Sao Paulo IV (ultimo dia)

23 Nov 2009

LAST day

It's kinda sad that we're leaving and we still didn't get to do a lot of the things we wanted to do, but --just a reason to come back right?

Since it's our last day we just decided to go back to the places we really liked, like Liberdade again, and may be I was thinking we could go back and find that head band from the Mercado Chic, because I decided I really want it and I want to support that creative woman who made it. And I don't know what else, but we have to be back somewhat early because our flight leaves at 7 in the evening and we have to still figure out how we're getting to the airport and an hour early to check in our bags etc.

On our way back to Oscar Freire I remembered this place that caught my attention: it's called "The Best Chocolate Cake in the Whole World" and for some reason... we didn't go in, and now I really wonder why. Well another thing to go on my "future to do in Sampa"

But anyway I found no Mercado Chic, but we went by all these other super expensive shops that were closed last time and so we decided to go in, and yes I tried on stuff I liked.

I tried on a 2,000 DOLLAR dress!!!

Oh my gosh the dress was beautiful--we'd hope so, right. And it was a really fabric de calidade that doesn't wrinkle. I went to try it on and the dressing/fitting room, it was bigger than any room I’ve had, and had mirrors all around and a huge empty clothes rack on wheels (supposed to be for everything I want to try on I guess).

There was also a pot with beautiful plants and a couch. The dressing room was pretty much a master bedroom with exaggerated amounts of mirror. And then the guy came in (after I was done putting it on—but either way he didn’t seem to be very interested in people of my sex) and asked me how it was, blablabla and he helped me fix it up a little. He was totally obviously a Fashion-Nazi by the way he was dressed and his hair and yeah, he just generally had a great sense of style.

And I'd just like to comment on how this experience made me feel so weird. Because, first of all, I don’t usually go and try on expensive clothes or anything and then secondly because—yeah he was trying to sell me something—but I DO NOT get that treatment in expensive stores back in the states. A worker at a boutique in Paris actually once straight up told me that the clothes there was too expensive and that I should leave!!! Okay? And even in the states when I go to Nordstrom with my family (granted we’re usually just go in because we like to park in the structure next to it, but we browse etc. ) people just ignore us or give us looks that virtually say what the French lady said to me. And so many other situations, at other stores, restaurants, I have experienced a lot of racism and this is in California, which has had such diversity for a long time, but yeah diverse in the sense that we’re all there just geographically economically segregated. Oh man sometimes I just get really hopeless to think of how “backwards” things are.

Anyway so I was again reminded of those power relations I was talking about before. So all that discomfort in being in places like this and all the bad treatment I have received through racial profiling in the U.S. disappeared in one of the most expensive shopping places in the WORLD!!! Really, would I be treated the way I was in Oscar Freire in Fifth Avenue, New York? I really doubt it.

And again I have to ask why. As soon as I spoke without a Paulista accent the guy was like “oh where are you from?” and I said California. And I honestly feel like that came with the assumption that I have money to go out and buy 2,000 dollar dresses like that OR that I should be treated with more respect I don’t know. And is it because it’s the U.S. or is it because it’s California?

Would it have been different if I had said I was from Mexico? Hmm… But at the same time, again, only a few people from Mexico can do what I’m doing, so is it because I’m traveling? It is obviously a luxury, and a privileged experience in this society, and like I said before: it is not a random thing that it is I who am traveling somewhere instead of this clerk or my house keeper back in Bahia; she isn’t traveling to visit me in the U.S. How likely is it that it would be reversed, and the reasons too? If she went to the states she said it would be for working, meanwhile I’m…well…trying on expensive dresses and having fun, and studying. It definitely presupposes some power and privilege dynamics.

Anyway this is a instance of intersectionality because I’m sure all these factors interact. But these instances are the ones that really make me be more aware of what I’m doing and who/how I’m affecting, how I’m perpetuating the tourist dilemmas, and I really don’t want to take advantage of this position. I didn’t come here to be relatively superior since back in “my country” I’m constantly reminded “I’m inferior”.

