Day two was actually spent chilling out and going for a run, but that isn’t particularly ground-breaking news, so for story-telling purposes, here we are on day two instead of day three.

After a healthy breakfast of cereal, tea (I brought 2 packs with me knowing the tea aboard is poo) and enough water melon and mango to sink a small ship, we set off to see Parc do Ibirapuera. It is a park in the centre of Sao Paulo with lots of open, green space and cool architecture by Oscar Niemayer (the architect who designed the city of Brasilia). We walked around, enjoyed the sunshine, views and various wildlife in the park.

In the evening we went over to visit Rosana’s auntie in an area called Bela Vista. We had a little supper and then headed around the corner to watch Vai Vai samba school perform their last rehearsal before carnaval. The rehearsal consisted of the bateria (drums) performing on stage outside to an audience in the region of 5000 people, who gathered in the street. There were stools selling everything from beer and caipirinhas to hot dogs and t-shirts. In the Samba hall (kind of like a club house), the girls were parading around and showing off their outfits and having interviews with the local press.

Vai Vai eventually came second in the carnaval this year, but in recent years have won it on numerous times. It was an interesting experience, and for me, probably better than carnaval (which I watched on TV) as it wasn’t as intense and crowded as the real thing, but fun all the same.

After meeting Rosana’s mum for the first time and having a chat and time to settle in, we made our way into the city (it is massive – 20 million people in the greater Sao Paulo area). We had a look around the grounds of Museo do Ipiranga, a nice old colonial-style building with tropical gardens and statues. Afterwards we crossed the road and walked down a wide pedestrianised boulevard where there was a bunch of guys skateboarding (longboard style). They were cruising down the hill pretty fast, pulling various tricks and stunts (see picture below) not unlike walking the nose in surfing.

In the evening we went to a local Churrascaria (a meat restaurant where you pay a set price and they keep feeding you until you can’t eat anymore). We had a feast for 3 people with various meats including Picanha (my favourite).

All in all a pretty eventful first day!

This is my first (quick) blog update since I set off to Brazil a week ago. I’ve been in Sao Paulo now for 6 days and it has been an interesting experience. The temperature hasn’t fallen below 32 degrees and I’ve been suffering a bit from the heat. Rose and I have been all over the city and seen some good and bad things.

Tomorrow we are off to Caraguatatuba on the coast where I will be doing some surfing and chilling out by the beach.

I’m only posting just a few pictures here as I am connected to the internet via a bluetooth 3G connection. Check them out, more to come…

A Siberian cold snap has gripped the UK with most of the country coming to a standstill today. As a result I worked from home today and on my lunch break I stepped out and took a few snaps of the Essex countryside in all its winter glory.

I’ve been experimenting in PhotoShop this afternoon with some filters and effects. Check out some of the results below.

Australian dirt track road, Victoria, taken back in 2006.

Victoria sunrise, Australia, 2006.

The Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, taken back in 2007.

Aftermath of bush fires, Victoria, Australia, 2006.

I look this pic on the new Pentax W60 whilst walking along to Ugley Green with Rose, a nice little action shot. We had a great Christmas this year, a real family affair and then enjoyed Boxing Day chilling out, playing games and getting a little fresh air inside us.

I was a lucky boy this Christmas to receive a Pentax W60 waterproof camera as one of my presents. Surprising as it sounds the W60 is fully waterproof to a depth of 4 metres meaning I can take it skiing and surfing and not worry about getting it wet (unlike my old video camera which got trashed in Canada last year). The camera shoots stills as well as video, and although it won’t take pics quite as good as my Canon EOS 400D DSLR, it is still 10 mega pixels so should hopefully produce some good results.

I will be taking it to Brazil, so hopefully I will get enough good footage to make another DVD.

I’ve finally got around to editing my holiday photos from Athens and Crete and uploaded a few to my Flickr account, go check em out and let me know what you think!

I was pretty stoked today whilst flicking through Carve Magazine to find out that one of my photos made it into the Sessions section of issue 102. The picture was taken just before I headed off to Greece at the start of October when Rich and I hit up an early session at East Runton and were rewarded for our efforts.

Our final excursion before returning to the UK was to the Akrotiri peninsula located to the east of Chania. It is quite barren and its northern extent is lined by steep hills. We stopped at the beach at Kalathas which had a strange orange/brown sediment that was flowing into the bay creating a marked contrast the the normally blue water, I am not sure if it was pollution or something less menacing.

Our second stop was the beach at Stavros. which consisted of a beautiful, sheltered bay (where we snorkelled) with a series of rock pools with all sorts of wildlife from fish and urchins to octopus.

Our final stop was the to check out the monastery at Moni Gouverneto. As we arrived a little late in the evening we didn’t have time to get all the way down to the ruins of Moni Katholiko, but we did manage to see the Bear Cave which has a massive stalagmite in the middle resembling the shape of a bear. The main monastery at  Moni Gouverneto was quite understated from the outside, but a place of amazing calm and beautifully-kept gardens, temple and courtyard on the inside.

All in all our trip to Greece was amazing and I would definitely consider going back in the future, although I would try to avoid the high season and the places that attract the typical beer-swilling, foul-mouthed and ill-behaved, drunken English tourists.