BsAs Trip blog No.9 – Breakfast/Cafe Si?

Way before my trip , most of my lovely Portland fellows who had been to BsAs had told me same thing over and over: If Argentine guys invite you to have breakfast or cafe alone, which means they want to take you home……

Therefore, I went to BsAs with my mind and brain so prepared to say No when that happens……

Before I talk about my breakfast/cafe invitation experience, one thing i want to throw it out and make it very clear, I am seriously not bragging about it and whoever gets invitation should never feel special or grow your ego!! To me, this is more of experiencing a different culture than anything else….

The first invitation I got was very sudden, someone I never danced or someone I never even noticed. He just walked to me and asked to go to cafe in spanish, and obviously the only reason I understood his spanish was because he used the word cafe! I quickly shaked my head, said :”No, and No espanio!” He said something else afterwards and I kept cool and shaking my head and he walked away. It happened very suddently and ended quickly too, i wasn’t annoyed or bothered, just laughed that it did happen the way all my friends had told me! ; )

What I really wanted to share in this blog is my very long-lasting 2nd invitation!! This guy had kept trying to invite me out for breakfast, the first couple time he used same cafe word so I understood it and responded No very politely! Although he kept saying bunch of things in spanish which I understood nothing other than I knew he was being persistent and trying to convince me! Mid-way through my stay there, I had danced with him for many times now every time we met in milongas, he always invited me to dance a tanda or two, he always still talked to me in spanish, always still trying to ask me out, but it always ended with me walking back to my table and walked out of milonga with my fellow friends and taxied home! One day, I was standing against the bar at canning by myself enjoying watching the floor, he came by and started talking to me again, he kept go on and on, while he was talking, i started saying:” si, si… as if i am saying hm, yeah, yeah in English while someone is talking!”, I had no clue what I had brought myself into, all I remembered was I saw a flashing smile in his face and he happily walked back to his table. In the end of the night, he walked to my table, and sat there waiting for me to finish putting my stuff to my purse. And that’s when I realized I might have accepted his “breakfast”-sort of invitation while i went si, si si…. to whatever he was saying……And that made me very nervous and also a bit of shamed of myself for what I did to myself. A friend of mine who went to this milonga with me that night came back to the table to collect her stuff, and I was so happy to see her so I invited her to join the breakfast. (I did also learn before i left for the trip, if you go to a breakfast or cafe with friend, then normally it will be ok because you can just leave with your friend) She looked at me with a bit of surprise on her face, and responded she wouldn’t be able to because he had to pack for her upcoming trip!! She walked away to say good bye to other friends, and I left alone again with him at the table. For a moment, i was a bit stressed out and worried , my brain probably run 400 rpm/min trying to figure out how I can get ride of him without being rude.  I started to walk towards outside of the Milonga , hugged people I know there said good-bye along the way, meantime he was following me a bit. I turned around and looked at him, shaking my head really hard and hoping he would understand, and then I left the place with my friend. Thanks to god, he didn’t follow me all the way out, otherwise I would really be in a bad position to get rid of him!! I walked with my friend a bit, and then I took taxi home!!

You thought after this this guy would probably be very mad at me and not bother to either say hi or dance with me again right? But couple nights later we met again and guess what he said this time. He said two words that I completely understood without doubt and believe me I was shocked and a bit “Touched” (Not in that way but in a different way). “My house” is what he said. Something more straight-forward than cafe or breakfast I guess, but at that moment, instead of feeling being bothered or annoyed, I actually felt he was being very cute!!!! In a way he reminded me of myself, when I want to get something, I try hard and persistant to work on it until I get it!!

I showed my wedding ring to him and told him I am married. He gave me this look of this meant nothing and after a while, he finally gave up and walked away………

From then on, he didn’t say hi or dance with me anymore, which of course I didn’t say hi or intend to dance with him either!

I am pretty sure any girls who goes to BsAs has stories about breakfast/cafe experience. Not everyone will write about it or talk about it because it is so personal. I wrote it like I said in the beginning really not to brag about it or laugh at those guys who did it, but really to me these kind of experience together with everything else I experience in BsAs together made my trip a complete story and an unforgetful trip!!!

BsAs Trip blog No.8- Experiencing 3 days SEMINARIO INTENSIVO DE TANGO ARGENTINO with 4 amazing teachers

The only group lesson I took during my whole trip was this 3 days Seminar intensive Argentine tango(details of the seminar: http://www.seminarioporteno.blogspot.com/)  with

Ariadna Naveira & Fernando Sanchez

Inés Muzzopappa & Federico Naveira

First time I saw these 4 amazing dancers was at Practica X on Nov, 24th (Although I felt like had met them somewhere else, really couldn’t recall where and when). Their performance was a combination of 3 songs if I remember correctly. 3 songs were all connected. They started the performance with Ariadna leading Ines and then Fernando entered  and started dancing with Ariadna while Ines stepped aside. later Ines danced with Federico, then two couples started dancing together. There were time they danced to exactly same movement in sync, there were also moments they danced to their own thing. What made me paid attention to Ariadna wasn’t all those interesting show elements, wasn’t all those movement they were doing, also wasn’t the way how she moved her body (Not saying it wasn’t beautiful the way how she moved her body), but, the LOOK she has in her face!!!!! I have to admit that I am much more of an emotional dancer vs technical type. I have always believed that emotional/feelings makes a dance alive!! How should I make this clear, in China we have a saying: “bring the painted dragon
to life by putting in the pupils of its eyes”. To me, having facial expression as part of expressing feelings and emotion in dance is just as bringing the painted dragon to life!!! There were moment her facial expression was so innocent as if she was wondering, there were moments she had a bit of anger, there were moments, she was confused………. I have to say, this is the only time that I was touched/attacted out of all performances I saw in every milonga I went to during my 17 days stay. Ok, enough of the look in her face, here is a video of part of their performance of that night from youtube, I didn’t take the video but practica X organizer did it I believe:

