Searching for Utopia

Have you ever been to Mexico? When you have an opportunity to fly there, don’t forget to visit San Miguel de Allende. It’s an ancient city founded in 1542. In 1926, it’s designated a National Historic Monument, and it has remained in its original state since then.

If you decide to pay this town a visit though, arrange your accommodation beforehand. In case you haven’t heard, it’s actually one of the top tourist destinations in the world. Don’t be surprised to find hotels are fully booked during holidays.

Like any other tourist destinations, the city provides many things to keep you entertained. You can just enjoy the beautiful 18th Century mansions along the cobblestone streets, or visit a bunch of restaurants and galleries around the city.

You can get a map from the tourism office, which is located right next to the great church built in the 1700s, close to the public square.

When you’ve armed yourself with a map, head to the Tuesday Market, where you can get a taste of the famous churros.

San Miguel is a historical, yet tranquil place. The weather is as perfect as spring all year round. It may even be a perfect town to spend your retirement. In fact, there are 7,000 to 12,000 retirees there, mostly from the US and around Canada and Europe.

Just a gentle warning for you girls, women don’t wear shorts in public! So be prepared with skirts or slacks.

If you need to know more about the city, visit the site at sanmigueldeallendemexico.com It provides many useful tips, such as how to get there, what you can do around the city, and even how to buy real estate.

Poor Kevin Cogill. FBI arrested him yesterday because of leaking nine Guns N’ Roses’ songs online. The songs were said to feature on their upcoming album, Chinese Democracy. His bail was set at US$10,000. As for the site, it got so much traffic after the songs were added that it crashed. Oh, the drama!

Gone are the old days when we could do just about everything online. Wrong words, and you’d get sued. Upload an mp3, you’d get busted. Download anime, you’d be fined. You can’t even post your kids’ pictures for fear of online predators. Bloggers, beware! The most you can do is just to chat with your relatives and share gardening tips on your blogs.

I’m not really against those copyright laws, but sometimes they’re just too much. I’ve lived long enough to witness an era where floppy disk didn’t exist, let alone CD. We did have songs though. The only problem is we can’t find those songs at any shops nowadays. Some (not all) are available on YouTube, but for how long? I’m too coward to try, but methinks file sharing is not always evil.