Anyone going to Mexico for more than 10 days check your visa when you enter. All Americans should be able to get a 90 visa with no cost or issues if you ask for one. The Mexico immigration when you enter likes to mess with people and only issue 10 day visas, when they know you are staying longer, just to be assholes and make you overstay. Overstaying is not a big problem at all, but before you can board your flight you need to resolve the issue and buy another visa for around $50. If you are in a small airport or flying in off hours then you can't solve this problem at the airport and risk missing your flight. It happened to me last year and to my father this year. Both times we entered with someone else who got the correct visa, so it was obviously done maliciously. The airline staff confirmed this and says they see this issue very often. So make sure to ask for 90 days and before you left the counter, check everyones stamp.
We are back from our now regular winter Mexico visit. Absolutely loved Querétaro, it was such a laid back and comfortable city. Last year we spent most of our time in San Miguel, but that city is getting crowded, the cobblestones are brutal and there are so many hills. San Miguel is definitely cuter than Querétaro, but Qro is much more functional and still has a great historic district. We took day trips to Bernal and Tequisquiapan, which are both great little cities to spend the day or more in. The monolith is Bernal is so picturesque and every picture you take is like a post card and its suppose to be a great hike. Everyone I know seems to think Mexico is only beaches, but the mountain cities are actually better. The people are friendlier, the cities are cheaper, the weather is better (80s sunny and arid all day every day). The cities themselves feel more like you are in Europe than Mexico, because of their strong Spanish influence and history. Querétaro shopping is probably the best in the whole country, not souvenir crap, but real goods and clothing in normal stores. There is some really nice hot springs in the area also. Highly recommend this area to everyone.
I am going to the Philippines in October. Going to go to Singapore in all likelihood, I'd rather go to Hong Kong as it does have more interesting stuff rather than being Sterile malls and food courts, but still can't trust that country.
One of my buddies went to Asia for vacation for a month or two this week. I told him not to bring any weed, probably going to Singapore. At my bachelor party, we were walking in downtown vegas. I hear a sound, the glass vial of coke he had he had put in his jean's coin pocket and it fell out and there's a big splash of coke on the sidewalk. This same buddy froze and didn't know what to do, I told him to keep walking. Everyone walking by just laughed. This guy drove to Vegas and Back from LA. He got stuck in ditches on the way there and back (first time he got pulled over by a cop and went too far second time he stopped to take a piss and got stuck again) lolz
I'm pretty stoked. Doing the whole "Holy Land" tour--a few days up by the Sea of Galilee, down to the Dead Sea, then a few more days in Jerusalem. Tour being led by a professor from Western Seminary that my wife's family has known for decades.
There are way more homeless in Oahu than the last few times I've been here (fifth time here since 2019). All over too, even out in Kailua there were quite a few.
We went in 2019 and had to call the cops on a group of homeless that were beating another homeless guy with his own walker. It was a pretty disturbing event actually. We hung around go give a statement then watched a lot of people fire up their phone cameras and shove them in the police faces and try to taunt them into doing something so they could catch it on camera. After our statement the cops kept calling us for more statements, recorded statements and wanted us to come down to the police station. Like damn guys, we are here for 4 days, I'm not about to spend it all on this crap. Watching the whole scene unfold made me feel kind of bad for what cops have to put up with.
