2 weeks in Japan

Highlights from 2 weeks in Japan with Julia.

We started the trip with a 24 hour layover in Beijing, where we explored the city, jet legged and in a daze we roamed the streets at 4am, until we found a dumpling shop, crushed the best dumplings i’ve ever had, walked around in the morning, grabbed coffee and headed back to the airport to continue our trip to Japan. We started off in Tokyo, and with a rail pass, made our way to Osaka, Kyoto, Nagasaki, and rented a car to the south for Yakushima Island, my only regret was not staying longer.

Travel : The other side of Cancun

CANCUN

Mexico is one of the most popular vacation places for people like me who are looking to escape the shitty winters we have up North. People come here looking for an all-inclusive experience, pampered with all-you-can-eat-or-drink, 5 star resorts on white sandy beaches where you pay in US dollars and are surrounded by the company of mostly white people speaking English. Or at least that was how my first vacation to Mexico was, when I was 17 in Playa Del Carmen.
I’m not saying that I didn’t have a good time, it was a family vacation and there were some really fun things about it as a 17 year old, and we ventured off the resort multiple times for various activities. However over the years of my early 20’s, I began to be more interested in travelling in a different kind of way…

Let’s start off with Cancun… Where it all started.

I can’t blame the Mexican government for seeing potential here. This area was inhabited by the Mayans before the Spanish invasion. Before Cancun became a tourist town and before the Spanish occupation, the Yucatan Peninsula was inhabited and dominated by Mayan civilizations until most of the local sites were abandoned by the 15th century. For centuries, this region was mostly wetlands, mangroves, jungles, and virgin beaches. The Maya originally called the area “Kan Kun” meaning den of snakes, golden serpent, and abundant low-lying areas, which later evolved into “Can Cun” by the Spanish.

The area has been divided into 2 sections, a peninsula of white sand and blue water called the Hotel Zone and Cancun Centro, or downtown Cancun. Most tourists arrive by shuttle, bus or taxi right to their hotel in the Hotel Zone, skipping over the city of Cancun completely, I opted to stay just a few blocks from the main bus depot in downtown Cancun. I booked a flight from Vancouver only a few days before leaving, a cheap flight deal of $330 Canadian Dollars round-trip. It wasn’t hard to find an AirBnB or hostel in the area, so I quickly booked a AirBnB in a beautiful boutique hotel that had only been open a week, it was a private house that had been designed to host guests, a mini hostel if you will with modern features, architectural design and close to many amenities nearby in Cancun.

Arriving into Cancun, you have only a few options to get into the city. By taxi, by bus or car rental. The taxi’s have a monopoly, tend to rip you off if you don’t speak Spanish and have actually pushed UBER right out of the area. The ADO bus is the best option, costing only around $12, it is safe and affordable and will drop you off right downtown.

I was lucky to know someone who lived in Cancun, she is a Mexican illustrator and had invited me to a mural show that was taking place while I was there. It sadly got cancelled due to a tropical rain storm, however we were able to connect and she showed me around to a few spots. Her name is Minerva and she had moved from Mexico City to Cancun to be more involved in a smaller community. Her art is amazing!

After checking into the Air Bnb, we went out to a new restaurant in one of Cancun’s oldest buildings. Kotaro is a Japanese inspired restaurant with some Mexican influence. They serve a variety of ramens, udon, appetizers and cocktails in a small space. The dishes are really tasty and are reasonably priced in North American standards from around 90-160 pesos per dish. The restaurant was designed by a Cancun based design company called Estudio Wikka, whose offices are located just steps from the restaurant in a cool alley next to a barber shop. Behind the restaurant is a Speakeasy cocktail bar, again small but tasteful, a great place for a nice cocktail after your meal. We actually hid there to let a downpour of rain pass by…

I was solo on this trip, so after hanging out with Minerva, I decided to walk around at night with my 35mm point and shoot camera and check out some of the nightlife. I left my place, and not far around the corner there was a private party, it was in a house, but the outside of the house had big tents, a dj and a light show… a taco stand was setup outside on the street and the guests were coming in and out, so naturally I decided to wander in and see if I could join. I was quickly stopped by a woman who looked me up and down and said “This is a private party and you need to leave” in broken english. I left, but we’ll come back to this in a bit. I continued wandering the streets until I found a Taqueria called “El Socio.” It was a local spot with no tourists in sight, I hopped on a chair at the bar and ordered a beer and a taco. The beer was called Victoria, a cheap lager, but better than corona or tecaté and the tacos weren’t very traditional, but had some good flavours. I had a hard time getting to meet any locals there, so I chatted up the bartender. His name was Juan and he enjoyed practicing english while I tried to speak Spanish. We both had a hard time, but he offered me a really nice shot of Mezcal. 400 Conejos, a very smoky but smooth drink which I loved.

I left and continued up the road past a few local joints until I was back near Kotaro to check out the nightclub upstairs called Amarula. This place was great… I don’t normally go out to clubs anymore, but seeing as I had just consumed a large shot of Mezcal and it was my first night in Mexico, It didn’t take much convincing in my brain to stumble in to this spot. It was 50 pesos cover to get in, and the place was busy, but not packed. The music was great, nice deep house music, disco house with a few young mexican deejays behind the booth having a good time. I didn’t see people staring at their phones, just people enjoying some laughs at tables and a dance floor full of energetic dancing. I ordered a Negroni in broken Spanish and began to dance and meet locals… It was fun to let loose with strangers, which struck my idea of returning to the private party.

By this time it was around 2:00AM, I stumbled back to the party… This time it was bumping, it seemed like more people were there then when I first walked by at 10, I walked back up the stairs and the same woman greeted me, this time I had 2 beers in my hand and I said, ”Can I come now??” She looked at me, laughed, and said “of course!” which led to one of the best nights I had in Mexico. I was the hit of the party, laughing it up, telling stories, drinking shots of tequilla with the host who is an event planner which explained the elaborate setup. I had my face painted ate birthday cake and danced till 4 in the morning with my new friends before returning home.

The following day, I woke up late to find that the sun was out. I knew I needed to take advantage of this, so I grabbed my cameras, and headed out on a walk through the neighbourhoods, snapping some street photos of murals and things that caught my eye. There were a lot of cool art pieces to be seen, down alleys and on the sides of buildings, something that surprised me about Cancun. I enjoyed some tacos at a food cart on the side of the road… location unknown before looking up and realizing that it was about to rain. I started to walk back, but within a minute or so, it was a flash flood of rain, I was soaked within maybe a minute of walking, and I found shelter under some palm trees with some kids to wait it out. it didn’t stop… I had to run between shelter for nearly an hour before making it back. I was going to eat dinner at a nice restaurant called Mostaza Cocina, but instead opted for the closest option I could find rather than fight the rain. If anyone goes to Mostaza, please let me know how it is, it looked amazing.

Shoot film, stay broke.

Each time I press my shutter, I spend between $1 - $5 on my film cameras. Each roll is between $8-20, some film like Polaroid FP-100c costs $60/pack giving you only 10 shots. Then you have developing and scanning costs which range between $15-30 per roll. On average, shooting one roll ends up costing me around $40.

How do I justify it? Film is like vinyl, it never goes out of style, it’s an analog process and an experiment, to me it is the lifeblood of photography and by shooting film, i’m staying broke but I feel like i’m a part of a community of photographers who are keeping the process alive, one roll at a time.

Shooting film has taught me to slow down, compose better images and overall improve my technical abilities as a photographer. I’ve invested a lot of time and money to keep this dream alive… for good reason.

Click through some examples of some film shots i’ve done below :