Introduction to Brasil

Oi! This means hello in Portugese. Its pronounced as "oui". Some brief facts & trivials about Brasil that i learnt in this 1st week here. I am grateful for being able to be here. Like what CQ said, how many Singaporeans can say that they've been to Latin America? I would say its really fun to be out here in Latin America!

1. The whole of Latin America speaks Spanish except for Brazil which speaks Portugese. Having said that, Portugese is pretty similar to Spanish just that some pronounciations are different. Kind of like Indonesian Malay versus Malaysian Malays where they pronounce certain stuff different like "a".

2. 10% of Brazil's population is in Sao Paulo = 17 million people; Rio has about 6 to 7 million people

3. Rio de Janeiro versus Sao Paulo = Bali versus Jakarta (I've been to all 4 places so i really feel this is a very apt description)

4. Obrigada/Obrigado
It means Thank you, "da" is for ladies, like i would say obrigada and guys would say obrigado. So in Portugese, a lot of words differentiates gender. "a" for ladies and "o" for man. Like Fernanda & Fernando. ;)

5. Needless to say, everyone here LOVES SOCCER!! i still hope to catch a game here. Must be fun!

6. A lot of hunks and babes. For real!

7. On Saturday, 2 reporters were kidnapped in Sao Paulo, just within walking distance from my hotel. No kidding....

8. Currency for Brazil is "Real", pronounced locally as "re-ai" or "he-ai". Totally different from what I would say as real.. haha..

9. And for words ending with the letter "t", it would be pronounced as "chi". For example, might would become "migh-chi". But thats only for Portugese words, not for english words. If not I think I would have a good time trying to understand my auditees.

10. Beggars here prefer to stay as is because they earn more than a doctor in a public hospital, which is about R$900 a month.

11. Capital of Brazil is Brasilia; Sao Paulo is the major business city and Rio is more like its famous touristy city.

12. Brazil is considered a 3rd world country, with annual inflation of up to 8%. Thus, they have labor laws which stipulate a mandatory pay increase every year. All employees in Brazil are under a union.

13. My view is that things here are expensive due to the inflated currency. My typical lunch meal would be about S$15 at least.

14. Brazilians like to eat meat and the kopi here is fantastic!! I dont even remember how many cups I drink a day.

15. Most restuarants here are buffet style. There is one near my office where we would fill our plate with food we want from a buffet spread. Then we would weigh the plate and in turn get a card with the amount to be paid. This is a pretty cool idea I think. Semi buffet style..

16. Outside of Japan, Brazil has the most number of Japanese presence. So in every place/restuarant we go, theres bound to be some Japanese food. Been eating salmon sashimi almost everyday! I'm lovin' it!

17. Dinners here typically start after 9. I went for dinner with some of the office folks and we started drinks at 8+, and dinner started only at 10+. When I say started, I mean start to order. So the food took another long while to be served and I got back to hotel only at 130am. This was on a Wednesday mind you..

18. Famous Brazil beverage besides kopi is Caipirinha. This is an alcoholic drink, kinda like vodka. My pics would show the way to make a caipirinha. Its typically made with lime.

19. Brazil is a tropical place, rather similar to Singapore. However, it has winter which is now, and the temperature is like 20 degrees. Nice cooling weather with nice sunshine. As good as it could ever be..

20. Lychee is called "Lichia" in Portugese and it is pronounced as "li-shia"

I am sleepy already. Time to stop. I am in the process of uploading my pictures. I realised that I over did it and now i have trouble uploading them. My new toy made me all excited about photo taking all over again. Wonder how long it'd last.