Anyway…

Lena started feeling really sick and I kept looking through the stores because about one hundred years ago I was interested in fashion design and I still must say that Sao Paulo, as the fashion capital of the Americas, is very creative and I love their use of colors in fashion. So anyway Lena just kept getting worse so she decided to just sit at a park and then go to back to the hostel.

And I kept on going, I wanted to eat something at Liberdade, so I went. This time I looked around more slowly walked into Japanese bookstores and chilled in the main plaza:

and tried to find one of the restaurants that was on that other blog that I had looked up—but I didn’t find it. But it was okay because I ended up eating somewhere that was dericious and super well priced although it wasn’t fancy or anything, the food was authentic, good, and filling.

I had some raw salmon, tempura, tofu, miso soup, a bowl of rice, and pickled cucumber.

It was so good. And the place was lined with bookshelves stocked with manga! Oh if only I were interested. Jk. It’s okay. I liked Ranma 1/2 and that’s about it. Oh yeah and then before leaving Liberdade I got this:

a mix of snacks from Kanazawa.

I talked to a few of the people working there--mainly in Portuguese because I don’t speak Japanese, but one guy was a pretty fresh immigrant he was in Brazil for 3 years and he was speaking to me without much of an accent either (I mean compared to how I have trouble understanding some people from Japan who are new to English) so I guess it's Portuguese may be pretty easy for japanses people to pronounce, and that makes sense there are pretty much the same phonmese like the /zh/ and the nasal sounds, and /z/ etc. for any liguists who know what i'm talking about much better than I do.

it was really cool and I slipped in a few of the Japanese words that I knew while I was speaking. It was a really cool experience, but yeah then I ran back to the hostel. Since we had already checked out, Lena was just laying on a couch in the living room watching some movie and apparently she felt better now but still she had been feeling really sick.

She was thinking may be it was food poisoning or may be because she had been walking so much the day before, but I was glad she was feeling a little better.

Then quickly we found these 2 other guys who were also going to the airport and we split a cab! Yay!

And we rushed off..only to be slowed down by immobile traffic for a while, and we got to the airport like 15 minutes before our flight was supposed to leave, but we made it! And I was just sitting in the room eating my leftovers. I forgot a fork so I just used my hands after washing them well.

oh man this was quite a trip,

I'll see you later Sampa!

<3
Sonia

São Paulo III (dia Tres)

22 nov 2009
It's lookin clowdy today, not much of park weather but we're going anyway. After breakfast at the hostel.
This is the Parque Ibirapuera, one of the biggest and famous in the country I think.

They have a lake and here's Lena wanting a picture with that big fake christmas tree in the background
If you look carefully there I am with an umbrella. I felt like i was in the secret garden
This is also pretty iconic of sampa this building with this big red tongue sticking out.
I thought the grass looked really cool. it's flatt and wide it reminded me of ribbons
Hairy trees.
Then we saw this special Le Petit Prince/ the little prince show in part of this park. Yeah they have several museums in this park, bike rental, fields, play grounds, a little forest, a science dome, multicultural center etc etc.
There is a lot of French in Brazilian history and for a while Brasilians were quite the Francophone because they looked to them for intellectual and art matters, and I guess there are just a few remnants of that. But Brasil and the America's in general are all cannibalistic pastichers. Okay unless you were in my culture class, you might not understand what I mean. But i mean metaphorically what Amercicans (of all America yes the 2 continents) did was eat up all this stuff native, imperialist etc, and digested and came up with something different-ish.
There was also some architectural thingy but they charged money so we just walked in the free part. And walked onto the free museum of modern art.

There were a lot of cook things there. very interesting, I can't really describe what things were like but I could definitely see a pattern to this modern art. It was kind of like ironic, or exaggerated, etc.

