Westley kicked off the new year finally undergoing his urology procedure that had to be repeatedly rescheduled over the past two years. His first encounter with general anesthesia went smoothly, and I took advantage of his recovery to complete the RG gundam kit that we started over the holidays. I also spent time upgrading our home network gear and hunting for Pixel 8 cases and wireless chargers from Temu, having frantically replaced my dead phone days before our Mexico trip. My old lab mate JB was visiting from Korea earlier this month, so we shared spicy hot pot that lasted us through mid-week. We were glad to have cleared the fridge by the time we were ready to embark on our lab retreat in SF last weekend. We drove down Saturday morning with my niece to queue up for Golden Gate Bakery egg tarts and Hon’s Wun-Tun House dumplings before meeting with lab folks at the Exploratorium. The psychedelic glow cinema mesmerized us, while social experiments like Team Snake taught us to work together. We were most excited for the cow eye dissection, even though they forgot about the retina (!). After gathering kalbi, bulgogi, kimchi, seaweed, and banchan from a nearby H-mart, we settled into our oceanside Airbnb. A few last-minute cancellations and initial lack of heat kept the house feeling empty and cold, but we quickly warmed up with our DIY kimbap dinner, indoor hoops, and a heated game of Pandemic. We started Sunday with high-quality dim sum at Koi Palace, then headed back to the Embarcadero to board our ferry to Alcatraz. Here, we learned about the island’s history as a fort then prison, the local flora and fauna, and life of inmates and guards. The engrossing audio tour detailed the different cell blocks, escape attempts, and kitchen violence with the “pop slap” sound of knife stabs. We stopped for hearty clam chowder at the Fog Harbor Fish House at Pier 39 and pineapple buns from Pineapple King on the way back to the house for an instant ramen cookoff and game of Wingspan. We awoke Monday morning to more kimbap to clear out the leftovers before checkout. The charging station had technical issues that kept me from joining my family shopping in Japantown, but gave me enough juice to make it back with our niece with time to spare for video games and a make-up piano lesson. With Melody out of town and an atmospheric river trapping us home this weekend, we spent a lazy weekend editing travel photos, cooking stews and soups, playing Zelda, and making another gundam. With lots of upcoming travel next month, it was nice getting some father-son time at home.

We decided last minute to take a family vacation in Playa del Carmen after Christmas. Being neither big eaters nor alcohol drinkers, we are not the type to benefit from all-inclusive resorts. But with unlimited entry to a host of theme parks – Xcaret, Xel-Ha, Xplor, and Xenses – we were ready to try out the “all-fun inclusive” Hotel Xcaret Mexico. We spent a quiet Christmas at home packing waterproof band-aids, reef-safe sunscreen, water shoes, and extra swim gear. Our red-eye to Cancun was uneventful and check-in was a breeze despite an attempt to lure us into a timeshare presentation for a $170 coupon. After sampling pancita and quesadillas at the Mercado de la Merced lunch buffet, we tried out the water slides and climbing wall selfies in the kids pool, which left Westley passed out through our meaty Brazilian BBQ dinner at Las Cuevas. We began Wednesday at Xel-Ha with fish therapy, dolphin and stingray encounters, and snorkeling in different inlets while Westley discovered pina colada, then returned to our hotel for excellent grilled octopus and ribeye at Cantina Los Faroles. We skipped the lines at Mercado next morning for breakfast at Xin Gao, then boarded a traijnera flat-bottomed boat past the Hotel Mexico Arte to Xcaret park. Floating down the underground river here reminded me of my college trip two decades ago, and both Melody and Westley felt accomplished completing the course. After our snorkeling got cut short by Melody’s mask malfunction, we lunched at La Caleta’s buffet, which we walked off at the turtle exhibit, aquarium, aviary, mariposario, and Mayan village. We rested our feet at the Xcaret Mexico Spectacular which featured Mayan assketball and fire hockey, lofty birdmen dance and battle reenactments, and regional musical performances complete with live horses, doves, and macaws, followed by poolside steak and seafood at La Trajinera. We returned to Xin Gao for more miso soup, matcha pancakes, and salmon yakitori for breakfast on Friday, then headed to Xplor for an exhilarating ATV drive, 7-zipline course, and another underground swim past stalagtites and stalagmites. Lunch at Chibali introduced us to donut-topped milkshakes and an impressive candy bar from which we stocked up on treats for an afternoon of 8-ball and TOTK. After an underwhelming beachside dinner at Las Playa, I soaked in our hot tub while Melody dried our swim gear with a hair dryer before bed. We tried Xenses on Saturday, where we relied on sounds, smells, and touch to traverse different terrains in the dark, then kept our balance ascending a gravity-defying “uphill” street. We took turns at a waterslide and zipline that Westley either wouldn’t or couldn’t do, then floated down underground rivers of saltwater and sludge which left us cold and muddy. We were nevertheless impressed by the details, including a lemonade faucet from a lemon tree and optical illusions that made good use of their “xelfie” photo system. We returned to Xcaret for birria, pozole, and churros at La Cocina, then back to the Mayan Village for a ceramics workshop and souvenir purchases before returning to the Cantina for family-style roast piglet. We spent Sunday back at Xel-Ha to tube down the lazy river, watch manatee get fed, and snorkel some more. The Mexican buffet was better than the international fare from our previous visit, and dinner at Xin Gao reminded us to avoid Asian cuisine in Mexico in the future. Westley stayed up just late enough to check out the festive but deafening NYE countdown while Melody slept through the party. We enjoyed our last morning at the Mercado buffet, then split up for souvenir and photo purchases before flying home on New Years Day. Our resort experience had me feeling indulged, pampered, and constantly overstuffed, reminiscent of HBO’s White Lotus. I was nevertheless fascinated by the impressive organization, attention to detail, and focus on Mexican culture that make this region a tourist hotspot.