After quite a late night I had a little sleep-in before getting up and ready for another exciting day in São Paulo. In the morning I went and used the Internet, had some lunch and then packed my bag ready for a walk to Liberdade - the very famous Japanese District here in São Paulo. I followed my google map but unfortunately that doesn't have the ability to distinguish good from bad areas and I ended up walking through some very shady areas. I guess you could say all the things you hear about São Paulo are true to some degree in some areas - there are certainly a lot of homeless people, thieves and opportunities and quite a bit more then any other city I have visited. After an hour or so I made it to Japan town and it was not overly amazing as I expected but it was still quite interesting. Basically a huge Asian neighborhood with a number of Japanese/Chinese resteraunts, food and clothes stores and some decorative streets symbolizing it as Japan Town. It was incredibly packed today and every little Chinese market I went into must of had 50 people in line waiting for the check-out, the markets were certainly cheap but definitely not worth the hour wait. To be honest I couldn't stand all the people and not being able to move in the shops so I decided to head back but this time I stuck to the main avenues in order to avoid danger. I stopped at every little sweet shop on the way back (couldn't help myself) and ended up with a sweet pumpkin slice, potato slice and some other thing I have absolutely no idea what it is. By the time I got back to Feenandas I was absolutely wrecked and dehydrated and ended up eating a ginormous mango I brought in the market yesterday and it just so happened to be the sweetest and most delicious mango I have ever eaten. Paula returned just after me and after a shower we did a little yoga together whilst waiting for Fernanda to return. Fernandas best friend Fran came around and she is also a mad traveller and can speak English very well so once again we stayed up talking into the wee hours of the early morning. Fran after hearing how much I live to cook has invited me and the girls to come to her house next Saturday and cook (as Fernanda doesn't have anything to cook with at her place). My plan was to leave for Rio on Wednesday or Thursday so maybe I might stay in São Paulo a little longer.

OBSERVATIONS
- poverty areas in and around highways
- Biggest Japanese district outside of Japan
- Paqueteta - peanut slice lolly from Brazil