Sombreros anyone? They also had some tortilla thing.
Man I was so hungry! We were really far away too, we walked for like 40 minutes from the hostel down hill to the park, i'm so surprised we found it, but then we were willing to take a bus back up to Avenida Paulista, our (0,0). Really that's how I mapped out Sampa, it was my X axis.

And I had heard good stuff about this vegetarian Indian restaurant and I really wanted to go, but guess what? It was closed! :( so I just cried a little--inside, and we looked for another place.
We found this little lanchonete-type place super cheap and provided the essentials and we were good.
We ate out on the street, and I got some frango (chicken) and brocolis, palmito, cenoura salad. You need to guess what that is it's pretty easy. Paulmito is the part that's probably unfamiliar to you.
Lena got a side of rice and fries though. We both got fresh orange juice and a side of beans. I don't think I was able to finish everything really it was filling and only like US$5.oo. Good Deal
then I really wanted to go to the Os Gêmeos exhibition. Again the twins, here are some videos of them explaining. And it's good so you get to hear the Sampa accent , see if you notice any differences.

they are world renown and have their street art all over the place in the big cities like Berlin, Manhattan, SF, Sampa, Rio, Los Angeles, I don't know where else but they go all over.

But we like ran over there we realized we were running late because I thought they closed at 5PM and it was like 4:45 and we weren't there yet. We got there and there was a huge line outside this building, and we asked the couple in front of us if it was for the Gemeos exposition and they're like I think so, I assume so I haven't asked, and then we just started talking (in Portuguese) I have to say it feels really good when people are like "NO way you've just been studying it for 4 months" or whatever. But then i just kind of think it sucks that they don't have as good of language programs in other countries. Like my cousin in Mexico at a PRIVATE school said that in her English class they spend a whole YEAR on the verb "TO BE" and it's just ridiculous. I feel like either the teachers aren't well-trained or their just being lazy. But I'm really glad I've had the opportunity to have really good language programs available, and also really good professors but I mean I also try really hard and practice when I can and really DESIRE to learn languages. Oh and I speak Spanish so all of that helps.
Anyway they were asking us about Bahia and what we're studying there, about the university in California etc. They were really nice people. Again I've had a really good experience with Paulistas (it's what you call people who live in Sao Paulo, like "Baiana/o" for people from Bahia like a "New Yorker" "Californian" "Texan" etc.) But really I have had ZERO sexual harassment in all these days which is quite a record because back in Bahia...man it's like if you go down the street for 20 minutes without hearing something that's a record. And we have been walking EVERYWHERE here in Sampa and alone as women.
Finally we were in! They let in whoever is in line and then they close it.

This is inside the building but they didn't let us take pictures. So here are some places that they have pictures. It was really cool, because usually they have the limits (or the resources) of the street but here they were able to have installations and use film and music, and tangible experiences. the only thing missing was taste.

IT was amazing. There was this one place where depending on how you clap or how many times you clap the color of lights changed, then there were these two boxes stacked up and you could go and stick your head into the hole at the bottom of the top head and you were surrounded by mirrors and a purple light at the top with some awesome music like bossa nova playing and it really felt like another world. Then there was a dark shack with old furniture falling apart, a leaky faucet, smoke coming in, and some green light waves it was weird. But in front of the couch, an old TV set that was playing images of several homeless people. One woman trying to put a red bottle cap on her nose. Another one was a hidden camera capturing the police unnecessarily harassing a homeless person. All he was doing was waving his shirt around on a somewhat deserted road and no one else was around so he wasn't really bothering anyone but the police still got all worked up and took advantage that this person was probably mentally ill, and I don't know it seems like people think homeless people don't have rights.
But there was an instrument there that they invented it was really really cool. Then this ostrich looking animal with two different videos of eyes looking off in different directions at different paces so looking straight at it felt weird.
There were just lots of cool things there, and on all the walls spilling with their artwork that really made me feel like I was in a different world. It was like Alice in Wonderland meets Dr. Seuss with a political slant and with more adult content.

