Brazil diary: The oriental neighborhood of Sao Paulo

Day 12 & 13

Today was a kind off a confusing day. Yet again, it took us so long to leave the house and head into town. With only one goal in mind: shopping. And especially, looking for beauty stuff like nail polish, things for the hair and for the hands and nails. So we ended up in "Oriental town". Why this name? Well, I guess the pictures say enough already. We driving off the highway, we already spotted the red street lamps hanging over the road. "Chinatown of Sao Paulo" was the first thing that came up in my mind. After walking around a bit we noticed that there weren't only Chinese people living here, but people from all around the oriental part of the world. And with that, the cheap shops and weird stuff came to our notice. Sushi bar here, Korean restaurant there, Oriental garden at your left side and Japanese supermarkets at your right side.

The first store we entered was a super big cosmetic store from 6 floors high that sells professional stuff  for hairdressers or people from beauty centers and everything. You could find everything there! So of course we ended up with bags filled with nail polish, hair dye, hairspray, special shampoo,.... All for cheap prices and super good quality. Now lets hope that all our new stuff will fit in our luggage haha.

After the shopping part we wandered around the streets for a little bit more and went home. It was a very exhausted but good (shopping) day. And not to forget: money well spend! 

The day after (day 13), mom and I got up at 7am to join Junior with his little delivery business. We started at 8 am, drove around whole Sao Paulo and to other cities next to SP to end up back at 4pm. For him it was work, for us it was more like a personal chauffeur that drove us around SP and showed us around. This was a very good and productive day even though we spended most of our time in the car. We saw more of Sao Paulo then we had seen before. This roadtrip was all we needed to catch up with time we had lost over these1.5 week we have been here in Brazil. And we are so ready for the 4 more weeks that are left to come. We are ready for the adventure!
Amy

Brazil diary: Nossa Senhora Do Brasil and Parque do Ibirapuera

Day 6

Today we woke up late. After a long and wild night we decided to sleep long, get up and leave whenever we felt like. We didn't have any plans so after eating breakfast and getting ready we took the car and just drove around town. After some car sightseeing, we ended up at the Nossa Senhora Do Brasil church. The most beautiful church in whole Sao Paulo that has a wedding waiting list for 4 years. And when entering the church, I immediately understood why. I/we were all stunned by the amazing inside of the church. Everything hand painted, mosaic everywhere, a million candles and lights surrounding all the furniture inside and gold laced parts everywhere. The hand painted ceiling caught my attention right away. It was so incredibly beautiful, I couldn't believe my eyes. I've never seen anything like this before. So many bright colors. Just amazing. We just didn't want to leave this church anymore, it felt like we were trapped inside by the beauty of this place. So we stayed inside for a long time, just to make sure that we absorbed everything, especially the amazing art and the atmosphere of the church. 

We drove around some more, through the busy streets of Sao Paulo, a big park named 'parque do Ibirapuera' eventually caught our eye. Once entered, it felt like we were in Central Park. Dogs and people everywhere, couples making out, joggers more than we could count, and a lot of animals and nature. All of this green is considered as the lung of the city. You could immediately feel a whole different air surrounding the trees and people in the park. The gas smell was gone and your mood instantly went from stressy to totally relaxed. Palm trees, cactuses and very old trees everywhere. Even some of the trees looked like they were crying. So after walking around the whole park, this became our last stop of today. Because it's winter here at the moment, it gets dark early in the evening, so there was not much left for us to see in the dark. We drove home through the Paulista Avenue and ofcourse got stuck in traffic. But that was okay. We had a nice evening, in traffic, but could observe the street and it's people bit by bit. A nice ending to a nice day. 

Amy