Brazil: I Scream for Ice Cream

Day 7: August 21

It seems like I only get woken up nowadays to eat lunch. Originally the plan was to go out to eat, but lunch was already made, so we didn't go out. Played a few games of LoL before going out for a drive to look at some places. Along the way I finally passed level 147 in Candy Crush!!! I've been stuck on this level since before finals.

After we came back, we were trying to look for socks because my dad's an idiot and only packed like 3 pairs, bar soap, and a trash bin because I think I broke it :'( I ended up getting some snacks, mostly instant noodles lol.

Justin at the supermarket

Came back and it was time to eat..and I got tired so I took a ~20 minute nap. I woke up to go eat ice cream at a place called Ice by Nice at Fiusa. It's right next to a MousseCake. Since it was nighttime (~10:00PM) I couldn't get a clearer shot of the place.

 Mousse de Morango

 Morango, Chocolate, & Cia

It was R$16.50-$17.00 each..so not too expensive not too cheap. I ordered the Mousse de Morango. Lots of whipped cream though and the strawberries weren't that sweat. There was also something else in it, but no idea what... it reminded me of Greek yogurt but not mixed that well.

On my way back to the car, I saw these cotton looking things all over the ground. Any idea what it is? O_O It's not actual cotton though, I think it fell from the trees or something maybe?

Doesn't it look a bit like snow from afar?

Came back home and that was it for the night.

Anyways, until next time! :)

Brazil: Sleep, Eat, Sleep, Eat

Day 6: August 20

I literally did nothing all day today but sleep and eat T_T;;; I was woken up around noon to go eat lunch so I did and afterwards I was on my laptop for a bit before I got tired so I went to sleep lol.. for a few more hours. When I woke up the house was already dark because the sun was setting :o

 Not long after dinner, my cousin brought home pizza. It's kinda different from pizza in the US because it's a lot cheesier and the toppings are under the cheese :o! It's kinda messy to eat though..because the toppings end up falling all over the place. The crust was thin, which I liked but tasted a bit different. I realized that black olives have seeds inside. Mind blowing :X

Eggs, ham, onions, and tomato topping.

I ate two and a half pieces :( Going to get super fat before I come home.

Anyways, until next time!

Brazil: Nail Polish Haul

Day 5: August 19

Slept in today until around 1:00PM and got woken up to eat lunch. On my way to to lunch, I fell up the stairs and bruised/scraped my knees :( When I was done eating, I went out to browse around a bit and tried to look for the Hits Speciallita no Olimpo collection, but nothing :( I saw some holos the other day and hoped they were these, but they were from another collection. Soo I went overboard and bought a bunch of nail polish again. :X I picked up a few at first then got tempted so.. bleh. My Discover card works, which is what I used for this purchase. Kind of regretted it since I did have just enough cash, but I was tempted to use my card so I did. Rofl.

When I came back, I went out again but with my mom. We went to buy more nail polish LMAOO. I told her to get it as souvenirs for her co-workers and while I was there I was browsing again, so I did more damage, sigh. 

Damage so far.. I guess it doesn't look like much ;c

Our next stop was looking for a photo frame for my mom. She wanted to get one because she brought over a picture and wanted to get a frame for it...so we did. We looked around and I was able to grab some souvenirs for friends too.

Not long after getting back, it was time for dinner. Ahh it was like a feast! Not to mention I had to drink soup first and it was super hot, so it was awful trying to finish it so I could dig in :(

When I got back to the house, I basically just spent some time to talk to my cousin and briefly with my mother and now I'm here ! ;o

Brazil: Around the City & Birthday Celebration

Day 3: August 17

Woke up at like 7:00AM today for some odd reason.. even more strange considering I was super tired last night and still went to bed at around 3:30AM.

I don't remember if I ever mentioned this but it gets pretty cold here in the morning/nighttime, like right now it's 55°F and I was told it was getting hot here..so I only brought clothes appropriate for the summer. I have a pair of jeans and a few thin long-sleeves but that's about it. It got hot during the day yesterday though, so I went to change, but when nightfall came, it got cold again so I had to change back.

Also forgot to mention this, but I'm staying with relatives here and their place is pretty nice. It's very clean, I guess and the furniture throughout the house matches O_O It's like a glossy, dark wood. The only downside is that only one side of the house can get wifi and I'm limited to only two locations of charging my laptop because of the socket. So I can either charge by the TV, where I can't get wifi, or in the computer room but my cousin needs to sleep, so.

 Condos built in the last 10 years..with more being built.

So I went around town with my cousin, and we were basically around a neighborhood called Fuisa. I was getting really tired and fell asleep in the car at some point :( My cousin dropped by a friend's house and they were chatting for at least an hour, so it was getting boring zzz. I got three bug bites while waiting for him, too. ;~;

After getting back, I took a nap only to be woken up to go out to a steakhouse for dinner. I don't remember what it was called, but it was yummy. Maybe like a 7/10. When I got back, I was locked out so I chatted with a cousin until people got home.