This has by far been my favorite part of São Paulo! We stayed there till they kicked us out :)

Then we decided to go to Spain for a little bit.
We saw this pastry/ dessert shop as we were coming out and it just hit the spot. Well we hit the spot but ...

And I was just amazed as I walked in, because things looked gorgeously delicious but they weren't that expensive. I asked this guy working there if I could take pictures and he said "you should ask the owner and he pointed over to the butcher section across the place and there he was wrapping up some meat for someone. I fell in love--with the store. It was local and there was the owner working, I went over and asked him if I could take pictures in his store just for my own pleasure and he gave me permission. I was so happy. So you should thank him for it because now you are able to see the wonders of these freshly made cakes and candies etc.


I got one of these:and it was like 1.50! But it was good, quality stuff right there. I had been craving chocolate so it was fantastic timing.

Chocolates and little homemade peeps, and traditional desserts



I wonder if this Marzipan stuff on the right is anything like the Mexican Mazapan

But really this place was just.. top drawer.
Then we sat at the top of this side walk on a step to eat our goods.
I also got this strawberry, at the bottom it had a little shorty cut pastry.
Another funky architecture shot.
Graffiti.
While we were Avenida Paulista again, we saw this window lined with feathered apparel. And we realized it was a display of the different kind of artwork from different indigenous peoples of the Amazon! Oh my gosh I swear this is a miracle day how things work out like this, i've pretty much forgot all about the Indian restaurant. And all this stuff was not even planned.

And I've actually learned a bit about Amazonian peoples in my "Indigenous struggles in the Americas" class and I learned about the Kayapó, Candoshi, Yagua, Yaminagua, Tupí , Tupinamba, Guaraní etc.

It was amazing too! did not dissapoint obviously. it is just amazingly beautiful but also

the fact that they used all of the animal, like this bird hanging off of this head band.
They have boxes for feathers
necklaces

Afterwards we went into the shopping mall because I really wanted to buy some books. Mainly on Brazilian folklore but also children's book. I learned something today!
while I was at the book storeI was trying to ask for like books on "Legends", and I was asking about legendas, and legendas, and the woman looked it up on the computer but looked a little confused and said "I'm not really sure where you can find that" And then I'm like or something on folklore like mythology (folklórico, de mitos) and then she's like "oohhhh, lendas!" and then I remembered oh yeah lendas. So Lendas is legends, and Legendas is subtitles!!!!
remember that. if you ever happen to ask for subtitles or legends I guess.

Then we walked home, we waited for the rain to calm down a little as we went back to the couches in that indegenous thing (I don't know what that was called, an exhibition? But I call everything an exhibition oh well. we'll just go with that)
But we rested there a bit used their bathroom.
Then we went down and I was hungry again but I didn't feel like paying a lot for anything and so I got a little salgado at a deli. Like a little empanadita with meat in it.
And then we went back to the hostel.
NOTE: there are all these pizza places open at night, pizza seems to be a big Paulista thing too, and mostly young people are sitting at these places with tables flowing out into the street, drinking beer and haning out with friends.
Then I went to enjoy my little muffin-type thing...in bed. One of the guys here at the hostel asked me if I wanted to watch a movie with him in his room but I politely declined. you never know. he seems like a nice guy but...either way it's like midnight! so i just want to go to sleep so I can fully enjoy our last day here in Sampa, the plane leaves at 7:35.

