January, 2004 - The Cities of Brazil
10 pages posted January 28, 2004


Here's a page for those interested in other sites and sounds of the small towns near Sao Paulo.

Over the course of the first 2 weeks, we hit the Beaches for 5 days and inbetween went to the following locales:

Guararema (to check out some local outdoor shopping strips)

Sao Jose Dos Campos

Campos do Jordao

Santo Antonio do Pinhal

Sao Jose do Rio Preto

Olimpia (New Year's Eve)

Icem (New Year's Day)

Fronteira (Minas Gerais or "Bernardo")

Sao Paulo Airport, located in Guarulhos


The following Cities and Beaches (in the Beaches of Brazil Photo Gallery):

Day 1 - Guaeca Beach near Sao Sebastiao

Day 2 - Feiticeira Beach, Ilhabela Island

Day 3 - Maranduba Beach, Ubatuba

Day 4 - Marin de Sa Beach in Caraguatatuba

Day 5 - Cocanha Beach in Caraguatatuba

Places to shop for clothes and/or souvenirs in Sao Paulo (for shopaholics):

Shopping Centres: These two shopping centres make you feel as if you're back home in a regular shopping mall, except that they speak brazilian portuguese, and if you're lucky, you'll find someone who can help you translate. If not, then a few typical phrases will help like "Quanto" for "How Much?", "Ingles" if you get a mouthful back in brazilian portuguese, "Sim" for Yes, "Nao" for No, their calculator and your credit card should suffice.

Warning: Sometimes the international lines are down and it may take you up to half an hour to wait for them to process your card. Oh and they also give you the option of using the debit function or splitting up the purchase payments on your credit card, but that just complicates things.

Ibiropuera Shopping Centre
Morumbi Shopping Centre


Antiques Fair: Every Sunday from 10am to 5pm there's an antiques fair in the open space beneath the MASP building on Avenida Paulista.

Japanese Market. One of the largest Asian street markets takes place every Sunday on the Praça da Liberdade (next to the Liberdade metro stop) in São Paulo's Liberdade neighborhood.