Day 4: August 18
Got woken up around 12:30PM to go to Pinquim Restaurante for a Chinese lunch buffet. I think it costs R$16,50/person. There wasn't much of a selection and the food was okay. Nothing bad, but don't expect anything good.

Dropped by Shopping Santa Úrsula afterwards to help my cousin's girlfriend look for a birthday gift. 

I saw a stand called Missmalta which had a bunch of nail polish, so naturally I went to take a look. The prices were about the same as everywhere else, some more expensive. I saw these Hello Kitty ones and had to have one -_- It was like R$9,90 each, I think, so I only chose one.

I felt bad that my cousin's girlfriend paid for it though. I wanted to pay for it myself, but couldn't really speak up, as simple as that sounds. Mainly because she took it from me and was paying for another one as well and I couldn't offer to pay because I didn't want to seem selfish for paying for just mine because I didn't have enough money for both and the other one was a spontaneous gift for another cousin, so I didn't feel like it was appropriate for me to pay for it. But I guess since she's my cousin, it should be appropriate lol. I dunno, I feel like I'm just making up excuses for not speaking up. -_-

I went out for dinner at Estância Churrascaria for a birthday celebration. Lots and lots of people gathered for the event. A room was reserved on one side of the restaurant.

It was buffet style. I'm assuming it normally is too..or else they wouldn't have that counter there o_O

Honestly, I wasn't a fan of the food. This was about all I ate, plus a few pieces of other things that the servers came to serve us. Now that I think about it, there were coasters that says "Sim, por favor" and "Não, obrigado" so I guess that's what you were supposed to say to them depending if you wanted it or not -_-

For the sashimi lovers...be jealous !! I started eating raw sushi this year, and more recently, but I still don't think I can handle it yet. In small chunks, I can, but it was really nasty eating a piece. I grabbed two, so I didn't want to waste it either. 

Overall, the night was kind of awful, mainly because of the language barrier. Naturally, everyone spoke Portuguese, so I couldn't really socialize. I just minded my own business and it was a damn long night too. We were there for like 2-3 hours. And in one of the group photos, I was posed so awkwardly, with my hands on my thighs, gah. It felt normal, but when I saw the photo, it was like..fml. 

Finally it was time to go, so yay! And now I'm here.. Eleven more days ;0 I hope it'll be fun. 

Anyways, until next time!

Annual New York Trip #3

Last month I went to New York with a bunch of friends to continue on the tradition of going to New York every year. Post about it last year [here].

Day 1: July 28

We headed out early in the morning, I think around 7:00AM after grabbing some congee for breakfast. I didn't sleep that night, so I knocked out the entire car ride. After arriving and dropping off our stuff, we went out to eat at Cha Chan Tang (茶餐廳).

Cola wings..kinda tastes like soy sauce wings to me, but I think it's made with actual coca cola.

Curry chicken..once again I couldn't finish it :(

We roamed around Chinatown and went to Chinatown Fair Family Fun Center, an arcade, briefly afterwards. Then we went to Times Square like tourists would. I got some earrings and rings from Forever21 :0 No pics, but they're cute :) 

This girl showed me a nail art kit (forgot what it was called) at Toys "R" Us and I thought the design on my ring ringer is so nice ;0 I took this pic a few days later, which is why my index finger has tip wears. The kit was like.. $25 though so nty. It's like one side is a normal applicator, like a brush, and the other is a fine pointed pen. The pen works while applied polish is still wet.

Made our way to the Rockefeller Center for some reason and some of us parted. We were getting hungry so we tried to find a place to eat. There were several complications, such as Google Maps being shitty and bringing us to the wrong place. I entered a place by name and it took me to another place T_T;; I should've known when the name showed up differently, but I was being dumb and gave it the benefit of doubt of having its name changed. -_-

Settled for the 53rd & 6th Halal Cart. I read the reviews to go to the longer line one, but I expected them to be right next to each other, but I only saw one so we went to that one and the line was suspiciously short, but I thought we were just lucky or something. 

When we crossed the street to look for the fountain to sit at, we saw the other cart with its super long line. -_- Ffs. It was $6 and yummyy. I wonder what the longer line cart would've tasted like :(

Rooftop view from the place I was staying at.

Day 2: July 29

Stayed up most of the night streaming Friends online. So..as a result I slept in quite a bit, until almost noon. I probably shouldn't have so we'd have more time to do other things, but I was tired :'(

Went out to Chinatown again for jerky, but they ran out of spicy ones :'( So we got some sweet jerky and the guy said there'd be more in two hours. 

