Viviane’s blog

Just came back from my yoga class… it was a special one, a different practice where people in circle sing mantras and offer flowers and fruits to each other. Moreover, it was a farewell to my teacher, she’s going to teach in Paris… wonderful! Great opportunity! I wish her all the luck. It’s also sad. We haven’t talked to each other too much during these 9 months, I got very attached though. I’ll miss her relaxing, peaceful, sweet voice. People come into our lives and go all the time… it’s life.
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Until some weeks ago I’d completely forgotten 2 local holidays we have every year in my city. One of them was yesterday. To make the most of it I had already planned to go swimming with some friends and last Thursday I discovered I had to work on Friday, damn! At night I went to kinda alternative pub with some friends, we played pool and there were 2 cover bands of Camel and Jethro Tull playing. Despite the fact I didn’t know any song, they played nicely and were worth listening to. Read the rest of this entry »

Last weekend I joined an excursion to São Paulo organised by the Japanese Association which my Japanese language school belongs to. The agenda for this trip was Japan Festival on Saturday and shopping at Liberdade district, the famous Japanese neighborhood, on Sunday. We set off last Friday night, I didn’t know almost anyone in the bus other than Cris, my classmate, Vivian and Kelen, other students, and a friend of my sister. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week began the International Theater Festival in my city. This is a festival which happens every year and where there are many plays in the theaters and squares around the city. The tickets are cheap or free. I watched a Japanese play called “King Yebi”, it was really great, the first one with subtitles I’ve ever seen. The sound effects were made by some people playing instruments and a wonderful singer. Even though it was a tragedy there were some funny parts with the actors saying some Portuguese words. I also watched a French one, “Le Concert de Feu”, in a square. They presented percussion synchronized with fireworks. It was very crowded, so I couldn’t see the stage very well but the fireworks were very nice.
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This year is the Japanese immigration centenary. Lots of things are going on… the prince of Japan Naruhito is visiting some cities and tomorrow he’s coming to Belo Horizonte. I’ve been watching lots of things on news, tv programs, reading articles, seeing tributes, especially these weeks.. I couldn’t imagine that Japanese immigration had such importance to Brazil.. I mean I did know that here is the biggest Japanese community (about 1,5 million) outside Japan, but I’ve never seen such a big celebration for other immigrants and we do have big communities of Italians, Germans… Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday my classmates and our teacher from my Japanese course came home to have dinner. The original reason for this meeting was to choose a song to sing in the last class of this semester, which we didn’t do actually. Each class will present something, I think. Kelly and her husband Hiroki decided to make temaki, they brought salmon and tuna and a special knife to cut sashimi and Hiroki knew how to season properly the rice used to make temaki, which I think is very difficult. Midori　sensei (the teacher) brought kare raisu (curry rice), very nice by the way. I fried harumaki (bought in a supermarket, not made by me). Gabriel and his girlfriend Isa brought brownies with ice-cream and Thiago, my cousin, brought Japanese songs. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re already in June, almost half year has gone by… so fast! Last weekend my mom came back from her first trip abroad, she traveled with my sister, Akemi, to Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Santiago (Chile). She was very excited to tell us about everything so we kept talking and watching their pictures till late last Saturday. The best parts according to her were to see snow for the first time and watch a Tango performance in a fancy restaurant. I’m really glad for her.
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After our looooong friday night, I had only 3 hours left to sleep. I woke up very tired, with headache, took a tablet and went to pick up the other girls. Sebastian said that it was better to take a bus to Trindade, which is a small village 20km far from Paraty with only one street and beautiful beaches. It’s a very popular place, so it becomes crowded and difficult to park. We tried to catch the 11a.m. bus but we missed it then decided to go by car. As soon we arrived we lay down on sand, everyone was too sleepy. After entering in the water and sun-bathing a bit I could recover my energies and we started to walk along the beaches. Read the rest of this entry »

Oh, I forgot to tell that I and Zaira played pool at the hostel to finish our previous night, with the cute Maia cheering Zaira on. It was fun, we’re terrible players though. After a good night, our perfect day began. We had the breakfast and crossed the road to admire the sunshine, the blue sky, the calm water of the bay, soooo relaxing!

Sebastian, the Argentinean guy, booked our boat trip and we went to the town centre to take it. There were lots of boats, ours was a quite big schooner. The boat guide was a singer as well, so we went on a 6-hour-trip appreciating Brazilian popular music (MPB). Read the rest of this entry »

Day 1: My friend Zaira came to sleep at my place because she lives a bit far and our plan was to set off at 5 a.m. We had to sleep but we kept talking for a long long time, probably until 2 a.m. and my alarm clock would wake me up at 3 a.m. I took a nap, couldn’t really sleep. Around 3:30 a.m. i got up, woke Zaira up and we left at 4:15 a.m. I picked up Samira and her friends Ju and Sheila and at 5 a.m. we were on the road to Paraty, just on the planned time. We’d hoped not to get fog on the way, but we did. Between Conselheiro Lafaiete until Congonhas we got heavy fog, the visibility was really limited, so we had to slow down. When we got into Rio de Janeiro state, the temperature was perfect to go to the beach, so we became enthusiastic. Samira drove all the almost 600 km and i was checking the maps, we took a shortcut through small roads between Três Rios and Angra dos Reis and didn’t get lost, lucky!
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