Brazil: Day 3

Monday Debbie Hartman and her friend Dil drove us into Sao Paulo.  This was Debbie's first time driving into the city and we were all a little nervous but glad to have Dil to show us around.  Sao Paulo is a HUGE city that stretches as far as you can see.  After everyone had told me about all the crime we were very careful but managed to spend the day without any problems.  We found a place to park on the outside of the city and rode the metro into the center.  We went to the Basilia de Sao Bento, a catholic cathedral.

Then we wandered through the streets towards the BANESPA building.  On the way we ran into these booths where you could get your shoes shined.

The BANESPA building is the tallest building in South America.  I was surprised to find it is only 35 stories high.

We went up to the top to view the city.  The city stretched as far as we could see in every direction!

While we were waiting in line to go up to the top we started talking to the couple behind us.  Well, I should say everyone else started talking since the whole conversation was in Portuguese!  The couple was from Rio de Janiero.  They were really interested that Jason was American but could speak Portuguese so well and wanted to know how he had learned.  They asked him a lot of questions about his mission.  As we were coming down from the elevator Debbie commented to me that she wished she had a pass along card (an card with information about our church) to give to them.  As the elevator doors opened there were two missionaries from our church standing in front of us.  Debbie didn't think much about it at first but I told her to ask the missionaries for a card.  They were able to give us a Book of Mormon to share with our new friends. They were excited to receive it and asked us all to sign our names and contact info inside the book.  Then they wanted to walk down to the Central Market with us and get some lunch.

The Central Market is a huge building full of vendors selling fresh fruits, chocolates, candies and food.  Here's a look from the upper level.

Have you ever wondered where cashews come from?  Here they are.  They grow on the end of this fruit.  They make a really yummy juice out of the fruit.  It turns out the nuts are poisonous until they have been cooked!

Here's the mission office where Jason spent the last few months of his mission.  He loved walking in there and reliving all the memories!

Little Japan in Sao Paulo!  Sao Paulo is very diverse with the biggest Japanese population outside of Japan.

I'm not a big fan of coconut but Debbie insisted I try coconut milk.  It probably wasn't my favorite but not bad either and it is very good for you.

We spent all day running from one thing to the next and still didn't make it to see everything we wanted to.  We were all exhausted when we got back to the car.  We tried taking a different way back to avoid traffic and ended up getting lost.  That turned an hour drive into two and a half hours!  Sao Paulo is an amazing city but I think I can live without dealing with the traffic!