I walked to Ariadna after performance while she was leaning against the bar to rest. I expressed my feeling towards her performance and then asked for her contact information for private. She was very politically polite and wrote down her website for me so I can contact her via email about scheduling privates!

Second day, I heard that they were organizing a 3 days seminar so I decided to join without hesitation.  The reason why I want to blog about this seminar is because I want to share the way how they teach, and structure of their seminar:

• Each day we have 2 classes. Each class is taught by each teacher couple. Day 1: we started with Ariadna & Fernerdo taught us some basic warm-up exercises like staying on our toe up high, lean our body over with back flat and toe life up high…etc; It took us whole hr for the warm-up exercise, and then we moved on to Federico and Inez and we worked on gancho.
• Day 2: we started with Federico and Inez, and maybe 30mins on the same warm-up exercises, and then we started practicing pivoting outside turn on our own with control and you have to finish the pivoting without the free leg touching the floor. And we had to generate the momentum by turning our chest. And then they made it a bit harder for us, we have to inside turn with same specification, then later, we have to be able to do both inside and outside turn finishing with either front beleo or back beleo with control. I scanned through the floor, we have about 50 people at least in the seminar but I honestly didn’t see anyone who can do that with 100% successful rate of course myself included. : ) (P.S, teachers sometimes lost balance every once a while as well : ) ). Second class, we worked on beleos with Fernando and Ariadna. There was one beleo that was very challenging, basically woman do back beleo off man’s front cross step. Because the amount of torsion from woman and man, and both of players have to be in a perfect position, hip needs to be at same level, man have to lower down to allow woman slide up her arm to prevent blocking woman’s body to be closer to man to make this beleo happen. Geoff and I were able to do it but never felt it being perfect!! Here is the video I took on this movement:
• Day 3 is a combination of Practica and some games. I really liked the challenge games we played. So the first game we played is teachers gave us 3 elements in a particular order and asked us to put together a combination of movement. I remembered it was Gancho , beleo & Gancho. We all got 2 songs to work on that, and 2 songs over, teachers had students come to the center of the floor and demo what we had come up. Second game was same elements but in reverse order:  Beleo, Gancho & Beleo. Here is a video of 4 teachers participating in this game: 
• One of the classmates’s creation I thought was very creative:
• After this, they decided to be more creative, so each one of 4 teachers throw up a thing that they like and then asked us to put together a movement in that order.

Anyway, the idea is when you learn a combination of movement from anybody, when you learn it you can learn it the way you were taught but after that you need learn to break it down and explore other possibilities, sometimes you will find even better combinations than what you was taught. Interesting enough, this whole concept is so much similiar than work breakdown structure concept in project management. : )

Overall, it was an excellent seminar!!!!!!! Price was very acceptable too only 130 or 120 pesos for 3 days classes!! I will really recommend anybody who travels to BsAs to take either group class or private class from them!!!

BsAs Trip blog No.7- Tango shoe obssession

It is almost a must-do activity for tango dancers to go shoe shopping in BsAs, me, absolutely not an exception!

My first day there, Dani, my great friend who is also an Argentine took me to Neotango store. Believe it or not, I got 1 pair of shoe just on my first day there!!

My second shoe shopping trip was with lovely Apricot. We met up at the “Taconeando” store in Recoleta area. Designer of this brand happens to be Lungkuei’s friend, so we made appointment with the designer to assist us in choosing shoes. I got there with Brian, without waiting for my show shopping company, I started choosing and here is what I got:

No.2 : A very stylish and metalish looking shoe which is a great break from classical looking tango shoe with 4 inches high heel:

No.3 : Orange and green color combination pair, front part is very interesting kind of texture material and the cage part is covered with silk:

No.4: White leather pair with grey-greenish heel:

No.5: Green leather pair from lighter green heal and golden strip:

No.6: T-strip leopard skin front and yellow heal :

No.7: Leather practise shoe from Taconeando:

After nearly 2hrs shopping at Taconeando, Apricot and I left the store with biggest satisfaction we could ever imagine. But how could we left the area without paying a visit to Comme Il Fault which was just a few blocks away. Besides I was in mission to get my friend jingzi two pairs of Comme Il Fault.

No.8: Purple-Silver shiny pair from Comme Il Fault

No.9: Golden and black suede mixed shoe from Comme Il Fault:

No 10: Red classical suede Comme Il Fault shoe:

BsAs Trip blog No.6-2 times experience in Zorro Plateao Milonga(El Beso)

From the Buenos Aries Milongas list I printed from this website: http:www.buenosairesmilongas.com, there are total of 38 milongas for Friday. That hasn’t included some of the new milongas that launched recently, for example: my new friend Lucas’s Milonga “Codigo De Barra” at Scalabrini Ortiz 757 – Palermo.

