And I look out at the window

Literacy rate in the city is 95.4%.

The coffee shop

Here you can see what the coffee shop looks like. I love the stuff on the walls.

The area of São Paulo is 1,530 km2.

I'm so old

I'm turning 29 today, but let's not talk about that, okay? Anyway, this picture was taken between classes. I have to go to this place and teach 2 classes and then wait for an hour and a half to teach again. I hang out at this coffee shop, always reading a book, writing something and, obviously, having coffee.

As of today, we'll be adding a fact about São Paulo to each picture.

São Paulo is the 3rd biggest city in the world, population-wise, with 10,434,252 people.

My neighborhood

I live near to CGH airport. The noise is not pleasant, but you get used to it with time. Sometimes friends sleep over and wake up with a jump, unaware of the noise you hear from the jest flying over at 6am.

The airport starts its activities at 6am. As Ione has told you, it's an airport in the middle of the city, so they have to obey the "silence bill", which means there can't be any noise after 10pm.

Fair

Once a week, a street market where people can buy fruit, meat and vegetables takes place on a street in the neighborhood. The districts in São Paulo are very large (remember we have a population of nearly 10m), so there's more than one fair in each neighborhood, although in alternate days.

You can see in the picture not only my two nieces and my dog, but also a sign that says the day such fair takes place (Tuesday, in this case) and the time (from 4 am, when the trucks start parking so people can set their stands until morning, to 2 pm, when the street's suppposed to be all cleaned up). For 10 hours no cars are allowed.

Fruits and vegetables are usually cheaper in such street markets and they come fresh from CEASA, which is the largest distributor of such goods in all Latin America (as far as I know).



Also, notice how we use military time here. 24 hours on our clocks.

Parque da Aclimação

Yes, the water is green.

Art at the subway station

Tomie Ohtake, a Japanese artist living in Brazil, made these murals that are in Clínicas subway station. Each mural represents a season.

Japanese lamps

Fish in plastic bags, necklaces, Japanese lamps made of paper and the best tempura you can find. Liberdade.

Fish

More on the stuff you find at the market fair in Liberdade.

Colors

In the Japanese neighborhood, there's a street market on Sundays. Color, food, crafts and lots of fun.

Liberdade, the Japanese neighborhood

The city of São Paulo has the largest population of Japanese people living outside Japan. They came to Brazil in the begining of the XX century to work in farms mostly (as slavery was abolished in 1888). In São Paulo, they've settled in a neighborhood that would be later called Liberdade (freedom). I love the street lamp posts and the signs in Japanese.

My grandparents were among Japanese immigrants. My grandfather was a photographer (surprise, surprise!) and my grandmother helped him in the studio and ran the house. I didn't get to meet my grandma and I don't remember my grandpa much. He didn't speak much Portuguese and it was hard for me to understand the little he said with a very thick Japanese accent. He used to give me candy and he had puzzles inside cans for the granchildren to play with when we visited.

Praça da Sé

This is Praça da Sé, milestone zero, if there is such an expression. My English knowledges fail me now. Anyway, what I mean is Praça da Sé is (or used to be, when the city was not this huge) located exactly in the middle of the city. With Marcos' picture, you saw the underground. With this picture, you get to see what's on the surface.

Train

I took this at Santa Cruz subway station.

Metrô, Estação Sé - Sé Station

This is Sé subway station, the main station of São Paulo subway, not only because it's located downtown, but also because it connects north-south and east-west lines. 100,000 passengers go there each hour on rush hours.

I generally avoid this place because I hate crowds. :)

Stairs

Câmara Municipal de São Paulo.

Happy Post

View from the Banespa Building

Marcos has posted a picture of the Banespa Building and has mentioned the view we get once up there. Here it is.

Sky and tree

Okay, back to the bad pictures. This picture was taken when I was coming home last fall from a trip to our family's farm. Last fall had just the perfect weather. It was not too cold (well, yeah, as cold as it gets here in São Paulo, Brazil) and we had the most amazing sunny days. It's not a great picture - none of my pictures are-, but there's something about it I like. I guess it's because of the tree against the blue sky. Again, it's a shot of Avenida 23 de maio, with not so many cars, which only happens now and then.

Capoeira

Still on Avenida Paulista.

Capoeira is the mixture of martial art, dance, fight, popular music/culture, and a game/play. It's been created by African slaves brought to Brazil and their descendents. It's all about quick, complicated moves, frequently close to the floor and made upside-down, almost like acrobacies. It's not like any other fight because you kind of dance to music.

View from my window

Well, I didn't introduce myself: I'm Beth, the photographer wannabe of this blog.

Ione said in the first post Marcos and I are in charge of taking nice and artistic photos. What a responsibility! ;-)

I actually like to take photos from my window - the view made me choose this apartment to live, I love this sky. I'll try to take better pics, I promise not to only on my sky. ;)

Avenida Paulista

With no rain. :)

Rainy Saturday on Avenida Paulista

Ione, i think we were in the same place, at the same time. ;)

and this one kind of shows Avenida Paulista

I'm sure Beth and Marcos have better shots of Avenida Paulista, the financial center of São Paulo and one of our main streets. This, again, is an attempt to encourage them to post their good pictures. This is a threat. Post your pictures or get mine.



As you can see, it was a bit traffic-ey because of the rain. Even though I took this on a Saturday afternoon some time ago.

Street signs

They show numbers of the houses/buildings on that block, and the ZIP code.

Praça da Bandeira

Here's a picture showing Praça da Bandeira and Banespa Building.

Here's what it used to look like in the 50s.

Again, another shot taken downton. It used to be a nice square (Flag Square). I don't think either of us (Marcos, Ione or myself) ever got to see it when it was a beautiful spot downtown. Nowadays, the only thing there is the Brazilian flag. Next to the "square" there's a bus station.

Viaduto Santa Ifigênia

Viaduto Santa Ifigênia
http://sampacentro.terra.com.br/textos.asp?id=223&ph=27

Santa Ifigênia Overpass connects downtown São Paulo (Praça da Sé) and Rua Santa Ifigênia, where a large commerce of gadgets and eletronic items takes place.

Fun facts:
- All of its structure came from Belgium
- More than 750 thousand British pounds were spent to build it, which was the begining of a large debt, considering the money came to the city as a loan made by England to us.

Rua Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz Street)

Beautiful monday morning, going to work.

My street

Now the bad ones showing 23 de maio

This street starts downtown and goes south; it changes name at some point and takes you to CGH and to other neighborhoods.

Avenida 23 de maio (23 de maio avenue)

Fire!

These two pictures were taken when I was walking my dog 3 blocks from home. I've added some notes to the original pictures I used to make this mosaic. You can check them by clicking here and here.

I like to see how the smaller things we don't even notice are different in different places - like street signs and license plates, or uniforms and clothes - which, I believe, make each city or country so unique.