In the meantime, we grabbed brunch at Public. The portions were fairly small, but filling enough. Decided to try something new so I got their "Fry-up" which has poached eggs. It was so-so. I think the food wasn't really my style so I'd have to give it a 6/10. Nothing wrong with it, just not worth the $13.

We went back to the jerky place after an hour and forty-five minutes. The guy said thirty more minutes, I think, and turns out the spicy one was all reserved for later too, so we just left. A couple of friends, who decided to tour around separately, came after a while and they told them longer too. -_- What the hell.

Our destination for the day: Brooklyn Height Promenade to look at the Manhattan Skyline View

We got off at Borough Hall and walked there..but Google Maps lead me to the wrong place again dammit. So after entering the right place, it took another 15 minutes or so to walk there..but it felt like half an hour T_T;; I think in the end we walked a huge circle to get here. 

 I think the actual Promenade closed down or something, so we were at the Brooklyn Bridge Park. The weather was like perfect. Kind of cloudy because it was supposed to rain, but the breeze was super nice. We relaxed for about half an hour or so before heading back so we wouldn't be late to leave.

We left around 5:00 and headed home. So that concludes the trip. Until next time!

Brazil: The First Few Days

My long awaited trip to Brazil is finally here :)! It's my first time in Brazil and in South America for that matter. I took off on the 14th around 2:30PM and was scheduled to arrive around 4:30AM.

Day 1: August 15

After getting to the airport, I had to transfer to another domestic flight to get to Ribeirão Preto. It was only like an hour flight. When I got there, I went out for an errand and when I got back I was super tired so I took a nap and KO'd for prob 5-7 hours only to be woken up for dinner. 

After dinner I went to a place called MousseCake and had some small eats. Not sure what any of it was called though. One dish was like crostini and it came with a side of tomatoes and melted cheese to top it with. Another was just mini cheeseburgers. Had passionfruit tea and Swedish lemonade (lemonade, condensed milk, and Sprite). No pics because I didn't want to be a weirdo :(

There's a soda called Guaraná Antarctica that I've been drinking. According to wiki, it's the 2nd most popular drink here, behind Coca Cola.It's made of a plant called guaraná...never even heard of it before. It reminds me of cream soda. 

Day 2: August 16

Got woken up around noon for lunch. After eating, I went out to browse about here and there. Came across a beauty store soo the first thing I thought of was nail polish lawl. So I went to check that out and omg there's so many *_* I didn't really have that much money because I only got some pocket money from my aunt and I never had the chance to exchange my money for the Brazilian real so.. I was limited to what I can get.

Then I just walked around more and ended up seeing the same two beauty stores, Cibele Perfumaria & Ramavi Cosméticos, at basically every corner lmao. After that I went home and took a shower and went out for another errand.

I ended up going to this beauty parlor to get a manicure and pedicure done professionally for the first time. I don't remember what the color of my nails was called. It was something aqua, a frosty teal color. I don't even remember the brand :\ The color I chose is Claudia Leitte's Abra Aqui. But uh I dunno how I feel about it because uh for the base coat the lady basically slapped it on and used her finger to smudge it even. Then she applied the nail polish and for top coat she slapped it on again.. like not even on the whole nail, like a swipe down.

As for the pedicure, I couldn't really see it since something was covering my vision lol. I chose Risque Poodle from their Dog collection(?) and two of my toes bled :( I'LL SPARE YOU THE PIC OF MY NASTY TOES.

Overall I liked the result, but tbh I have no idea if it was sanitary or not because it seemed like they reuse the tools without sanitizing. Like she just capped the cuticle nipper after using it ._. And I'm sure she put away all the other tools right after too. I just hope nothing gets infected or anything ._.;;;


Came back for dinner and then headed out again to the supermarket o_O I bought a couple of snacks and had some hot chocolate :D

They have Haagen Dazs and Strawberry Cheesecake sounds so so good but not paying R$22,90 for that T_T;;; Even the tiny carton is R$7,99.

That was about it for the night. I'll probably post often because I want to document the trip. The one thing I dislike about the trip is that I don't know any Portuguese so I'm pretty useless here. Like I feel so bad when people try to talk to me but I have no idea what they're saying or how to respond T_T;; I guess this is how immigrants feel when they go to a country with an unfamiliar language, except they have to stay there. When I was younger, every time I was at family gatherings or around some of my cousins I always wished to learn Portuguese but obviously, I didn't have that opportunity to lol.

Anyways, until next time. 

Canada no Go =(

I was planning on going to Canada today, but because I'm applying for my visa to Brazil, I don't have my passport so I can't go. So sad ='( Was hoping to be able to end my summer with both. I'm going to Brazil next week for two weeks, so cross my fingers that it'll be worthwhile.