Nov, 19th, my first Friday in BsAs. Some of friends like Sorin, LungKuei were going to El beso, so I decided to join them for a bit before I went to Later Viruta for the later night. I got to El beso around mid-night.  When I walked in, I saw a beautiful space that has colorful paint on the wall, beautiful chinese style lanterns hanging over the dance floor, and yes this place has amazing wood floor that was a shock to me!! In order to walk through the space, you had to walk pass a bar area and then people sit 3 other sides around the dance floor. The place was packed that night, I walked my way through the bar area and started to look for Sorin and Lungkuei. While I was standing in front of other people that were hanging around near the bar, in a sudden, an old elegant lady walked to me with pretty serious and upset face saying:

” You can’t stand here, there are other people waiting for a seat!”

At first, I was shocked and then I quickly woke up from the shock and responded politely saying :” I am not looking for a seat, I am looking for my friends!”.

The lady was certainly not satisfied with my response, she asked again:”What’s your friend’s name?”

“Sorin, Lung Kuei”, I responded knowing she probably won’t know who they are and where they sit.

She shaked her head and said plainly :”I don’t know them!” Apparently, she wasn’t too thrilled with my responses but what else could she say… She walked away with some level of disatisfaction which she failed to put into words to me……

But this certainly reminded me that El beso is a very traditional milonga place, we need follow certain code and rules here that I am not quite aware of yet. I intentionally stepped back couple steps instead of aggresively looking for them, I behaved a bit less aggressive.  Finally, the tanda was over, familiar face Sorin walked towards me. He pointed to me where they were sitting though Sorin did also tell me there wasn’t addtional seat for me. Seat is sensative in this place, isn’t it?! : ) I saidI just want to put my stuff down and put my shoe on.  : ) I run cross the dance floor, sit down in Sorin’s seat while he took a vibrate break. I put my shoe on, settled my purses and stuff. Sorin came back and invited me to dance. We danced one tanda and I walked back to the table. Shortly after I sit, I saw another guy who I danced with once at Canning. He was certainly a milonguero. He is at his 45 or 50’s, he was a beautiful dancer(His name is Sergio)!! I was very happy that he cabeceod me right after the new tanda started. I guess these two dances I got presented me very well, after that, my rest night in El beso was enjoyable and filled with lots of dancing!! I have to say, everytime I danced by the lady who gave me a hard time at the begining, I felt pressured as if it was a crime that I got dances for someone who didn’t “respect” her rules (Respect in her senseI guess!) ha ahaa…. The other milonguero I danced with also worth mentioning. His name is william, he wears nice shirt, and he is probably in his 50’s, at one point I asked him how many year he had been dancing and he asked me to guess, so I said 50 years, he started laughing with a bit upset. He raised his voice and  said :” 50  years, how old do you think I am!” : ) I am not that old!!! , 50 years!!” (Btw, his name is William) : ) I hang out in this place till about 1 am and left for La Viruta happily!!

Here are some pics of El beso: (P.S I didn’t take below pics, the pics I took turned out poorly, so I got below two pics from internet)

Nov, 26th, I had two choices for early milonga, either “Codigo De Barra” or “El beso”. I forgot the address of Codigo De Barra milonga so I had to go to El beso knowing I probably will be there alone by myself. My second time experince worth mentioning just because how that same lady changed her attitude towards me. It was a very fasinating experience! I got there, met William at downstairs the entry way. He hugged me friendly and welcomed me! I think we both were happy to see each other! : ) Iit was packed as last Friday. I didn’t expect anybody I know will be there, so I found myself a very hidden corner seat after I went upstairs, settled my stuff and changed shoes and stood up right away to prevent the same lady give me a hard time about me taking seat : ).  I certainly wasn’t expecting any dance for being in that kind of corner. But sometimes, when you least expect something, beautiful things happen. First, one of the mid-age guy(half-bald) who always sits in the exclusive table at La Viruta with bunch of other guys in suits noticed me hidding in the left corner , he walked through people and invited me to dance. I have to say that was a beautiful moment, he made me feel like he was a father who tried to take care of his “lost” daughter!! That look he had in his face as if he was saying :” We won’t let you be buried in the crowd, and let’s dance!!” The dancing part of it was nice but I was more touched by his loving action!!Isn’t argentine man sweet and lovely???I felt a bit guilty that I didn’t even ask for his name, but, you know sometimes name just isn’t as important!

(Just found a pic of this suit guy who did the mercy dance with me from someone else’s pic albumn:)

 

 

 

 

 

He escorted me back to my place, and I hided myself again until I noticed one of young guy who I apparently had met somewhere but I couldn’t remember, all I remembered was that he was absolutely a good dancers. So I smiled at him even he was talking with two of his other guy friends right next to me. He looked back and picked up my smile, and I officially cabeceoed him, and that WORKED!!!! It turned out he is a tango profession, his name is Martin (Don’t know whether it is how it is exactly spelled but it is how it is sounded), he performed couple days ago either at Practica X, or Milonga 10, or Villa malcom. : ) (Oh Yes, I know I have a very good memory!) It was such a rewarding experience dancing with him! Up till this moment, I could have left the place satisfied but I didn’t because I felt like I owe my old friend William a dance (Doesn’t that sound funny, you only met or dance with someone once, and you felt like you are friend of him already!) I looked at him, he looked back and laughed. I couldn’t tell that was a laugh of “hmm i know she is going to dance with me” or a laugh of ” I’m glad she is interested in dancing with me again!”………… you know what, that doesn’t matter! I danced with him in a way as if old friend danced. He said couple times in between songs that I like to jump…. Although I don’t quite get it, i think what he meant is my energy was a bit too much for the dance! : ) My second night at El beso story couldn’t end without mention the old lady (Organizer of the milonga) who gave me a hard during my first time. Somewhere during my 2nd time there, she walked to me, looked at me with a beautiful smile and said :”How are you?” while she held my hand as if she had known me for a while! Oh, that’s right, it was after I danced with Suit guy, William and Martin………..

