach the designated house where the owner will welcome Mary and Joseph. Food, usually tamales and atole, are served to all the neighbours and visitors. Goody bags and piñatas are there for the children. Everyone has a great time. This is then repeated in another house on another street on anther night usually up until Christmas Eve.

On top of that, there are posadas at school and usually employers will throw a posada for the employees and their families. As you can imagine, by time Christmas comes around the kids are pretty wired from all the candies. In just a couple of days, our candy jar is filled to the rim and I'm discreetly giving them away.

Feliz Navidad!

Hankering for a Hamburger

Great hamburgers are hard to come by here in this part of Mexico, so we're always on the lookout for new places to try. Well, we finally stopped at this burger shack - TajOH Burgers. It really is a shack! Kind of reminds me of the burger place on hwy 400 heading up to cottage country in Ontario. Only this one is on the side of a major road just before you turn to go to the new Costco in Guadalajara.

Ambiance is what I would call rustic. Plastic lawn chairs and old wooden wire spools for tables setup under large shade trees. But we're not here for ambiance, we're here for burgers!!!

Once you step out of the car, you're greeted with the wonderful aroma of burgers on the grill. Their burger offerings are skirt steak, sirloin, chicken breast, ostrich, vegetarian, shrimp and a double burger. Cheese, bacon and pineapple are extra. Then there is ....



"Hot Drugs" plain or with bacon! I didn't dare order any in case it was a setup. I don't want to end up in a Mexican jail. So we settled for 2 skirt steak, 1 sirloin, an order of potato wedges and an auga fresca. Burgers were made to order and we were given our fries and drinks first while we waited. The fries were nothing to write home about. Actually, I'd advise against ordering them.

After what seemed like forever, our number was called to pick up our burgers. They had a condiments bar with caramelized onions, mushrooms, lettuce, pickled jalapeño peppers, raw onions, tomatoes sliced or diced, ketchup, mustard, mayo, olives and I don't really remember what else that you can load onto your burger.

Did we enjoy them?






Oh Yeah!