Gostoso né?
oh Sampa...
We have pretty much explored almost every street by foot I swear! There's nothing like seeing everything street level, slowly. And everything today (minus the food), the park, the museums, the os gêmeos the indigenous art thing was freeeee freee beeannn free 99!
freee

São Paulo II (dia dois)

21 nov 2009

We had a lovely breakfast at the hostel,

I felt like compared to the other hostels it was a well rounded breakfast (well the Pousada Natureza takes the cake but...) they had lots of fruit, protein in the ham and other deli meats, granola, good swiss cheese. They also had some fresh juice like pineapple, (no soy milk but :( well what do you expect?) baguettes, butter, honey, cookies, banana with ground cinnamon

coffee, tea,

some nice cake. Look at this, i was pretty satisfied. I made myself a little sandwich with ham and cheese and honey drizzled on top. I had some of that banana and guava, and half the papaya, mango, pineapple juice. mmmm..


Today we had planned to go to a the top of the Banespa building to see the panorama of São Paulo, then a really awesome Mercado near by, then walk to Liberdade for lunch and go to a the museum of the Portuguese language.

This is what our little neighborhood in Sampa looks like as we're leaving our dear hostel:

There are orchids growing out of the trees!
I was surprised at how flowery this big city smells, every like 3 minutes I smell some jasmines or roses.

We got to where the Banespa is supposed to be we took the metro this time. We unfortunately found out they don't have ANY deals on the metro passes, like a week pass or anything you have to buy them all at the same price.
We walked all around this place only to find out that the tower is closed all saturdays, so it was sad. We didn't get to see that 360 degree view of the city :( But oh well.
I had a sudden urge to go to the bathroom and all around us were just these tall executive buildings. So I just went up to a random one and asked if I could use the bathroom, and amazingly they just let me in.
It was some lawyer building, and I don't know I feel like in Sacramento if I ask at some lawyers building I wouldn't get the same response.
So here's the bathroom: I know I'm ridiculous but I just really felt like I had to capture these heart-shaped toilet seat covers that I had also seen at Boi Preto Churrascaria restaurant but it was still too early for me to start taking pictures of such trivial things. But I am relatively uninhibited now! muahahahahah
Anyway then we were looking for the Mercado Municipal, but got lost and bumped into this graffiti exhibit and I am really happy about that.





I got to see this artwork by my favorite graffiti artists--they're twins and that's their street name "Os Gêmeos" which also can mean Gemini. This IS they're hometown and I'm planning on seeing this other installation they have in the city at a museum right now.
We kept walking supposedly towards the Mercado and we came up to this crowd:
And I guessed it we were in Rua 25 de Março, which is always this crowded. It's lined with cheap stores and stands where you can find all sorts of things! Anything!
We saw this flan looking thing, pudim de leite, pretty much flan.
But we couldn't find the mercado and we kept getting inconsistent information, just go down the rua and it will be at the end, then we got to that end and they'd say oh just go that way all the way down the street, so we went down that busy crowded street like 4 times!!!! oh meu deus it was torture. And well we ended up somewhere else that they happened to have food too. So we just decided to give up there. (And i bet we were really close too)
Above is a lovely selection of (from left) jiló, maxixe, and quiabo




What those gentlment are cutting are huge Jaca fruit and they offered us a sample
It comes from Asia originally as I've mentioned in another blog in Jardim Botânico , and it's like gummy and sweet and chewy but really sticky.

so the mercado was okay but this is what i was expecting:
The mercado even has a website check it out.
so there's just one other reason to come back to SP some day. I love farmer's markets!
Then we walked to the Museu da Língua Portugeusa and it was amazing!


They talked about the history of languages and how Brazilian Portuguese evolved into what it is now. You can look at this branch of langauges of some of the biggest linguistic families. Oh my gosh I was geeking out at this museum because I am facinated by language in general. And it was amazing to just see the history of the language I use every day here.


Also a time-line of all the influences
The latin roots, their meaning and what word it is in Brazilian portuguese now
Some Arabic words that are in Portuguese (and many in English too)
Then the African Bantu words that came in because of African slavery in Brasil.
I had a really great time, of course but the thing is you need to know Portuguese to really appreciate this museum there's no translation so the more portuguese you know the better.
It was a very technologically advanced musuem too.
They had this electronic map you could click on to hear the different sotaques (accents) in Brazil. It was really cool.