I was very lucky and satified with both of my time to El Beso, but I think from my limited experience there, I learn something very Interesting and worth reflecting!! Attitude somtimes is not against people but against situation! Same people could be treatedly very differently depending on whether you getting dances, whom you dance with & how other people treat you……  Facinating, isn’t it!!

I think I will be back to El Beso again, really not for dancing but for experience!

Btw, if you’d like to meet this singer of “Sexteto Milonguero” tango orchestra, this is the place to stalk him! I heard from Felipe there are always lots of women trying to talk to him or take pics with him, so be aware the pressure is on! ; ) Here is a pic of “Sexteto Milonguero” playing at milonga 10 (Pic is stolen from Jenna’s BA pic albumn) : )

BsAs Trip blog No.5- 1st 30’s birthday in Buenos Aries alone but not lonely!

My trip to BsAs is my 30’s birthday gift from hubby and interesting enough I spent 31’s birthday in his 30’s present…… : )

Friday, Dec, 3rd was my last night in BsAs, which happens to be my birthday as well (You know, i think i purposely planed to have my birthday in BsAs) . Therefore, decided to throw a combined birthday and sending off party!

Cooking is usually a very fun and passionate thing for me to do. However with limited kitchen supply and especially limited ingredient, even though I do like to “show off” my cooking skill but in this case, I decided to go easy with myself— Ordering Chinese food from this restaurant named “大家乐“ （Brian and I went there once, we liked everything we ordered there) became a good choice!

Before guests arrive, i took some pics of all the food I prepared, which includes 10 courses Chinese dishes, some cookies and birthday cake from Itati pastry(on Cordoba right near Malabia), & fruits and drinks.

The cookie beauties:

Lucas & Cristian trying to figuering out how to light the candle:

More party pics:

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I have to say I felt very blessed and hornored to have all these new/old friends came to the party plus those ones who very much wanted to come but couldn’t with other obligations!! Especially thank you to our best DJ Lungkuei, who played music from range of party music to pop music then to tango to suit the “customer needs”!! I have to say lungkuei impressed local argentine dancers with no doubt!! Debbi, it is always a treat  to taste your cooking–what a well-prepared peach pie!! You are my first friend in BsAs, you made me feel being a part of a new family and you told me so much helpful information that totally made my stay in BsAs easier, safer and smoother!!  Cristian, don’t forget you and I have a deal, next time we see each other, you will have to speak in English and I will have to speak in Spanish!! Geoff, I still remember the first thing I asked from you when we first met this trip was to borrow money from you because “someone” forgot her wallet at home and didn’t have money to pay for taxi!! I think i must have impressed you with very bad impression ; ) I enjoyed us taking seminar classes together, your walking is so so beautiful and yummy!!!! Please continue to walk like that! ; ) Sebastian, I am so glad that you finally asked me to dance after ignoring me for so many days even after Vio tried to connect us! : ) It was like you not only open the door of our dancing but also opened the door of our friendship, thank you so much for doing what you did!!!! You really impressed me as a different kind of argentine man, who still behaves like who still believes in Romance!!! Keep it that way you will find your angel!!! Lucas, I know you don’t like sharing too much of your personal information in the internet. So let me know if I say too much about you here, I will delete it if that is the case. I felt so lucky that out of all these beautiful women and beautiful female dancers in all these milongas, you cabeceoed me and that opened a new beautiful world. I liked your persistence, precise & analogies  in your teaching! You are indeed an outstanding tango & argentine folklore  tango professionist!!! What’s more, you have a sweet heart that is always willing to help others out! But, please remember to collect your full payment after all your work! ; ) Caro, I didn’t get to talk to you as much but your smile is just so real and touching! You always make me feel happier if I look at your smile!! I wish I had stayed on Sunday to join your out of town activity!!! Sasha, I see a lot of myself in you excluding the beauty part!! It is so hard sometimes to ignore how other people/society think of you, but in the end of day your feelings are only true and known to yourself. Therefore, I support you to pursue your happiness the way you want it. With that being said, just a headsup, overtime your view over this might change! ; ) And when it happens, you won’t even notice! ; ) Pau, I’m so gald you came to the party so we got to hang out and got to know each other!! I loved how relaxing and casual you are, it felt so refreshing around you! You brought very exciting energy to the people around you!!! And although you parrarel parking skill is quite good, but next time pls watch carefully when you back off!! ; ) Lastly, thank you for taking the initiation to facebook me!! It is important that we keep in touch from now on!! Dani, my friend, what do I say, after 50hrs flight from China to BsAs, you still made it to La Viruta to offer the birthday dance and see me off with big hug!!! I can’t be any luckier to have friend like you who provide me Dollar exchange service and tour guide service and what’s more special, you are the only one who ever called my loft landline!!!!! : ) I was so so so happy to see you yesterday night!!!! Now please rest well before your next CRAZY flight! (P.S, you should stop doing those crazy itinerary flights!) Sorin, though you didn’t come to the birthday party nor got to dance a tando with me in my last night, but I want to tell you how appreciative I am for all the beautiful tandas from you and allowing me to sit in your seat during my first time to El beso!!! You and debbie are such nice couple, I wish you both the best!!! Ismeal, i don’t know whether you could tell, but I actually felt very bad first of all i was late to be at home waiting for you for our class, secondly the first thing you did for a private class was to help my hubby to get right taxi to go to airport! I like the look in your face when you said, overtime you got a lot of help from others and you’d like to return the karma to other people.  Also, believe me that I believed you that there was a little bit of you being with me at my party though you were not physically there! : ) What’s further, I enjoyed my birthday dance with you even though you said you were drunk. You know sometimes being drunk bring the best out of you : ) Too bad my dress was so tight that limited your expression choices! ; ) Julio & Luiza, sorry that I always have parties on Friday that limited you both from coming! I appreciate your offer of celebrating my birthday for me at Julio’s milonga. In fact, I felt a bit sad that I didn’t make it to your milonga. Friday party ended really late around 2amish, and I made appointments to meet some friends at La viruta. Anyway,you both travel to US a lot, I am sure I will see you soon somewhere!!Luiza, I want your flan recipe in written!!It is the best flan i have ever had, well, it is probably the first time I had it : )  Flaqui, too bad you had to work on friday, luckily you were able to make it to La viruta so we could dance in my last night! It meant a lot to me for your efforts to come and invite me to dance!! You are the only person who walked me home which offered me a freshing walking in the early morning of BsAs experience!! I appreciate it!!

