Itacuruca, Rio de Janeiro

this is the house i am saving to buy

http://investmentsonthebeach.com/private_islands_and_properties_for_sale_in_brazil.html

taipei

.....soon to come.....

VT rank 1, 211!!

taipai in 40 days and counting!

been looking at some things to do while there... maybe renting a scooter and getting out of the city. i guess there aren't many nice beaches and chinese people don't swim. i don't care. i am going to milk it for a month. in the meanwhile,
here's some marky mark taiwanese goodness. no, not really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvTllYHl4rM&playnext=1&list=PL73AFA2728BB2425A&index=6

new vt rank

1211!!!!!

virtualtourist.com

Best Brazilian website for great stories and images and music

http://www.hillerphoto.com/brazil/bahia_2.htm

Candomble`

Candomble is the brazilian, african religion where they kill goats and chickens and stuff, and call the gods to enter a person's body while they pour the blood of the animal over the head. that's my description. wiki description below.

anyway, i was in a town around sao paulo when i was 26. me and my friend went to a house around the corner that was having a candomble` "mass" or "ceremony". we entered and small room, very modest and quiet. you had to take a number when you entered and then they would call on you and it was your turn to be baptized by the blood of the lamb, so to speak.

when you enter, there were a bunch of black women dressed in white with red neckolaces (probably bahianas). they were chanting and dancing and there was precussion and a person in the middle with their head bowed, on their knees. the other people with numbers were waiting on the sides. it was a middle-class neighborhood in campinas, a pretty big city outside of sao paulo. but there was quiet on the streets, trash to be picked up, dogs barking, very residential and quiet.

we decided to leave after about a half hour because our number hadn't been called.

i wish i had stayed. who knows what could have happened??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candombl%C3%A9