Ibitipoca National Park

Ibitipoca is a beautiful National Park near Juiz de Fora. Today we went there to do some of the bush walks there. I loved it! The nature was amazing and we walked up and down quite a few hills to get to the nicest little places with caves and waterfalls.

janela do céu - window to the sky

ponte de pedra - stone bridge

cachoeira dos macacos - monkey waterfall

cachoeirinha - little waterfall

Churrasco - The Brazilian BBQ

Barbecues are a very important part of Brazilian culture and they know how to grill meats very well!

They grill the different meats (beef, pork, chicken, sausage) in big chunks and cut it into thin juicy slices before serving. And - like all the meals here - you eat it with rice. Without rice nothing is considered a real meal here ;-)

Liberdade - Japanese district of São Paulo

São Paulo is the home of the biggest Japanese community outside of Japan.
Today we went to visit the district of the city with the strongest Japanese influence. It was really nice. They have shops here with only Japanese products, like electronics, comics, movies and foods. Of course everything is written in Japanese :-)

Centro de São Paulo

This week is another public holiday here and I got the chance to go to São Paulo again to see a little bit more of this gigantic city. This time we went right into the city center where the city was founded.

Catedral da Sé

Geografical center of the city

VW Beetles

A curious fact about Juiz de Fora:
Here I see more VW Beetles in one day than in Germany in my whole life! Somehow this little car (they call it "Fusca") is very, very popular here. Apparently one of the past mayors loved and promoted them a lot...

Old VW Buses are also very popular!

Açaí

Açaí is a berry that grows a lot in Amazonia in the north of Brazil. There they grow it, freeze it and transport it to all the other parts of Brasil and of the world.

There are different ways to eat it. Here in Juiz de Fora they make smoothies and ice-cream out of it. When they mash it up, it becomes a dark purple puree. Often they eat this sweet half-frozen puree with milk powder or granola and fruits. It's very tasty and they say açaí is full of healthy vitamins as well :-)

Easter Eggs

Happy Easter! Here for Easter the typical gifts are chocolate Easter eggs filled with little toys or chocolates. Although they sell them in every supermarket, the one I got was homemade and surely better than the bought ones!