There are many many more beautiful people I met in my trip! I wish I know you all a bit more so I can actually make a story in my blog!! If coming to BsAs is a boiling soup , all of you beautiful people will be the different spicies that create different flavor and make the soup more tasty and interesting!!!

I think I will be back soon!! Love you all!!

Un beso grande

BsAs Trip blog No.4– Some observation and thoughts

I am leaving BsAs in 3 days and just realized ever since day 3 , I haven’t written anything in my BsAs blog. (Everybody who has been to BsAs know how that goes right? ; ) )

Life here in BsAs for me sometimes is so real as if this is the “real” life I have been living in: A city felt like hometown, a open loft apartment as I always wanted before I had my house in US, no need worry about getting lost because you can take taxi any time you want, what’s more, no need worry about finance……. The more days I stay here, the more real my life seems to get !! (Yes, bri, life with you sometimes is too good to be true to me as if I don’t deserve it ; ) )

Many different things happened along my stay so far! There are things I can tell or share with other people, but there are also things very hard to put into word that you will have to experience yourself in person! My observation of this city and people here grows everyday as I experience more, here are a few things I’d like to share:

• Let’s start with a joke! The first couple of days, i have noticed in a lot of streets i passed by in a taxi or by walking, the street signs always point me to “Claro” street. When I see that i was wondering :”how come, all ways lead to Claro!”… And guess what, later my first friend here Debbi told me later that Claro is not the name of the street but a phone company. And the reason why it is on the street sign is because Argentine government doesn’t take care of street cleaning, so whoever takes care of that will be marked on the top of the street sign!
• Roads in BsAs are very frustrating but meantime very interesting. Frustrating in the sense of there are a lot of small pits here and there, if you are not walking with care, you will easily tweak your ankle; Interesting is the sense of it is very fascinating to see how the material of the road changes just within 1 block distance. A few seconds ago it was rock road, a few seconds later it became tile, concrete or marble road.  Most of cities will drive for integration of the public facilities but here in BsAs I think they care more about “Personality”. Again, there might have something to do with government not spending money to fix road condition in a structured way but I am not sure.
• The next observation is by Brian. Brian has this habit everywhere he travels, he’d like to visit computer store to look at computer products especially any Intel competitors’ product/price information. He had been eyeballing for a computer store in the area we live or a few other areas we went but failed to see any. This made him think BsAs is like China in 10 years ago that computer is still not as popular. After he pointed out, I started to notice myself among all the places I went to after He left, i didn’t see any big computer stores like Best buy, fry”s or even famous Apple store …… I’m wondering is this also related to the economy that computer is too expensive to buy or people here are just not a big fan of a computer?? I do have a funny store to tell to support the latter thought. Couple days ago when I went to El beso for tango for the 1st time. There was this old milongero named “Williams” danced with me, between songs, he asked whether I am a dancer, I said no, and then he asked what do I do, I said I work for a computer company named Intel. He reacted very promptly saying :” Oh, no!! what a horrible job!!” I thought that was a hilarious conversation, in my whole Intel professionalism, though i have never loved it with my full heart, but I have never thought it was a horrible profession. ; )
• Same as US, most of shops are closed during holiday. You would hope owners of shops would like to earn more money or governments will encourage more shopping activities to help with the economy by opening shops during holiday for not just tourist but also locals just like how China economy gets boosted by China government stimulating spending! Also, not just shops, museums, tourist places, bank, they all close at lots of hrs we normally think they will open for business. We had to go to Modern Art Museum twice because it was closed on Tuesday. Most bank closes by 3 or 4pm as if your work day ends before that so you can go to bank take care of your banking business!
• With that being said, restaurants here opens REALLY late! Dinner here starts around 9:30pm till a bit over mid-nightish. I always wondering whether people will get hungry after lunch between noon till 10pm, but I guess the culture here is to have some afternoon snack/coffee or Medialunas perhaps? ; )
• My brother told me the best way to tell a country’s wealth level is to see their public bathroom. Here is some real data from my personal travel experience: in London, although most bathroom are compact size, but they normally very clean with high quality toilet  and supplied with high quality toilet paper, paper towel & soap stuff; in Japan(limited to airport experience) Bathroom in airport is all ToTo toilets and topped with one of those things that making waterfall sound to cover your “sound”, also warms up the seats, wash your butt…etc. Certainly with full supply of everything you will need as toiletry; in Switzerland, not all but often toilets are not only very high quality, high end brand but also they are topped with an automatic seat cover rotater, meaning once you finish using the toilet, the moment you stand up it will not only flush but also automatic rotate the seat cover to a fresh one, isn’t that neat!!! In US, toilet rooms are gigantic relatively speaking. It is not kidding that sometimes you can have a small size party(~10 people) in one of the bathroom. You can almost always count on toilet seat cover being available in any rest room you go to. There is always hot and cold water supply with everything else. Here in BsAs: rest rooms are very small, I think per my experience they are even a bit smaller than most rest rooms in London. And it is very common to see toilet papers all over the floor, there is no seat cover sheet 90%-95% of the time. There is soup dispenser but do not think there is always supply. And what’s worse is you can’t even count on the toilet paper. Sometimes you need pay money to get toilet paper or tip them.
• Ok, enough toilet room. I have also noticed some interesting “jobs” here. No.1: There are lots of people at night dig through trashes out of good apartments to look for valuable things to sell to earn money. No.2: when you sit in the taxi, you sometimes will see people carrying water or flowers to each cars that parked waiting for traffic lights in the interaction to sell. No.3:  People here love dogs, so dog-walker is a very popular job!! My 2nd day here, I once saw a dog walker walking with 15ish dogs!!! No.4: I don’t know how to name this job, but basically what they do is help you to get taxi and you pay them a bit of “tips”. They are not part of the service of the place you go.

Oh, it started raining!! Now it makes me miss home more!!

Some pics of the loft I stay at

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BsAs Trip blog No.3–An awkward but amazing day 2

I thought French are very picky about visitors not speaking their language, but from what I experienced so far in BsAs, I think People in BsAs are even more serious on this. Not likely French just disappoint at you if you don’t speak French, Here people  will actually make you feel really bad about it, what’s further, they will start to teach you right away without how unwanted or confused you are!! Lungkuei told me they are not always like that at least they never do that to him. They only do that to women because they want to talk with women… : ) I wish that was the case! (I felt guity couple times when argentine looked me like I was crazy coming to BsAs without speaking any spanish!! )

Here are some interesting things happened on my day 2. Interesting in the sense of a wild range of mix from something horrible, awkward to something beautiful & amazing!! I would say day 2 is the first time I started to experience BsAs in its famous way!

My only meal of day 2 was at a French cafe named “Oui Oui” at “Nicaragua” & “Av Dorego” that Megan Z recommended to me. According to google map, it should be a 15mins walk from my loft but It took me a bit longer than that because when I left my loft I was confused which direction is SE direction from my street, which is NO surprise! So I had to turn around after I finally realize i was in wrong direction. After that, I was able to follow google instruction and found it. It is located in a relatively quiet street. I can tell it is a “good” cafe the moment I got there, there were some americans and other foreigners hanging out there surfing internet and chatting, which certainly felt welcomed to hear some English. I ordered a coffee , “medialuna” & smoked salmon sandwich. Funny thing is Bri called me while i was enjoying my breakfast there, after I told him what I ordered, he is like :” So you are in BsAs, but you ordered smoked salmon which is famous in Oregon and then you are at a French cafe!!???” : ) I got your point, dear !!

Here is some pics of the food and cafe pics:

After my relaxing breakfast, it was already like 3 or 4pm. I decided to kick off my first shopping in this commoditized city! Without thinking too much, I decided to check out the Dot dept that Marcelo (The loft manager who works for Adrian from sf, the owner of the apt) showed me on our way from airport to loft.

Dot is just like any department store but a bit more spread out, you still have to walk in and out of each brand store like fancy department stores in Shanghai.  It only took me 40mins before I made my first fashion purchase in BsAs. Even though wasn’t cheap purchase but so far i have been very happy with them, and the good news is I will still get $100 (anything in this blog $ means peso) back for tax free. Here is what I bought:

While i was happily shopping in Dot, apparently Dani had been waiting for me patiently from 7:00 to 8:30pm for our private lesson. (I learned this of course later). Somehow I remembered he said somewhere around 9pm, but meantime he also said he would call me to confirm the final time. So I sent him a msg around 6:45pm asking when he would come and he didn’t reply, so I thought he might not come. Anyway, so I took taxi home around 8:30pm trying to make home around 9pm so in case he comes I would be home for him. After I got home, I “patiently” waited from 9pm to 9:30pm for him, and finally I decided to call him to “question” why he didn’t come. : ) And here is the awkward part:  When I called him asking :” Did you forget about our plan?”, he said right away :” No, I didn’t forget, I was there waiting for you from 7-8:30pm and I Just got home!!!…………” You can imagine how terrible I felt for having teacher waited for me for that long, even though I know dani and he is a good friend!!! I aplogized for many times and I got this impression that he was very upset, of course he has every right to be upset, if I were him, first of all I would leave after 30mins waiting, secondly I will be very pissed off. ; ) So my night from then on were surrounded with deep sorry in my heart!! Anyway, in the end i was able to make him feel better and we reschled the private to today.

