BWC2014 - 25th May (Day 11 - I have a date with Aldo)

Brazilian Bak Kut Teh!!

No prize for guessing right who
is David Luiz!

At 9 plus, I woke up the latest today.  Back home, I would be grateful if I could get up at this time! After going through the usual daily routine, I dressed and ready for my outing today.  The plan was to visit the Paranoá Lake!  Just when I was about to leave, Fernanda’s mom invited me to have lunch together.  She was cooking Bak Kut Teh!!!  Yes!  You did not see wrongly.  It’s Bak Kut Teh, the famous pork ribs dish in Singapore and Malaysia!!!  How could I possibly resist that?!  You must be wondering how a Brazilian knows about such a unique cuisine so alien to them!  Actually, I brought Fernanda a packet of Bak Kut Teh species from home.  Days earlier, Fernanda’s mom asked me how is it usually prepared.  However, she really surprised me with her creativity and the end result was a perfect Bak Kut Teh in Brazilian style!  Unlike Asian’s way of cooking the dish in soup, she made the pork ribs dried with perfectly right dosages of chili!  I enjoyed very much the new cooking method that Fernanda’s mom has invented for us!  I’ll definitely try to cook it that way when I’m back home!  Also tried the freshly made yellowish passion fruit juice that taste like mango!

Brazilian Jujitsu, anyone?!

Colourful Asics!!

After the splendid lunch, I thanked the family and prepared to go out.  It was already close to 2pm.  This evening, I had also made an appointment with Aldo for dinner at 6pm.  Since the timing was rather a little squeezy, I changed my plan to visit the biggest shopping mall in Brasilia instead, the Park Shopping.  The moment I reached the bus stop, I saw one coming with “Park Shopping” displayed on it!  What a lucky day for me!  Not so lucky for my Malaysian family and friends who just lost the final in the badminton most prestige team event, Thomas Cup, to Japan.  I felt for them.  It was just as heart-stopping as 12 years ago when Malaysia played Indonesia, which they eventually won!  The bus ride to the mall was just a short one. 

Now I knew where the Brazilian babes were!  Went into two outlets named “World Tennis” and “My

beer and beer, and more beer!

Calling me?!

Tennis” but neither of selling anything related to tennis!  I also found out something quite amazing here.  Surprisingly, I don't see any sports magazine at all, although Brazil is such a stronghold in many sports like football, basketball and volleyball!!

Making sure each and every shop inside the mall was passed by, I ended my window shopping with a cup of café latte.  Around 5:17pm, I walked to the subway station which was just next to the shopping centre.  The metro station is conveniently called “Shopping”!  Waited about 10min for the train to arrive.  Just like the bus, the fare is fixed at R$2, no matter how long is your trip.  Weekday is one Real more expensive.  The ride to Central was about 25min. By the time I walked to the main entrance where I was supposed to meet Aldo, it was just nice at 6pm!  I perfected my timing.  

They are not waiting to go Shopping!

the path leading to the metro

Aldo came shortly with his wife, Keilla.  They brought me to a restaurant near the lake, and so I came to Paranoá Lake after all!!  It is really a nice chill out place with a stretch of restaurants and bar overseeing the beautiful lake.  We took a slow stroll along the lake and made a round turn following the walking path.  All of a sudden, we saw a very exotic Rolls Royce parked outside one of the restaurant.  Later did Aldo found out that it was probably belonged to the famous Brazilian three-time F1 champions, Nelson Piquet, who was sitting outside the restaurant, right in front of us!!  There was even a race track in Brasilia now that is named after him!!  Told you today were my lucky day!!  Should have secretly snapped a picture of the legend in case you guys don’t believe me!

Floating platform at
Paranoa Lake!

The Roll Royce which should
belongs to Nelson Piquet!

We picked a restaurant called Surf Bar, which also sells surf and skates products.  It was packed with a queue too.  But luck was on my side.  We didn’t have to wait long for our turn at all.  I missed noodles so much and hence ordered a yakisoba (fried noddle) with beef.  The couple shared a “crepes”, which was pronounced like “crab” in Portuguese, and Aldo was teasing us that we were not having the seafood!!   

We also ordered the chicken fried dumplings for sharing.  I liked my yakisoba very much!!  Probably because I was deprived of noodles for almost two weeks.  The dumpling tasted more like the pizza topping than the Japanese gyoza.  Aldo also highly recommended me to try the Brazilian most famous cocktail called Caipirinha.   

The Brazilian national cocktail,
Caipirinha, made from cachaca!

Gyoza in Brazilian style!

It comes in many variety but the traditional way was just adding limes (lots of them), sugar, ice and the alcoholic spirit, cachaça, which was made from sugar cane! (Aldo even wrote down the pronunciation, “kashassa” for me!!) And it tasted really good.  Foremost, it was not sweet in the first place.  We chatted the whole evening and left the restaurant around 9:30pm, but actually had already passed Aldo’s bedtime!  He is a day person and often goes to bed very early and woke up very early too!!  What a healthy life style!!

Brazilian beef yakisoba!

I was really appreciative that Aldo drove me home although they were actually staying the opposite way.  He said the taxi fare here is hefty and would cost more than my dinner!  A 20km ride will come out about R$56!!  Very expensive indeed!

I thanked them very much for the night and walked the shortest distance home for the first time.  Met Andre and found out he enjoyed movies a lot too!  Showered and updated my blog before heading to bed at 1am.