Sampa Travels

We are back in Sao Paulo (Sampa) for a week. It was wonderful returning to the Shedd´s house-- cooler, less mosquitos, and more comfortable in general.

(We took Russ and Pat Shedd out to a fancy tea. They are the older generation of Shedd's who have generously let us stay at their house)



Since it was Hans and Tracy´s last day with us, we decided to see some of the sights. We had been scouring our 3 travel books to pick the most interesting places. First, was the Museum of Immigration. Brazil, and Sao Paulo in particular, has a huge immigrant population (Ukranians, Italians, Germans, Dutch, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, etc., etc.) Two of our guide books mentioned that the museum was in a bad area, next to a men´s homeless shelter and the third book, Fodors, more of a ritzier guide didn´t even reference it. So, Felipao drove admirably through the manicial streets of Sampa (Perhaps many of you have ridden with ol´Felipao in the U.S. and have been frightened by his driving tactics. I (Dana) have many times. I do believe a few of my gray hairs can be attributed to him. Well, he is an amazing driver in Brasil. He speeds up, slams on brakes, veers around trucks with great grace. I honestly believe that his driving is a cultural thing and in Sampa culture, he rocks!!! Ah, another insight into Felipao). Anyway, after a few wrong turns we arrive at the museum. Knowing that the neighborhood isn´t great, we don´t open the trunk and walk silently (no English babble here) to the building. There´s a nice man in a kiosk, we pay him 40 cents each and he gives us each a ticket. As we enter the courtyard, we notice that our fellow museum goers are all men, some of them a little disheveled. We keep walking and see no signs saying "immigraceo" or "museo" and continue to proceed to a line of men. It dawns on us that we are in the homeless shelter! We go back to the nice man at the kiosk and he smiles, gives us our money back and directs us to the museum. It's comforting to know that if things get really bad, we know where to get three hots and a cot!

Beside the humor of the whole situation, I was struck by the lack of shouting, drunkness, and vocalized mental illness as is common as St. Anthony's. Seems like lack of jobs keeps folks poor and at least there, I witnessed no self medicating behaviors.

We went to the museum, it was okay. Then we headed to Liberdade, the Japanese section of Sampa. There are 1 million Japanese in Sampa. It was a blast. We found lots of Hello Kitty merchanise, house hold gadgets, and other trinket like stuff that we so adore. Maddie and I even got our hair cut at the Soho hairstyling academy. For $6, we got a shampoo and cut and somehow Maddie scored and got a 20 minute head and neck massage. She was in great spirits afterwards (note to self: use massage trick when red head gets testy)! We ended our day at a fancy sushi place and took the Ashlocks to the airport.