Ok, now i’m going to tell you a even more awkward story next. So I took taxi to tangocool practica, by the time I got there, I couldn’t find my wallet in my purse then I realized I forgot to put my wallet back into my purse when I was organizing it before going out. So I used my “Spanish-like English” to explain to taxi driver that I forgot my wallet at home, of course he was very pissed off, and I told him I would go inside and borrow money from my friends, he seemed very quickly understood my English. I run in, and I had to explain to the milonga reception guy i didn’t have money for taxi so I need go inside without paying to borrow money. He looked at me and decided to trust me after emphasizing i had to come back to pay. The first person I saw that I “know” (In the sense of meeting him in facebook but never meet in person to my recollection) is Geoffre Dominessy. Can you imagine for someone you never meet in person before, the first thing you said to him is to borrow money???!!  Luckily, Geoffre was such a nice person, he reacted very understandable and fast, walked me to outside and paid taxi.  Thank you Geoffre for rescuring me!!! Then I faced my second “finance crisis”, need to pay milonga which unfortunately Geoffre didn’t have enough cash with him. So I asked Geoffree to go inside to get Lungkuei to help pay for entry fee. Then Aristotelis Gko (THe greek guy I met during my first night at Nino Nien milonga) showed up and very nicely offered to pay the milonga entry fee for me!!!! By the time lungkuei showed up, my money crisis was resolved. I felt so dumb but meantime so thankful that all these beautiful people I know/I met!!!!!!

Now the awkward part of the night ended, my night of dancing started and it got better and better every minute!!!! (Stay tuned for dance part of the story later)

BA Trip blog No.2– First feel of Buenos Aries

After ~14hrs flight from Portland to Houston , to Buenos Aries, I finally arrived in “South America” continental alone!!! Pic on the left is what I brought with me, my brother said I am crazy. : )

On the flight from Houston to BA, the guy who sit next to me were trying to be social with me, soon he gave up because he finally realized I was more interested in sleeping vs being social with him. He does has an interesting job thought: he takes people to join bird watching tour all over the world. This trip to BA was suppsoed to be another guy’s job but that guy got sick so he was told to travel to Argentine 1 day before the tour. Got his name card if anyone ever intersted in birds watching! ; )

Getting through immigration line was a patience testing experience! I think it took me about 45m to 1hr to get through immigration. Interesting thing noticed here is although US citizen doesn’t need visa to coming to Argentine but they need pay $180 repicorcy(wrong spelling) fee, which to be said is for 10 years duration(learned this later). US citizen, UK & Canada citizens are in the same boat. For a minute, I felt much better! (I had to fly to LA for argentine visa interview but fee was just $30)

By the time I exited immigration, my luggages had been waiting for me probably for a while. There wasn’t organized luggage cart waiting for you, you have to grab one whereever you see one. After got all my luggage loaded in the cart, I exchanged $30 to peso as instructed by Adrian (My landlore from SF) just in case.  I went out of the custom, anxiously looking for “Remanda” name sign, by the end of exit way, I still didn’t see it, started to be a bit concerned but then saw a guy quickly moving and raising his hand to show the sign. Yes, that is Marcelo, the guy who is here to take me to the loft. I was amazed how he sensed I must be Remanda, later was told not that hard since my name looks like Chinese so he looked for black hair. : )

The ride to the loft was pretty long but I enjoyed it because Marcelo was giving me some introduction about the city, area, houses, districts, history of the city etc…. We passed zoo, passed park, passed Dot dept store, then we entered palermo area, which indeed is an area that is relatively quiet but still within center area with a lots of interesting shops and restaurants, hotels, apts. Loft is as beautiful as expected with almost everything you will need to settle down. It even took Marcelo 45mins to go over everything with me, and have contract signed and payment settled. Finally, after he left I turely felt now I am here in Buenos Aries !!

