Last Day in Rio ...

Last day in Rio! I decided to go to H Stern Jewelry headquarters, the smart husband of mine decided to stay home :P
No pictures to show as they do not allow photography in the building, but I REALLY ENJOYED the tour AND MY PURCHASE :) H Stern owns the end to end process for precious stone jewelry. They own the mine, they have manual labor polish and cut the stones, they have their own laboratory to certify the stones, they own design team to design jewelry, a metals setting team to set the final stones in the approved design ... it was quite an eye-opener as I watch the whole process, very manual. Since I can't take any photos indoor, let's just show what I purchased (don't tell Frank) :P





Anyway, I now loved H stern line, very modern, and clean line sleek design, they don't have a presence in Asia yet, only a rep office in Tokyo.

With a few hours to while away waiting to go to the aiport for Buenos Aires, we just spent it at the hotel lounge, beef appetizer was pretty amazing!







Brazil's national drink - Caipirinha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caipirinha





Hey, Rio is vying to host the 2016 Olympics.

Lazy Sunday ...

Sunday, its F1 race day in Turkey! We woke up early to go to a 24-hour cafe with big flat-screen to eat breakfast and catch the race :) Ahhh ... Jenson Button again, at this rate, there's no point in watching the rest of the season, its finished before it even started ...



Walked around a Sunday food market.





Ipanema beach, the more upscale beach where the most expensive condos in Rio are built.





Visit the Hippie Market at Ipanema Beach to buy some souvenirs. Hotel is at a really convenient location, at the intersection of Copacabana Beach and Ipanema Beach. Somewhat tired, dined in hotel that night.





Can't get enough of the tasty ACAI-Berry ...

Portuguese Food - Antiquana

Dinner, went to THE PLACE for Portuguese food called Antiquana. I ordered Brazilian "salted" cod fish, let's just say not my favorite way to cook the fish as it becomes chewy. Frank's seafood stew is pretty good. The best part of the whole dinner is actually all the small complimentary appetizers that are served initially. Overall, food is good, but not spectacular like the prices ...

Rio Sight-Seeings ...

Woke up bright and early to go on sightseeing. Since we only plan to do one-day to do touristy things, decided to hire a private guide to do everything in one day in an open jeep. Three must-see in Rio (1) Christ the Redeemer statue on Cordova Mountain, (2) Tijuana Rainforest and (3) Sugar Loaf mountain.





The Christ statue was really pretty awesome, probably one of the biggest in the world. I won't go into it too much, wikipedia probably will give one all the most accurate info.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_the_Redeemer_(statue)















Tijuana Rain Forest is very interesting since its right smack in the middle of the urban city. Many people might not know that the forest is really only about 160 years old as the monarch and nobles before that actually destroyed the entire rainforest, with rebuilding effort only 160 years ago.

It is quite unbelievable the number of people who cycles up the rainforest mountain ... RESPECT ... they do this on their day off work ... duh ...



If you look closely, supposedly, the "small tree" that wraps around the big rainforest tree will one day kill the big tree and takes it place ... its called parasite tree ...





Kite Surfing at Ipanema Beach ... this area has the highest per-square-foot price in Rio.



Last but not least, THE SIGHT to visit is the Sugar Loaf Mountain ... to be honest, the mountain itself isn't that spectacular at only 1,200 feet, but the views up there is great. For facts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarloaf_Mountain,_Brazil













So we took two cable cars to reach the peak of Sugar Load Mountain ... look at MY HEROES ... these guys mountain climbed up Sugar Loaf Mountain ... NO JOKE! It is the largest urban climbing area in the world I heard ... it is quite amazing when you are at the bottom of mountain, looking at all these tiny "ants" climbing up the mountain. There's no pro shop or anything, anyone with gears can climb the mountain ...

Churrasco Dinner ... YUM!

For dinner, we went to this place called Porcao, which serves rodizo-style churrasco i.e. all-you-can eat meat. The first half of the meat were really delicious, tender and oozing with blood :P and most of all, they all have a layer of charred fats :) Anyway, Frank ate himself crazy, probably used up all his monthly quota of beef.

Smart guys, they bring you out like 10 free side dishes of carbs first!!! Rice, potatoes cooked all ways ... fill you up before the good stuffs come ...
















On the way back to the hotel after dinner, we saw some trees fall on a row of cars!!! Hmmm ... not pretty when the owners wake up in the morning ...