I awake to a coughing fit around 3 AM. Other than that little interruption, I have a pretty good night's sleep. Rising at 8.
Alexei knocks on my door, as arranged, at 9. No Andrew, of course. He isn't really a breakfast person. Or a before midday person.
The breakfast room is large and busy. I have scrambled egg and cheese for my main. Fruit for pudding. Washed down with buckets of coffee and orange juice.
There’s no bacon. Just those weird slices of sausage floating in some red stuff. Alexei gives that a go, but isn’t too impressed.
“What’s the red stuff, dad?”
“No idea.” Not sure I want to know, really. “I steer well clear of it.”
“Dad, would you watch Young Sheldon?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“For obvious reasons.”
“Which are?”
“That it’s total shite.”
“And?”
“I’m not an idiot. That enough reasons?”
“No.”
“Well, they’re enough for me.”
After a little chilling in my room, we venture to the metro. The closest stop isn't far. While we're trying to work out how to get tickets, I nice security guard comes up to us and explains how it works in pretty much perfect English. We just need to get paper tickets from the counter. It's a pretty simple process. And pay in cash, weirdly.
It’s very spacious here. Which implies they have masses of people passing through.
We're only going two stops. To the cathedral.
“Look, they have the Spanish system.” Andrew remarks, as the doors open on both sides. One side to get on, the other to get off. That also implies that it gets very busy.
“They have that in the centre of Munich, too.” I respond.
The cathedral is pretty impressive. Not so much in the area it covers, as in its height. Some lovely stained glass, too.
There’s a very strong police presence around the cathedral. Should that reassure or worry me?
Next stop is Japan Town. We could take the metro for one stop. But that seems a waste. Instead, we walk. It isn't that far. On the way, we pas a shop with a very impressive display of meat. So impressive, I take a photo.
It's very busy. I suppose it is Saturday. We're looking for a restaurant. I expected there to be loads. There aren't.
Eventually we find one, Banri. It's pretty full. We have to wait a while for a table. Then things start going wrong.
We try to order drinks. But there's some problem. We get the help of a waiter. But they can’t fix it, either. It seems that they're out of the beer the kids wanted. Great. It takes around 10 minutes to fix.
We order spring rolls and gyozas. You can never go wrong with gyozas. And more drinks. Caipirinha for me, Heineken for the kids.
Some of the menu items – like chop suey – aren’t exactly Japanese. Not even authentic Chinese.
“Dad, would you live in the USA?”
“I did live there. Surely you know that?”
“I mean would you live there again?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Lack of a safety net.”
“What do you mean?”
“One accident, and you’re fucked. I had two. My pair of broken ankles would have cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“Wouldn’t your insurance pay?”
“Hahaha . . .” I laugh so hard I have a coughing fit.
After a few minutes of coughing: “No.”
We finish with a plate of sushi and gyozas all around. Then it's a walk back to the cathedral and the metro.
On the way from the metro to our hotel, we drop by a supermarket. For sandwich makings. And some drinks, of course. We get a bottle of 51 cachaca. It's just 11 reals something. About 2 euros. For almost a litre. Obviously, this being Brazil it comes in a weird measure: 965 mil.
We eat drink and watch YouTube. Before turning in pretty early. We fly back tomorrow.
Restaurante Banri
R. Galvão Bueno, 160
Liberdade,
São Paulo
SP, 01506-000.
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4 comments:
Before reading this, I didn't know about the Japanese community in Sao Paulo. Turns out it's the biggest outside Japan and began in the early twentieth century when landless peasants were shipped there as cheap agricultural labour on farms in the city's rural hinterland (until abolition in 1888, those fields would have been worked by African slaves). Seems like they had a bit of a rough time in WWII when Brazil joined the Allies, but have prospered since.
It's endearing how people from countries with functioning health systems believe the US works - insurance pays...good one. Even if you've got the greatest health insurance a minor illness will set you back 1000's.
Be careful when photographing meat. I was told off for trying to take pictures of bratwurst in Nuremberg.
I mean, there’s a fair argument that supports the notion that following the end of WW2, South America became a welcoming, ( at times MORE than welcoming), depot for the dregs of the former Axis powers. Seeing as Left Wing politics were rapidly becoming a substantive threat to the powers that were at the time, which were more often than not, hardly at all sympathetic to the ideas of Marx et al. Combine in with that the not at all inconsequential involvement of western intelligence agencies, and one can begin to see why the west thought it very advantageous to protect their investments against people that sought to reserve the right of their own resources for themselves. Really helps having literal and pseudo fascists around when those are the stakes, apparently.
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