Thomas Locke Hobbs
| Currently: Buenos Aires |
 |
| This is the Sky Bar from which I took the picture of São Paulo's skyline below. Even in this super-chic bar a beer is still only US$3. |
 |
| The view from Sky Bar at Hotel Unique. The hotel looks across Jardin Europa, a rich and low-rise residential neighborhood in the foreground to Jardins and Avenida Paulista, which is the line of skyscrapers in the background. Aside from the sheer number of high rises, the view is interesting because it doesn't peak like typical skyline views. The ridge has a more or less constant height extending seemingly forever in both directions. |
 |
| Skyline of Avenida Paulista from the roof of a friend's buildig on Frei Caneca. I posted pictures of this view a few weeks back but this time I went back with my digital SLR, at dusk, for better photos. |
Some Tedious Day-the-Life Shots
 |
 |
 |
 |
TV Gazeta on Ave. Paulista
 |
 |
Friend's Kitchen
 |
 |
Parque Burle Marx
 |
 |
| A nice park, totally inaccessible by anything other than car, designed by landscape artist and architect Roberto Burle Marx |
 |
| The nearby neighborhood, Vila Andrade, looks like some great real estate swindle with a huge number of towers going up. |
FIESP
 |
 |
| A funky building on Ave. Paulista holding the Sao Paulo industrial association. The windows are hidden behind a screen that resembles a thick chain-link fence. |
 |
 |
| Breakdancers in Parque Ibirapuera. I suppose pictuers of capoeira dancers would be more "typical". There were plenty of them as well on a crowded Sunday. |
Monumento As Bandeiras
 |
 |
 |
| The Monumento As Bandeiras sits at the entrance to Parque Ibirapuera. It was sculpted/designed by Victor Brecheret, one of Brazil's most prominent 20th century sculptors. |
Sweet Pizza
 |
| The translation is OK, but sweet pizza? |
 |
| Just an espresso cup. Claudio Edinger has Rio photos taken with a 4x5 camera. He used the tilts and swings to create funky focus effects. |
Chimarrão
 |
| What the Argentine's call yerba mate, the Brasilians call chimarrão. It's mostly drunk in the south of Brazil. The main difference from Argentina is that they drink it here in these Texas Drag Queen sized gourds. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| The beach at Barra da Lagoa on Ilha Santa Catarina, about 20km west of Florianopolis. It's a gorgeous beach that stretches unbroken for about 10km. The land is protected so there's nothing of these massive high rises ruining the view. |
 |
| In contrast Balneario Camboriu about an hour north of Florianopolis is a truly impressive concentration of 30 story, concrete high rises. Being there in off season gave it an eerily empty feeling, like some curfew had been imposed. I took the above photo from a bus. I liked the narrow-ness of the building. |
Tropical Bavaria
 |
 |
 |
| While in the south I found myself randomly for a couple of days in the city of Joinville. The area was mostly settled by German and Eastern European immigrants. There are a lot of charming older houses. The blue house is from the Immigration Museum. The mansion is now a bank branch. The desire to express this heritage seems mostly to manifest itself in a tendency to stick pitched roofs on top of new high rises. |
Itapema in the South
| I went with some friends for a week to Itapema and Florianopolis in the south of Brazil. Aside from the "extra-tropical" cyclone that hit, we had a lovely time. |
 |
 |
 |
Minhocão - Back to the Big Worm
 |
 |
 |
| A cloudy Sunday and I decided to return to the elevated expressway downtown that I blogged a few weeks back. Cloudy days are generally better for photographing. I was afraid to bring my $1000 digital SLR so I took a along a film camera. I'm sure if I get the pictures professionally scanned they'll be nice but I'm not too happy with the quality of these. I hope you enjoy, nevertheless. The expressway cuts thru an old, nice neighborhood, giving an interesting perspective on some of the grand, old houses: |
 |
 |
 |
Pimenta
 |
 |
| A pepper infused vinegar sauce. For spicy espetinhos. Another thing just lying around the house on a day I didn't feel like taking more pictures of buildings. |
O Brasileiro
 |
| "O Brasileiro" by Rafael Galvez, stuck ingloriously at the bottom of a stairwell at SP's Pinacoteca do Estado. |
 |
| I suppose it's cliché to take pictures of hand-painted signs. Anyway, I ate the BIFE ARROZ FEIJÃO FRITA. Mmmm... |
 |
| Buildings under construction usually have this sheet draped over them, I assume to contain the dust. This building is going up along Ave. Paulista and looks to have an interesting shape. Per one of the banners at the bottom, Ruy Ohtake is involved with the project. He designed the Ohtake Cultural, which I blogged a couple of days ago. |
On the Bus
 |
 |
| São Paulo has just over 1000 bus routes, not counting the various suburban lines that feed into the city. The lines are identified with four digits which I find to be one too many to easily remember. What's more they tend to be concentrated on avenues. Where I live, for instance, there are 30+ separate lines going up Rua Teodoro Sampaio. Of these, probably 10 will take me to my destination. You have to quickly scan the small plaque on the side which lists the major avenues the route travels over. You thus need to know the major avenues of pretty much the whole city and to be able to scan them in a quick second to know where the bus is going. It's taken four months but I'm pretty good now with the center, southern and western parts of the city. Drop me off somewhere else and I'm lost. My upper-middle class Brazilian friends are impressed with my knowledge. For those who have money, São Paulo is a car city and most of them wouldn't dream of riding the bus. |
Centro Cultural de São Paulo
 |
 |
| Taking good advantage of a long, narrow embankment next to an expressway (23 de Maio), the Centro Cultural de São Paulo opened in the early 1980s and houses a library, gallery spaces, and a theatre. The main atrium is this crazy mess of ramps. It's the kind of architecture my ten year-old self would've loved--running up and down those ramps. I had to control myself to not look silly. |
 |
 |
| Nothing to say, really. Just some fruit that was lying around the house. Update: The orange is really a mexirica, a less acidic citrus fruit. Most oranges are green. The lower fruit is a mamão (big papaya). The striations were made with a fork by my roommate. Uma coisa caipira, a country thing, he said, something he learned from his mother to make it sweeter. |
Ohtake Cultural
 |
 |
 |
| The Ohtake Cultural combines offices with a cultural center. There are rotating exhibits and a permanent show of works by Japanese-Brazilian artist Tomie Ohtake. The building was designed by her son, Ruy Ohtake. This last picture is the view from our patio. The building reminds me of the Beverly Center. It seems more LA than LA itself. |
|
|
 | For more about me, please go visit my old geocities page. |