The 20-foot tall crescent moon (weighing 23 tons) and Saturn are visible behind Ed’s Throne Room featuring several unusual chairs. The largest chair (throne) weighs 5,000 lbs.
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Prickly Pear Cactus.
Well, prepared by the ladies at Antojitos Doña Pili in Cozumel, Mexico, it’s delicious.
Authentic quesadillas are a pretty basic affair in Mexico, a small tortilla (usually corn), a small amount of the main ingredient, and maybe a little bit of Oaxaca cheese. Add salsa if you dare.
Nopales, from prickly pear cactus was our favorite of the local homemade quesadillas prepared for us at the first of our six stops during our amazing Mexican food tour. We also tried tasty poblano pepper as well as huitlacoche, which is a mushroom-type fungus that grows on corn and was bland without the sauce.
Our group of six has a bunch of dietary restrictions and our enthusiastic local foodie-guide Geraldo (Jerry for the Anglos), very professionally and seamlessly, managed necessary substitutions. This food tour is designed to get visitors around to off-the-beaten-path local eateries. We booked it independently, while in town on a cruise ship stop. It was a great choice.
Conchinita pibil.
We enjoyed conchinita pibil tacos, which are cooked with sour orange juice in banana leaves, a favorite in the Yucatán peninsula. Like the quesadillas, tacos are not the Tex-Mex orgies we get in the States; they are simple, just the chopped pork and some onion held together by a corn taco. The next stop was for a large bowl of Sopa de Lima, a soup full of shredded white meat chicken and a broth with a hint of lime.
Delicious ceviche.
Voted winner of the day: Pescadoria San Carlos, where we feasted on incredible grouper ceviche and whole fried freshly caught grouper. Those of us from Florida who are used to fresh (even whole fried) fish thought it was wonderful and our other friends pronounced it the best fish they had ever had. It was really good.
The gregarious owner of this colorful restaurant sang for the group and apparently, is also a popular local comedian.
Along the way we had all sorts of great drinks to try including local Montejo beer, Hibiscus water (Agua de Jamaica), Pepino (cucumber & lime), Horchata, a milky sweet drink, and Chia Fresca complete with floating chia seeds. We stopped at a local market to get a first-hand view of the various ingredients we were eating and we ended the 3-hour tour at a bakery, but were too full to sample more than a bite of the large local pastries.
¡Salud!
If you want to go: contact emily@cozumelchef.com They book through Viator, Inc and we booked through Cruise Planners/ShoreTrips.
So many kinds of peppers. The adventurous among tried different types of salsa, made with different peppers, at every stop.
All gone.
Thanks to our daughter and her fiancé we had a wonderful time on our morning whale-watching excursion. Leaving from Balboa Island at 9 AM, I quickly forgot my concerns about the (really) chilly weather and potentially rough seas, when we spotted two grey whales just as we left the harbor. We followed the whales for quite a while as they headed south on their long journey from Alaska to Mexico. As the marine haze lifted it turned into a beautiful, clear day.
During the 2-hour trip with Newport Coastal Adventures, we zoomed around in a 6-passenger zodiac at 20-30 mph and that was a thrill ride all its own. Another highlight was finding ourselves in the middle of a pod of hundreds 
of playful common dolphin.
It was a blast. We loved it!
Gardens by the Bay.
We got the day going with a short river cruise on a traditional “bumboat” which used to ferry cargo here. We cruised around the interior bay for a nice perspective and enjoyable 40-minutes. Then we trekked over to the iconic Supertree Grove at Gardens by the Bay, eventually figuring out how to get a ticket for the OCBC Skyway, 66 feet up.
Walked over the Dragonfly Bridge to view the dramatic evening light show among the Supertrees. Standing by Dragonfly Lake was a perfect spot to take in the perspective. They do the 12-minutes show twice a night – at 7:45 and 8:45. The complex is huge, with domes gardens and a wide array of specialty gardens, you could spend a week.
No visit here would be complete without a visit to the adjacent Casino and the huge, multilevel high-end shopping mall, all by the Marina Bay. The good news was the Casino has seriously limited smoking, the bad news was the minimums were $50 in honor of the Chinese New Year. In case you’re wondering, maximum bet allowed (at a normal table) was $500K. We did not see any craps tables and no, we did not win money. The mall mirrored shops like Prada, Tiffany and Armani found on Singapore’s famous Orchard Street. They love to repeat stores here, so for example, you might see three Cartier shops within a block and a half. You could spend some serious money here.
Our final dinner in this great city was for typical dumplings, wontons and egg fried rice at Ding Tai Fung a famous Taiwanese spot, rated one of the top ten by the NY Times. Floor to ceiling windows allow visitors to watch the young men make the intricate dumplings. The food was great, we were not disappointed.
Looking up at the Marina Bay – that’s the bottom of the pool.
