Chinelos Galore!

I just came back to my room to take a rest. We were tired from walking near Sao Jao street, trying to see the and appreciate the city.

This morning, my colleague and I ate breakfast at around 8 am. I woke up at 4:00 am today (3:00 pm Manila time) and I was not able to sleep anymore. Maybe my biological clock is still adjusting but at least the jetlag did not bother me that much. Since I cannot sleep anymore, I just wrote some blogs and try tried to clean-up my MS Outlook. After my laptop battery was over, I decided to took a bath. It was so cold here but I still took a bath at around 6:30 am. I was chilling while taking a bath but the cold weather will not stop me from taking a bath daily, typical for Filipinos!

My colleague and I took breakfast in the hotel cafeteria. By the way, we were lucky enough to find a cheap room at USD 22 per single room per night here in Brazil and that’s inclusive of breakfast already. However, the airport taxi was so expensive! We were fetched from airport to Plaza Hotel in Sao Jao, Sao Paolo at Brazilian Real 80—that’s around PhP 2,300! It was so expensive but at least we are sure that we are safe! We never risked with a cheap transportation here!

After breakfast, we went out of the hotel. It was so cold—probably around 15 degrees C (though I experienced a much colder temperature in Strassbourge, France at around 8 degress C). We took a walk, took pictures with the nice landmarks and familiarized ourselves with the place but one thing we have to accomplish for today is to find Havaianas! They say that Havaianas is cheap here and lots of his colleagues asked him to buy some. I only got one colleague who asked me to buy a pair of Havaianas.

After a long walk, We found a couple of stores which sell Havaianas footwears. We just looked around first coz he still did not have local money then we went back to hotel first to take a rest.
After an hour, we started to find a money changer for him. It’s really difficult to be a tourist in a non-English-speaking country. We tried to find banks and it was so disappointing to know that even banks here do not change USD to Brazilian Real. Of the 5 people we asked where we can change the money (usually using sign language and short English), all keep on pointing at the same direction. I think there is only one stall which changes USD to local money. Finally, we found the shop and we were ready to buy the Havaianas!

We went to the store where we scouted early morning and guess what?! It costs only BR 6-20, depending on the style. Ipanema costs the same but a little more expensive than Havaianas. Imagine, the most expensive costs only around PhP450 while in Manila the cheapest I think is PhP600?! It was so cheap but it was so heavy for my luggage but still, I bought some for my family.


With the cheap cost of this branded ‘chinelos’ (’tsinelas’ in Tagalog and ’slippers/Slip-ons’ in English), other items are not cheap here. Food is expensive. The cheapest is BR 5.00 which is around Php 140. A bottle of mineral water (500 ml) costs around Php 45 and a can of Coke costs around PhP 55. I just don’t have an idea how much the transportation costs coz we still have not ridden any public transportation except for the ariport taxi which we really assume to be expensive. I can compare the cost of living here to be the same as Singapore, a little cheaper than Europe and not as cheap as in Thailand.
I also observed that there are lots of shops for tattoos and ear piercings. They really are so liberated! A few have dreadlock braids but most women show off their skin and cleavages. As per my colleague, this was what he observed in women. I never paid attention to them at all. hehe! But according to him, most women are beautiful, even the storekeepers whom you would not expect to be that beautiful when you are in the Philippines. So far, I was not amazed with the men. They don’t look oustandingly handsome for me… just typical white foreigners!
It is neither safe here. There are lots of people around, most are punks, some are beggars, some are stand-byers whom you can see on the street as early as 8am. At night, there seem to be lots of prostitutes around. Probably the reason why this hotel is cheap is because we are near a ‘red light’ area?! I really have no idea but actually, according to my colleague, this hotel looks like a motel, though for me, it’s a ‘good enough’ room for sleeping! hehe! Anyway, we’ll just stay here for 2 nights, just to have a place to sleep and take a bath. Tomorrow, we’ll be transferring to Hotel Tryp in Campinas for the official business accommodation and the accommodation there costs around USD 85 per night, as compared to this USD 22 per night room.
I think that will be all for my story for today. If I sill have extra time tomorrow, I will write something again about my stay here in Sao Paolo—originally made in Brazil!
Muchos gracias!
Plaza Hotel, Sao Paolo
01aug2008
15:30 hrs local time