Tonolá y Tlaquepaque

So, every weekend our group goes on a "field trip." We travel around to different parts of the city--next week we're even traveling to a completely different city and staying there for two days, which is very exciting--so we can get a lot of "cultural activities." These trips have all been so much fun, but today's trip was especially awesome. Hand-blown glass "factory" that's behind the store. It's literally BEHIND the store.

I can't decide if ceramic toilets are cheap junk or incredibly awesome

The best ceramic warehouse in the world!
We went to Tonolá first this morning (the pictures above are from there). Tonolá is a market town and they sell a ton of crafts there. You can find everything from ceramics to paintings to furniture, and everything is pretty cheap. For example, I bought a full set of ceramic dishware (six cups, six plates, and six bowls) for a little under $15, and there were large (and I'm talking LARGE) triptych paintings for about the same amount! It was really fun to go walking through all of the little shops they had there. A lot of the shops were full of cheap junk stuff, but every once in a while we found some awesome stuff.
After Tonolá, we drove to Tlaquepaque. Tlaquepaque is another crafty town, but the stuff there is of much higher quality. They had a lot of clothing stores and a lot of jewelry stores. Mexico is famous for their silver and so I saw some really pretty silver jewelery that I was very tempted to buy...Tlaquepaque was such a gorgeous little town. All the buildings had that picturesque old-Mexico feeling that we always think of when we think of Mexico. There were mariachi bands strolling through the street and vendors selling through wares in between store-fronts and people just wandering around. Ah! I loved it.
This was the best restaurant in Tlaquepaque. The food was absolutely delicious.
This is possibly my favorite photo of the entire trip. I'm really proud of it!

P.S. The mariachi band that I have a picture of up there is the first and only all female mariachi band that I've seen here in Mexico. I thought it was awesome.