My first hours in Brazil: a little bit of everything

As soon as I arrived in São Paulo, my dear little sister took me to the Japanese neighborhood for lunch. The place is called Liberdade (Liberty). I heard it has the biggest Japanese community outside Japan, but I do not know if this is true (I did not check the information).



The place is quite an experience: all stores are run by Japanese descendents, you hear japanese in the streets and the signs are in Japanese. Not sure if it is like being in Japan, but certainly it is not like being in São Paulo.

Sunday is a special day because they have a street market, called "feirinha da liberdade". You can buy food and all types of articrafts.




















But the most interesting part of the visit was the unexpected things I found there. The picture below is a guy selling bonsais on top of an old Brazilian car called Variant. This car was released in Brazil in 1969, and this one in the picture might be from the 1970s.



I also found a lady preaching an African-Brazilian religion in the street market. She was giving away prayers for two Catholic saints - Cosme e Damião. She told me she was of one particular sect, Oxum-oxóssi, but I could not find anything in English explaining in detail what this means (and I would be clearly unable to do it myself). After giving me some popcorn, with very specific instructions on how to make a wish and throw the popcorn in a garden, she kindly agreed to the photographed. So, here we are: