Primo Tapia, Baja California, Mexico (December 2022)

In December, we made a trip to Primo Tapia, a small town near Rosarito, Baja California. Mexico. This trip was decided when we met Pastor Sam Pang couple over breakfast in September when we stayed in Buena Park. The church Pastor Sam is pastoring is Cerritos Mission Church and they were planning a medical mission trip early December. Kristin wanted to take part and we signed up for it.

As we landed at San Diego Airport, Pastor Sam Pang couple picked us up and we headed down to Mexico. Crossing the border was a cinch and no one even stopped us. We had tacos on the way at Tacos Manuel in Rosarito. It was delicious! 

We checked in at the Nueva Vida Mission Center in a town called Primo Tapia. It was established by the church's founder Rev. Tae Woon Seok who has since passed away. After several unsuccessful stewardship by others, the center is now managed by Missionary Daniel Kang and his wife. The center is quite big and has three buildings. One has a kitchen, a clinic and a church. Another is used for staff housing where we stayed. The other is a dormitory that is used for visitors.

In the evening, Pastor Pang couple and we hung out and went to Ensenada to eat fish taco. Afterwards, we walked around a well lit downtown street. The fish tacos were really good!

The following day, Missionary Kang couple joined us for breakfast. Missionary Kang took us to a fancy restaurant called Encanto. The foods were quite good, but the view from the restaurant was fabulous!.

After Pastor Pang couple left, we went to another place called, La Fonda. It was the hangout place before Encanto was opened. The view from the restaurant was panoramic with the sunset view, people riding horses on the beach, and sand art made on the beach in our eyes. We thoroughly enjoyed the beach walking as well as as the view from the restaurant.

While we were staying there for a few days, Missionary Kang's couple and we had morning walk regularly. Walking over to the unpaved but wide open area was breath-taking, looking over the ocean view from the hills. 

One day, we drove out to Playa Popotla where you could buy fresh catch. We bought a rock cod. While we were waiting for the rock cod to be prepared, the owner put out live octopuses on the counter.

One day, I ventured out by myself. I walked down the hill to the main street and took a taxi van to go to Rosarito. I went all the way to the terminal and took a return taxi van and got off at Rosarito Beach. I walked to the beach and took the taxi van again to return to the Mission Center.

As we were walking at Playa La Mission, we found a bunch of mussels and one big clam. We brought them and the ladies worked hard to make a soup. The work turned out a lot more than they hoped. The soup and the food had a lot of sands. So we could not enjoy them as well as we expected. We learned a lesson to be more careful with the mussels and clams collected from the sandy beach. 

But, the  rock cod we bought at Playa Popotla was turned into an excellent spicy soup: Mae Un Tang. Fantastic!

On Friday, we took Missionary Kang couple to Encanto for dinner. The cuisines were all good and we enjoyed the night view of the restaurant and the ocean.

We thoroughly enjoyed our short stay at Primo Tapia although there was one day without running water. Oh well. We all have prior experiences like that in Rwanda and Thailand. Missionary Kang and Pastor Pang couples were very hospitable and we were deeply grateful.

We visited a few ministry places and participated in the medical mission work held on Saturday. This story is in another blog post. - Jeffrey