lunch at bio

the air here doesn't seem clean anymore. it might be even worse than são paulo. the only study i could find online that compares pollution in major cities of the world that includes los angeles, sao paulo, and buenos aires uses data from 1992 so it is not accurate at all as to what i am experiencing. it could also be the hostel room itself. it's really loud in our room because we're right next to the lobby and the walls seem to be thin. plus the people are just loud anyway. next door to us are some brazilian girls and they are incredibly loud. the walls are very high but if you look at the top, you'll see that the walls don't go to the ceiling and there is an open space, which explains why it sounds like they're in the room with you. everyone smokes like trains and when we return in the evenings, our room is filled with smoke. it creeps in through the cracks inbetween the doors and wall. there might even be mold in the room or the blankets have never been washed. i'm not sleeping in the blanket, just on top in my sleepsack but damn, something is going on! i'm not sure what it is but my eyes and nose are irritated. everyone is feeling it. i want to breathe clean los angeles air again.

today dani went off on his own while twiddle thumbs and i took the subte to palermo. we walked over and had lunch at bio restaurant (sorry, they don't seem to have a web site). technically it was a late breakfast. we're getting bad with the waking up late and ditched kenjinkai stuff again in favor of seeing the city.

japanese garden

since we had such a late start and to walk is to really waste time when taxis are so cheap here, we took a taxi to jardín japonés. the japanese community may be so small or spread out in buenos aires that they don't have their own ghetto in the city like a japan town or little tokyo or liberdade, but they do have a japanese garden and i wanted to see it. the garden is not too big but large enough. there is a pond with koi, a japanese style bridge, landscaping, some sculptures, a plaque commemorating when members of the royal family visited, a bell, a "tea house", a library, two boards for omikuji, as well as a small shop selling various things including food (if this is one of the main places to get japanese food in buenos aires then it's really sad).

planetarium

nearby is a large park with the planeterio so we walked over there. it's free to get in but you have to pay to see the special exhibit going on. it's an interesting looking building and i decided we should walk around first before we decide to pay. well, the place is pretty lame so we didn't go to the exhibit. it's really old (hard to breathe in there) and seems like the displays are from the 70s. i haven't mentioned it yet but the whole place seems like its in the 70s. the clothes and the haircuts seem to be from another time and i don't think it's a case of retro as fashionable. americans are into jeans and t-shirts. buenos aires is not. it is about vests and corduroy jackets, that sort of thing.

mnba

after that we tried to find a safe place to catch a cab. there didn't seem to be anywhere for a taxi to pull over so we crossed the street because we saw taxis on the other side. (why did the chicken cross the road...) once on the other side, no more taxis were passing by and someone parked in the spot we thought looked good so now there wasn't a place for a cab to pull over. we ended up crossing back to the side we were originally on. eventually we got a taxi and took it to the museo nacional de bellas artes. it was free and there were paintings from various periods, not only argentine artists but from europe as well. sadly, no art called to me. i didn't feel love for any of the work i saw and didn't discover any local artists that i should check out.

my gnocchi dinner

after that we took a cab back to the hostel and passed by recoleta cemetery again, but this time with the weekend fair in full blast with lots of vendors, people, and even a band playing. seemed like fun but i don't feel like it right now and just want to relax for a bit. we had dinner at a place on the corner just down the block from the hostel, el clavel del suárez. they had on the menu milanesa de soya and since twiddle thumbs has seen that on the menu a few times, she just had to ask the waiter for the full details. it seems that if they don't add the sauce then it's safe for vegans to eat so she ordered it. once she had it, we realized she should've asked for a different sauce as it was dry and needed something on top. i had some gnocchi. the waiter was really helpful and patient with all our questions and requests to modify the food for our dietary restrictions. i had really good strawberry juice.

before dinner, i called oshaberi to meet tonight again for drinks so we were trying to finish dinner on time to meet up with her. once she arrived, all of us took a cab to san telmo. dani had walked all around san telmo and la boca this day and told us it wasn't as bad as all the hype and that we should have went. we walked around the plaza dorrego, where we could see people dancing the regular slow tango, not the fancy exhibition stuff. then we went into el balcon and a reggae dub band was playing. dani was starved for live music and absolutely thrilled to be there. we drank some more gancia and this time had fernet with coke as well. the fernet was not popular so i ended up being the alcohol garbage disposal, as usual. not to mention that dani wanted to try fernet by itself so i added that shot to my drink, doubling the alcohol content. (i didn't think it was so bad. not great, but not that bad.) the band was good too but after awhile with that kind of music, all the songs end up being the same. plus it was too loud to really enjoy a conversation. i will give props to the place for having a picture of marlene dietrich on the wall as well as several pictures of dali paintings. (the walls were covered with various movie posters and actor/actress photos.)

after that we started to walk around to find something else but there was nothing else and ending up heading back towards hostel. twiddle thumbs was too tired and getting grumpy so we took a taxi for the last few blocks back. we then chatted for quite awhile in the room. it was a nice conversation full of laughs and commonalities.

[update 9/24/08: i just found out about a big sculpture in a park behind the museum that we missed entirely. if i had known about it before, i probably would have tried to see it before leaving the area. it is called floralis generica and it is by eduardo catalano.]