Jan 20, Dragon Chinese Restaurant and a Torch Parade

January 20, 2020

We had been at the Hotel San Ramon for almost three weeks. It was a very nice place but on the outskirts of town. Every time we wanted to go anywhere we either had to drive, take the bus or an Uber and while we liked the hotel we wanted to be someplace more central. We decided to check out the other RV park in San Miguel which imaginatively names “San Miguel RV Park” and which was located in town as opposed to the outskirts.

January 25 was Chinese New Years so we decided to go check out one of the other Chinese restaurants in San Miguel, the Dragon Restaurant. This is technically the only actual Chinese restaurant in San Miguel as the other two are Panda Express style, take out fast food stands as opposed to real sit down restaurants.

Upon entering the Dragon restaurant we were not impressed. Bare concrete floor, corrugated metal roof, mostly bare walls, cheap plastic tables. Worst of all, in a first in our experience, not a single Chinese person worked at the restaurant. We got a plate of fried noodles, a stir fried chicken and veggies plate, a bowl of hot and sour soup and since the soups were only US$1.50 a bowl, a chicken and veggie soup. Surprisingly food wasn’t too bad, your typical mom and pop hole in the wall Chinese restaurant quality food. It turns out that the Mexican cook was one of the partners in the restaurant and had spent time in the US as a cook in Chinese restaurants.

The Dragon restaurant’s decor matched its sign but the food was… acceptable and it is not like there were many other choices.

There was some attempt to make the food look appetizing and the taste was OK, although some Mexican spices made their way into the dish.

We walked along the street towards the San Miguel RV Park and found it lined with stores and restaurants, many with a foreigner focus like the Texas BBQ restaurant, French bakery, the Irish Pub or the organic vegetarian restaurant. Along a narrow side street, behind a large locked gate which we had to ring a bell to get someone to open was the San Miguel RV Park and Tennis Courts. Yes. A RV Park and tennis courts. A very small 12 space RV park situated in the middle of four or five active tennis courts. The camping areas were grassy and weren’t bad for what was essentially the unpaved parking lot for tennis courts. The monthly rate was 6,840 pesos or almost 3,000 pesos or $150 less than the San Ramon. The online reviews also mentioned that it had fast internet. The RV park was a 20 minute walk to our school. Cheaper, more central, faster internet and closer to our school. The only thing it didn’t have was a swimming pool which we didn’t care much about anyway. Sold! We made a reservation for Wednesday when our stay at the Hotel San Ramon was to end.

For a small town in the middle of Mexico, San Miguel has a lot of fancy, all natural, organic, cage free, free range, cruelty free, fair trade, sustainably harvested by happy, well paid virgins with white gloves products.

There were many heavily armed Federal Police around and they liked to drive around standing in the bed of pickup trucks.

After we left the RV park we decided to try to walk to our school. We got as far as the main Cathedral before we decided to stop at the only Starbucks in San Miguel. The Starbucks in San Miguel is located in one of the old buildings surrounding the main square and had a lot of character. They even had a door attendant in full suit and tie. Fancy. We immediately ordered some drinks and Holly took the opportunity to do some Chinese Homeschooling with Olivia.

While they were homeschooling I went to the nearby visitor center where I found out that there was going to be a torchlight parade in a few hours at 6:30 PM. Well we can’t miss that. We stayed for a couple of hours at the Starbucks before going to one of the tourist trap Italian restaurants nearby for some overpriced pasta.

Too bad for us that the torchlight parade was a bit of a letdown. The parade consisted of a small band, one guy on a horse and about 40 people with small torches. They walked to the main square, there was a bit of music, some yelling in Spanish and it was over. Disappointing, but at least it was over early enough for us to catch the bus back to the Hotel.