Dani was nice enough to come to meet me in the afternoon and then took me out to walk around center of the downtown. Also went through all the must-know items and tips about BA. He left me at Neotango shoe store , where I bought my first pair of dance shoe. One thing to keep in mind, if you pay with cash you just need pay  440 pesos, but if you pay with credit card, then you need pay 470 pesos. (Shoe pic attached below)

 

My first day impression of BA:

• Reminded me my hometown city: Wenzhou: small shops everywhere , door by door;  trashes everywhere; noisy as expected (I read this book called “Time out city guide- Buenos Aires in the plane and learned that BA is ranked as No. 4th noisy city in the world. ; ) ); Cars and pedestrian share same road, while mostly pedestrian share car’s road but not cars share pedestrain’s walkway, but I am pretty sure if they can they would too. : ); Traffic lights didn’t mean too much , especially to pedestrians. (Dani said to me as one of the tip: always look even you have the light to walk cross the street)……. all of these might not sound positive but to me it reminded me where I came from, so I felt very warm and intimate!!
• My 2nd observation, there are lots of dogs here in BA. Right before we arrived at my loft, I saw one lady with 6 different kinds of dogs!!!!
• Marcelo trying to warn me that weather here is humidy but I don’t think he knows how humidy it is in shanghai (where I come from before i live in US), so to me this weather in BA is perfect!!!!!! P.S, for people that complains about humidy, it is actually very good for your skip to be in a humidy weather
• BA is a big city! I used analogy analysis skill in this conclusion ; ) : it took me almost 40-50mins from airport to palermo(15mins to downtown), which is almost same as how long it takes me from shanghai international airport to my apt which is also about 15mins drive to downtown). Does anybody know in the world ranking of size of cities, where does BA stand?

BA Trip blog No.1– Getting Argentine Visa

I do very poor job of keeping travel blogs in the past. Everytime before I leave for a trip, I always tell myself : ” This time I am going to write travel blogs about anything interesting happened during the trip to share with friends and families”. However, what usually happen  in the end is I either started a few blogs for the beginning of the trip, and then never continue to finish the whole journey,  or I just completely didn’t start the blog because lame excuses of being too busy ……  : )

This time, I want to record everything about my upcoming trip to BA of Argentine. You might ask why! I think it has everything to do with all these interesting, fasinating stores i have heard from other people made me think this is going to be a very memorable trip!! Addtionally, this is the first time that I will travel ALONE to other country in a continental that I have never been to before.

Ok, a little background about this trip. This trip to BA alone is my 30’s birthday gift from my dear hubby. Interesting thing is  I ended up sponsoring his flight tickets to BA to visit me for 7 days after I sensed that he is a bit concern of his beautiful wife being in BA for 17 days alone. (Which btw, thanks to my English Friend Fred) After this surprise, I explored second surprise of this trip is I have to travel to LA for in person visa inteview for going to Argentine!! Luckily, it wasn’t that hard for me to accept the fact of an added trip on top of BA trip because after all I can vist my great friend shouning , see her amazing newly finished exotic house(This is how amazing her house is, people usually stop in front of her house and stayed there for minutes to check it out, and what’s more sometimes people will drive backwards to see it after passing by. P.S, both my friend shouning and her husband are very well-known and estabilished architect), and I will also get to check out LA tango scenes(Life is all about tango , isn’t it)!

So here I am in LA. Here is my 2hrs experience in Argentine consulate in LA. My friend’s husband Mr.ma took me there around 9:30am. There was nobody in the reception window, I didn’t try to make sound to acknowledge them there is someone here but instead I was patiently waiting for them to finally realize that. A lady finally showed up after like 10-15mins, I told her I am here for Visa interview appt 10:30am. She said sit down and we would call you for it. She didn’t ask for my name, didn’t ask me to fill any paper. So I sat and watch this Argentine introduction video. There was also tango performance in that video. I waited for about 1hr, a guy came out with some files on his hand and walked out of the office, for a moment I felt this might be the guy who handled my application… Surprisely I was right, after he walked back into the office, a few minutes later, he called my nam. We went inside to his office, he said it would be a very easy and fast interview. He was very right, he didn’t give me any hard time or ask me any real question. He noticed all those stickers I put on all my documents, he asked :”Is that my assistance who put these stickers or you did it?” I said :” Yes, I did it to make your life easier!” He then laughed with the appreciation to my little detailed “woman touch”. He then said :” Please don’t feel offended, but I have to ask you this question!” For a moment, i thought he is going to say something or ask something that is very hard to answer. But all he said is you have your trip purpose as tourism, I hope you are not planning on doing any work there. I gave visa to some Intel employee before and then they ended up working there. If you do so, you will have lots of issues……” While he was talking, i already started to shake my head and saying no, no, this is a pure tour trip, in fact i didn’t even plan to bring my work laptop (My observation is me bring mywork laptop with me to this interview sort of triggering him to ask this question) with me for this trip. He was convinced and satisfied. Last thing he said :” If you have little patience, you can have your visa back today!”

Yes, when you dealing with argentine, the minimun quality  you need is patience right!! At the moment, i wasn’t sure whether I have this so called little patience, but I do know for sure that I don’t like the idea of leaving the consulate without visa and not knowing when I will be able to get it after I leave LA. So I successfully convinced myself, since it was freaking hot outside, so sitting inside with comfortable chair and able to work on computer , waiting for my passport isn’t such a bad idea. After 1hr of waiting, I got a little restless, I walked around and purposely to call some attention from those reception ladies, hoping someone will say something to me to notify me the status of my visa.

By 11:40am, I decided to remind them that I am still here “patiently waiting for my visa” by asking “is my visa about done!”, this lady obviously didn’t like me as much, she quickly responded by saying :”Yes it is being processed, will be done shortly!” And it was true, they called my name 5mins after and handed over my passport. I double checked my name, birth date and everything to make sure everything was correct and I happily left the consulate. Misson completed!!!

Overall, to be fair, it was a pretty good experience in the consulate!! Looking at my passport, I wanted to yell :” BA, HERE I COME!!!!”