Guoliang Tunnel

Recently, my flatmate and I started looking at destinations in Latin America, already starting the research that can hopefully lead us to an amazing off road backpacking trip next year. When we were digging into Bolivia's dangerous roads, we were re-directed to a hand built Chinese tunnel that is one of the most impressive things I've seen.

"This tunnel is located in the Taihang Mountains which are situated in the Hunan Province of China. There is an interesting story behind its development. Before 1972, access to the nearby Guoliang village was limited to a very difficult path carved into the mountainside. The village was nestled in a valley surrounded by towering mountains. It was basically cut off from civilization.

In 1972, a group of desperate villagers decided to take matters into their own hands - they would carve a road right into the side of the mountain by themselves!

So they sold goats and herbs to buy hammers and steel tools. Thirteen strong villagers began the project. It took them five years to finish the 1,200-metre-long tunnel which is about 5 meters high and 4 meters wide.

On May 1, 1977, the tunnel was opened to traffic.

There are more than thirty windows. One article suggested they carved windows mainly as a way to push the rubble out. Another reason for the windows might have been the need for light due to lack of electricity."

Source: China Guoliang Tunnel

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Brazilian things

When I talk about Brazil or Latin America, there are many things I like to call attention to, things that are unique, which we are generally unaware of, rarely conscious about and that are so needed in our world! I'm talking about things such as optimism, creativity, community orientation, arts and entrepreneurship.

Yesterday, talking to a girl from the UK, I realised there are other more practical inventions characteristic from here: bar code payments in ATMs, per kilo meals and a can opening system that doesn't require a can opener.

Wanna come along?

Changing times

In 1997, the Brazilian General Telecommunications Law established that all operators of fixed telephony had an obligation to install thousands of telephone posts scattered across their regions of operation. The idea was to ensure the universalisation of the service. Ten years later, the requirement seems completely outdated. In the region attended by one operator (Brasil Telecom), over 60% of 2500 posts have not had a single user in 2007. Repeating: none!

Times change...

Source: Exame Magazine, Feb'08

Dare it! Change it!

Great video! Enjoy it! And do dare facing whatever needs to be changed!

Feeling Australian #4

It's been a while that I don't post a "feeling Australian" fact, probably because I'm already too Australian. But here is one I didn't think I would post: I finally finished my Vegemite! Hooray! (I know it took me one whole year, but hey!)

I think I lost my job...

My new toy

Yes, I finally bought my laptop. It's cute, isn't it?

Curious #4 – chewing gum ban

Did you know that chewing gum was prohibited in Singapore from 1992 to 2004? Apparently the reason is because it brought too many problems, especially in the super modern subway doors, which wouldn’t open and close properly because of the chewed gum left over the sensors.

Curious #3 - Rainfall water

Recently I bought a bottle of water that had a slightly different taste. Intrigued, I started reading its label and figured out it was rainfall water. Extremely suitable in the driest continent in the world…

Curious #2 – Fu**ing Americans

Curious #1 – foreigners welcome!

In the back of the tourist book available in the airport in Melbourne, there is an interesting ad which says: “Enjoyed Melbourne? Come and live here! Information about visas available at…” Could it ever be more foreigners friendly?

Feeling Australian #1 – Shoes

Today, for the first time, I felt quite Australian. Check what happened.

I needed to go to work, as always. But I was also giving a short speech in the AIESEC recognition night + official opening of a local conference I was chairing, which meant I needed to run from work and walk a fair bit.

As I wanted to be beautiful for the night, I decided to wear high heels. But they were definitely not comfortable for working and specially for walking. So, what did I do? Without any doubt, wore comfortable shoes during the day, changed for the event and changed back to walk home. Very Australian…

Hectic week

This last week has been hectic. I’ve been working until 8 – 9 p.m. in order to finish everything at work and enjoy 9 great days in Brazil.

Friday was certainly the pick. Work until 9:30! Everything finished, I headed to Martin’s (Norwegian) farewell, which was a lot of fun! We really had a good time there. Around 1 a.m. some of us went to Rushcutters’ Bay for some more conversations. After, coffee and walk home.

As you can imagine, I was exhausted on Saturday, but found energies to pack, buy some presents and get ready for the last “appointment” before Brazil: our punk house party!

Limes Odyssey

For my birthday, I and Jhow bought two packs of limes to do some caipirinha for my guests – by the way, the most expensive limes I've ever bought, $ 20 each pack (around R$ 40 for 1 kg!).

$20 of limes in Australia

$20 of limes in Brazil!!!

As people didn't drink much, one pack was left. It stayed a week out of the fridge, as we're planning the Global Village three weeks ago. Once it didn't happen, I decided to freeze the precious fruits.

Before being transformed into more caipirinha, they were used for juggling and went to the microwave oven. People didn't complain about the taste of heroic limes caipirinha, though…

Non Australian Personality - Master Jhow

I couldn’t help adding a non Australian personality to my blog – in the end of the day, he is the Master!

