Purplelake: Day 1-3 – Jun 22-24, 2019 Sao Paulo, Brazil

We traveled in style for this trip, flying business class with Aeromexico. This is the first trip we fly with this airline and the experience is mixed. The service is good and their food is quite decent. The drawback is both connections in Mexico City are long (4.5h outbound and 10.5h inbound). Mexico City airport T2 is not up to world standard. It is quite small, congested, and worst, with weak A/C. Even the flagship Aeromexico lounge is disappointing. They don’t seem to have A/C on. We were sweating like no tomorrow. Food is lousy. The only saving grace is there are THREE bars serving lots of liquor, wines, drinks, etc. Good thing we have already planned to do a day trip out in Mexico City on our way back and not linger in the airport any longer than necessary.

We landed in Sao Paulo at 6:05a but it took half an hour for the plane to get to the “gate” and deplane. Very inefficient. We were almost diverted to Rio de Janeiro due to morning fog visibility issue so we shouldn’t complain. Our room at the Radisson was not ready at the early hour so we stored the luggage and headed out to town. It is our luck that the Pride Parade in Sao Paulo happened on Ave Paulista. All the businesses and buildings along the route were shut down out of precaution, including one of the star attractions MASP (Museum of Art of Sao Paulo).

Business Class on Aeromexico. Champagne to start the flight!

Ave Paulista is normally closed for pedestrians to use on Sunday. Today, part of it is closed for the Pride Parade.

We inadvertently became part of the Pride Parade under the rainbow flag!

Even the pedestrian traffic light signs have been "homogenized"

Participants in the parade are all very serious about dressing up

Very elaborate costume!

Next we stopped by Se, the central square next to the Cathedral. We were shocked by how many homeless were there in this city, most lingered around this inner city neighbourhood. We saw quite a few people lying on the street on our way into town but here at the Old Town center, there were hundreds! Walking to the Mercado Municipal wasn’t fun if you have to step over people lying on the streets! We went to the municipal market to sample one of the must try dishes in Brazil, Mortadella. It’s essentially a huge smoked meat/pastrami sandwich on crusty buns with sun-dried tomatoes and cheese. It is yummy and tastes similar to Montreal smoked meat sandwich except this packs some spiciness. The rest of the Mercado is quite disappointing, filled with tourist traps like very pricey fruit stands and other gourmet deli shops.

All abroad the Sao Paulo subway train

Cathedral of Sao Paulo. Homeless people everywhere in the park (can you see the guy taking shower in the public fountain behind?)

Colorful fruit stands inside the Mercado Municipal. Too bad they are tourist traps. Look at the price they are asking for the fruits!

The Mercado is jammed with tourists. Not too many locals

They have two floors in the market

This mortadella sandwich is why we are here. Yummy huge stack of pastrami with cheese and sundried tomatoes on toasted bun

Mercado Municipal

The Immigration Museum of Sao Paulo State is only a short subway ride from Mercado where the history of immigration to Sao Paulo is nicely documented. Brazil (Sao Paulo in particular) has a long history of importing huge numbers of migrant workers to work in their coffee field. As a result, there is a tremendous mix of different cultures and people in Sao Paulo, including Japanese, blacks, and Europeans. Most of the Japanese congregated in the Liberdade area which became known as the Japan Town of Sao Paulo. It was very busy especially on Sunday when streets became a market place with stalls selling everything from calligraphy pens to pan fried gyozas. It’s kind of strange that locals and tourists alike all have so much fun shopping, eating, and exploring in a minority cultural setting (Japanese) surrounded by a foreign majority culture (Brazilian)!

On our way back to the hotel, we chanced upon a local supermarket selling lots of fruits. I have never seen avocado this big and inexpensive before (the size of a soccer ball only costs CAD 1.50)! The sweet sops (custard apples) were just ripe and so sweet and we hardly had starfruits so ripe and sweet anywhere before. Brazil is well known as a fresh fruit heaven and we were lucky to find this place.

Window inside Immigration Museum of Sao Paulo

Display inside Immigration Museum of Sao Paulo

Garden of Immigration Museum of Sao Paulo

Street market in Liberdade, Sao Paulo's Japan town

Japan town in Sao Paulo is quite big and busy

Have you seen avocado this big?

Even after the upgrade, our hotel room is barely up to North American standard. Yiling is not used to no coffee machine in the room. There is a small kitchenette in our room but the cupboard is bare. We even have to ask for a kettle. The saving grace for this hotel comes in the morning breakfast buffet. It’s one of the nicest breakfast buffets we have seen in our travel. There are lots of fresh fruits (watermelon, pineapple, papaya, melons, grava), deli and cheese, tons of baked goods, omelet/waffle/crepe station, Japanese breakfast items, hot entrée items like grilled fish, chicken, miso soup, and the usual bacon, eggs, potato, etc.

Beco de Batman (Batman’s Alley) is a neighborhood known for its street art. For a few blocks, street artists painted giant murals as their artistic expression. It’s like graffiti went wild! From there, we took a bus to Parque Ibirapuera to take a picture of Monumento as Bandeiras. This is a monument to celebrate the 17^th century settlers of Brazil. Strolling across the giant park where the residents comes to relax and jog, we took another bus to Pinacoteca do Estado de Sao Paulo (State Art Museum). This is not a big place but the art collection showcases Brazilian artists as well as classical European artists.

We ran out of time to visit the rooftop terrace of Edificio Martinelli so we went back to Liberdade for another stroll of the Japan Town and tried the local version of poke and sushi. The poke is definitely not as good as the Hawaiian ones.