Arrived at London Heathrow airport after 11 hours of flying time. At the airport, I tried to ask the direction to Farringdon station at an information counter since I heard there are some maintenance works going on at the subway. The lady at the information center doesn’t want to tell me anything and just gave me a map. At first I thought she was joking but she was not. I was going to say something bad to her face but managed to keep my cool.

Took the underground (4 pounds) to my aunt’s house. Since King Cross station is close on the Picadilly line, I got off at St. Paul and walked to Britton St. which is just beside Faringdon station.

I am supposed to fly out of London to Cairo on Monday morning but I called up the travel agent to change my flight to Wednesday morning instead (cost $52.80 which is not too bad) so I have more time to prepare for the next leg of my trip. I got my own bedroom here so I can have it easy for a few days before getting back into the backpacking mode.

Renae and Jay brought me to a malaysian restaurant for dinner and I had curry noodles which is pretty good.

Took a metro to Villa Madelena this morning. There are some very nice houses there and then walked to Ave Paulista which takes around 2 hours. Passed by Rua Teodoro Sampaio (which has many stores selling musical instruments) Oscar Freire (an expensive shopping area).

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Met up with Thiago at Barra Funda on the west side at 1pm and visited the Latin American museum and a few others spots.

Thiago got us some pastels and sugar cane juice for lunch. Met Renan (a michael jackson wannabe)

in the Latin American museum and we went to Rock Galleria (mall for hippies and rock music enthusiasts) and Rua santa Ifigenia (a place selling all kinds of cheap electronics from China, they are all OEM products because Brazil has a high tax rate on branded electronic goods. You can get a 128G of USB thumb drive for around $25 or maybe less).
Someone tapped me on the shoulder while I was walking at downtown turned around and it was the malaysian guy I met few days ago. I can’t imagine how small is the probability to meet the same guy in this city of 12 millions twice.

Played soccer with some Brazilian kids at Thiago’s apartment and those kids do move fast and are very skillful, they live by soccer.

Had dinner at one of Thiago and Isis’s favorite restaurant.

One of the best part of the cow, I forgot the name

Then Thiago sent me to the airport. Had some issues with my passport at the airport because I am flying to Egypt after London and they thought I will need a visa and a yellow fever certification to Egypt. Cleared things up and managed to get on the flight and like always, Brazilians at the airport are very friendly and very easy going.

I am quite impress with Brazilian culture. Brazilians are very clean and neat people, no matter inside the house or on public road, it’s quite clean. People here respect the laws and follow it. For example, car doesn’t park on the parking line, apartments are quiet and people are considerate. Brazilians line up everywhere and I have not seen people cut queue so far. The most important thing is the friendliness of Brazilians, they are the friendliest people I have met so far.

Moved to Thiago’s apartment this morning. I met Thiago and Isis at the hostel in Santiago and they invited me to stay with them. Took the subway at 6.50am to Itaquera which is on the east side of Sao Paulo.
Thiago the man

Thiago is super nice and taught me some Brazilian slang and introduced me to some Brazilian music. We made a Sao Paulo dish called Cuz Cuz Paulista.

Thiago and Isis.

Thiago showed me around downtown and we went up to Edificio Altino Arantes and got a nice view of the city.
Sao Paulo city is huge with tons of high rise buildings

Suddenly rain poured, we got all wet and we went to a juice bar. Juice bar in Brazil is popular because Brazil has a lot of tropical fruits. Some popular local fruits are Guarana ad Acai. Thiago has classes in the evening so I just wandered around the city. I still have not watched the movie Bruno so I called up Bomi and it’s very nice of Bomi to accompany me to watch the movie. What can I say, Sacha Cohen is one crazy actor and we had a good laugh. On a second thought, maybe it’s not a good idea to watch Bruno with a pretty Brazilian Korean girl.

Still standing after Bruno

Thiago picked me up from Paulista Mall and we went to a bar at Itaquera to have vaca atolada soup. There is a live music at the bar, they are playing MPB which combine Jazz with Samba.

Went to the tourist information center so I can get a map of Sao Paulo. The place is at Sao Joao 465 and close to the Sao Bento subway station. Found out that there is a place to have a bird eye view of city and the building is called Edificio Altino Arantes. It’s just right at the corner of the Brazilian futures exchange. Unfortunately, the place was close so I will try to get there again tomorrow.

A steep street towards the shopping area of 25 march.

Rua 25 de Marco which have wholesellers selling all kinds of goods from underwear to electronics.

Heard that there are many Chinese from wenzhou that made a fortune setting up shops here.

Tried asking directions on the street from someone on the street and funnily he is from Malaysia, pretty crazy. Got some tips about doing business in Brazil and learned that the cut off date of getting a permanent residency was Jan this year. Those that still want to
get permanent resident here can pay just a few hundreds to a lawyer for some under the table procedures.

Theresa who I met in New York is back in Sao Paulo so I plan to visit her restaurant in Campinas.(Campinas is the third largest city in Sao Paulo state, around 1.30-2 hours bus ride)

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Took the 2.30pm bus (Lira) to Campinas and arrived at Theresa’s restaurant around 5pm.

Me and Theresa

There are many nice apartment buildings in Campinas.

The cities I been to in Brazil so far are comparable to any other first world cities unlike what I expected from a third world country. Brazil has great infrastructures, very clean subway, good roads and well planned cities.

Took bus 386 from R. Maria Monteiro to Campinas bus terminal then got on the 8.30pm Cometa bus to Sao Paulo. Cometa has more buses and is faster than Lira. I just write this down so I will remember if I am coming back again.