Yes! Jhow just arrived in Sydney. He’s also an intern in the city and will stay in my place for the first weeks, until he finds a flat to live. It was very nice to meet him, who is now the only physical linkage I have with my life in Brazil. It’s great to have people who know us well around!

Besides the great conversations, I don’t need to tell I was missing Jhow’s particular – and quite dangerous – way of walking the stairs, do I? But the surprise of this time was the Master’s new Portuguese sleeping fashion: little cows pajama. Jhow! Jhow! Jhow!

Relaxing weekend

Last weekend was very relaxing. It started quite energetic, though, with dinner and party in a cool genuine Latin club by the Harbour.

On Saturday, walk in parks, reading and jazz listening by the Opera House and nice conversations.

On Sunday, beach! Coogee beach - beautiful! The colour of the water is impressively blue-green, the rocks edge is imponent, company was good (first randoms, than Salma and Liz - thanks girls!) and I even found a group of beach volley weekend athletes. Isn't that awesome!

At night, welcome to 2 new AIESEC interns: Ana from Bulgaria and Marina from Russia/Canada.

Dancing Sunday

After the frustration with the Brazilian party – where I intended to dance a lot, I decided to dedicate my Sunday to one of my passions: dancing!

In the afternoon, I went to the Sydney Dance Company, probably the most renowned contemporary dance company in Australia. But they also have classes for amateurs. And I took one of those – Broadway Jazz, quite nice! It certainly made me remember of Lalau Miranda, the Gaucho Dance Group I used to be part when I was in high school.

As it wasn’t enough, in the evening I went to a salsa class, followed by social salsa dancing. During my dancing day, some things called my attention:

- As my 32 year old female teacher was going to US to dance some musical, I could confirm than late maternity and instability are not big issues to Australians. In general, they are less attached to social rules and follow their dreams more easily. The economic situation is surely related to that;

- If Australians don’t follow that many rules in life, when it comes to shake their bodies, they seem to need 100 rules. Instead of just having fun, in the salsa class they were eager to learn a new step and there were lots of signs, pulls and lines so that they could accomplish it.

Cultural differences…

New house

During my first 2-3 weeks, I stayed in Steve and Leah’s house and they were just amasing hosts! Always a good company, they took me to many places, explained me quite a lot about Australia and made me feel at home. Thanks, guys!

My new house (the permanent one) is close to Town Hall, in the city. It’s a pleasant 2-floors old apartment, with 4 big bedrooms, in a very nice neighborhood and close to absolutely everything (but my work ;o)). I’m living with 3 other people: all guys, around 27-28 years old, very kind, friends of an AIESEC alumnus. As you can imagine, my house has stuff like a datashow projector, but no fridge so far.

I think I’ll be able to dig into men’s psychology throughout the year…

Meeting AIESECers

Another random but quite nice surprise I had last week was to meet Uzo. Uzo used to be president of AIESEC in Nigeria in 1999, is currently working in USA and staying some weeks in Sydney.

Somehow, he got my email and wrote. Interesting, isn't it? We definitely met, had nice conversations, figured out we had friends in common and showed a bit (not too much) how Latin American / Africans can shake their bodies.

Snowing... in Sydney!?!

On Tuesday last week (August 15th), something very uncommon happened. The sky was quite strange during the day, kind of dark and cloudy. Then, in the afternoon, there was a small snow storm.

Look at my sight from a park in the city, at 5:30 p.m., when I was headed to the AIESEC in Sydney president election. Weird!

YUM CHA

On August 12th (Saturday), we went to a Chinese Restaurant for to have Yum Cha. It is a kind of Brazilian rodizio, with all sorts of Chinese food and it comes from a Chinese tradition of gathering people together to drink tea and talk.

Check what wikipedia tells us about Yum Cha:

“Yum cha a term in the Cantonese spoken variant of Chinese meaning "drinking tea", refers to the custom of eating tiny servings of different foods while sipping some well-brewed Chinese tea in southern China. It is an integral part of the culinary culture of Hong Kong and the Guangdong Province. In any city with a sizeable population of Cantonese people, Yum cha is a tradition on weekend mornings, and whole families gather to chat and eat Dim sum and drink pots of Chinese tea. Yum cha is also a morning ritual for the elderly to spend a good part of the morning after early morning exercise of tai chi or walk. The tea is important, for it is said to help digest the rich foods, which may be included in the choice of offerings. In the past, people used to go to a teahouse for yum cha, whereas dim sum restaurants have been gaining an overwhelming popularity of late.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yum_cha

Very interesting… It reminded me of a chimarrao round ;o)

Fish market experience

On the weekend (August 06th), myself and 3 people from the AIESEC national committee - Kyle (Sydney), Michael (Melbourne) and Ausra (Lithuania) - went to the fish market.

For a fish market, the place is very organized. There are all kinds of sea food available, the food is fantastic (a lot of Asian restaurants, not surprisingly) and there's a pleasant place for eating outside, close to a not-that-clean water (I'm not sure if it's part of the harbour).

It was a lot of fun!