Liberdade ni Funjatta

We arrived past midnight at the Nikkey Palace Hotel in the Liberdade neighborhood of Sao Paulo. We chose to stay in Liberdade because it is known as "Little Japan" since so many Japanese (and, these days, Chinese and Korean) immigrants settled here; in fact, it's the largest Japanese community outside of Japan. It's been 100 years since the large migration from Japan to Brazil, so the "Japanese" living here now are largely second- and third-generation; in Japanese, "second-generation Japanese" is nikkei (日経), hence the name of our hotel. Nikkey Palace Hotel turned out to be a nice place, with staff that speak Portuguese, English and Japanese, so we were able to communicate quite easily.
Suzuki-san and I decided to meet at 9 a.m. and walk around the neighborhood. It was a slightly chilly Saturday morning, but there were plenty of people out and about. We walked up the street towards a square where there is a market every weekend. As we walked up the street, we passed a busy restaurant and Suzuki-san realized he'd stepped in something. Whatever it was, the color was a slightly rotten yellowish-brown; almost the color of a day-old egg yolk. We decided it was either something made of egg that someone had dropped coming out of the restaurant, or it was something a doggy had dropped after eating something made of egg that someone had dropped coming out of the restaurant. In any case, when we arrived at the park, we found some puddles and Suzuki-san washed his shoe off clean. Then a middle-aged man came up to us sounding rather irritated saying something in Portuguese. When we told him we didn't understand, he switched to Japanese and asked if we understood. He was a nikkei Japanese-Brazilian of course, and once he found out that Suzuki-san was Japanese, they had a more friendly conversation. He told us that homeless and drinkers make a mess of the park on the weekends, and the people who sell things at the market are left to clean it up. He had hosed his part of the park down, and that's why there were puddles there in the first place. We told him Suzuki-san had probably stepped in egg, and the guy was nice enough to agree it looked like it was probably just egg. We apologized anyway and then moved on to continue our walk.
Walking around town, we found there is a Japanese Immigration Museum in town, but it doesn't open until the afternoon, so we are going to go back later. We also found a shop called Toji Funjatta, which means "Stepped in (it)" in Japanese. The shop was closed, so we weren't sure what it was (maybe a bar?), but I took Suzuki-san's picture in front of it to commemorate out morning adventure.
Other parts of town were quite nice, and when the sun came out around 10a.m., we walked through an outdoor fruit & vegetable market, and then stopped at a stand selling fried pastries filled with cheese and meats. I managed to order one filled with ham and cheese (we just ordered at random) and we sat down and shared it. After another short walk, we arrived back at our hotel for a short rest...which brings us to the present moment. We still have quite a few hours before we need to head back to the airport, so hopefully we'll find something fun to do nearby. But in any case, it's nice to have time in Sao Paulo to see some sights and not just the airport.