There was also a table that showed images of preffixes and suffixes and roots of words and people could use their hands to combine them, and once parts of words came together and made sense a cool like video wikipedia came up. look:

Then we went to take the metro again down to Liberdade because our feet were so tired of walking around and standing.

Hey does any Bart station have piano in it? i thought this was a really cool station, this metro subway station was built in an ex train station.

We got to Liberdade, the Japanese town.
And we got there on a day that they have their street fair so that was cool. We timed somethign appropriately yes! They had Brazilian Japanese food .
We went to a Japanese market. There are a lot of Korean and Chinese pockets here too though, so Lena said she felt she was in China.
Lena said that she felt less homesick just seeing asian food and stuff but it actually had the opposite effect on me. I suddenly missed my trips to San Jose's japan town and all the happy memories I've had related to Japan *ehem*

I'm in Japan!
And look what I found! Another Os gemoes work!

I always think that there is something strategic about works so my friend and I were trying to analyze it and we came up with the idea that may be the purpose of it being in the Liberdade district may symbolize immigration in which you bring your physical house, by reinstilling your cultural architecture and literally bringing your "house" and keeping your food and your own little bubble of culture to a new place. That's what that made us think of but who knows.

What we did know was that we were starving. I bought a little sandwich back at 25 de marco but it was little, and I brought a granola bar and nibbled on it as the day progressed but that was totally not lunch. And now it was 4PM no lunch thus far but the restaurants weren't open for dinner yet and I really wanted to go to know i'd seen online but I forgot what it was called and where it was so...we just asked around I think it was like Nasako or something like that. But at this point we were just hungry and went into a little market that had a little table in the back where you could eat their homemade prepackaged food. we got some inari it was dericious! I don't know what that red powder was I've never seen that in Japanese food before but whatev.
And then it started to rain again, and it was pouring and pouring forever. We sat on the steps at some restaurant that would be opening sson andthey had a sign that there was a special in the lunchboxes of sushi and stuff and it was pretty cheap so we waited. until finally it opened and we were the first ones there. We got the menu and all the little dishes were like 30 dollars and not filling. So Lena was like "I can't afford this" and plus we were starving and we would not be satisfeitas if bought what we could afford. So I'm like, what should we do? They had already given us warm wet towels and everything but Lena's like "I don't care I'll tell them"
So I let her and in her broken Portenglish she told the waitor "Um this place is caro de mais for us, entao, we have leave, sorry" And I'm like, oh no, may be I should have said it but the waitor was totally chill about it and polite even though we had to go, she's like "don't worry about it"
So it was great.

So we kept walking down that same street and I kept seeing "lamen" signs all over the place. Lamen this Lamen that, what's up with that? I was really curious, but then finally my Engrish kicked in, and I'm like. ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh: RAMEN!
But next to the Ramen place there was this Buffet!:

And it was pretty much the same price as the other place or less actually it was like 15 dollars for all you can eat. It was a mixed buffet of Chinese, Japanese food and Korean BBQ.
It was my first korean barbecue ever and it was exciting.


Lena was really the one who know how to use this thing, but they had a selection of seasoned raw meet over at the buffet thingy and you pick what you want and cook it youself.
I got a whole bunch of sushi, I love SALMON! I was super excited. they also had octopus and oyster and all these little japanese pickled stuff.
I thought it was a really nice place and it filled pretty well. Lena felt like she was in China especially here. She kept hearing Cantonese.

Oh man, woman, and child, I ate sooo much. I was almost going to explode but I decided not to. Because the food was really really delicious. And the service was good. I would definitely go back to this place, I forgot what it's called but you just go down that main street at liberdade past that os gemeos work, and go straight.
Another great but tiring day! And yep we walked back to our hostel from there! Oh I need a shower. my hair and my dress (Katherine's/the community dress) smell like BBQ.
boa noite!