Maite

Seems like august will be the time to go to Brazil and FINALLY meet Maite. We have been seeing each other only through skype and pictures. I cannot wait. Look how cute she is .. photo taken this last weekend in Ilhabela.

I know ... no posts lately. Not much more than work happening here.

We headed to Pattaya , Thailand, 2 weeks ago for a long weekend but it kindda sucked. No wind for kiting and the place is just a big dump. Definitely not a place I'd recommend for anyone to visit unless they are after prostitutes or just wanna see how screwed up this world is.

Kitting season starting pretty soon. 4 water sprouts were seen from our office today. PLanning on a kite trip next weekend or the one after weather and work permitting.

Tornado....

Look where Mi starts work next week ... =D

The picture above was the tornado seen from our office window.

The following pictures were taken by a friend that lives close to the beach and 2 blocks from us (I marked on the pic above)... Enjoy !

The wonders of living in Asia. ;-P
Ps... I know it's a water sprout but tornados are way cooler and more exciting to talk about. Kindda sad that I was in a meeting and missed it. Frikin meetings .... grrrr

Sibu and BIG NEWS !

Last weekend we headed to Sibu again for a 3 day long weekend. We had a blast there again and did quite a bit of sailing on dinguies(Escapes).I was teaching Mila how to sail and by the end of the second day she was quite confortable sailing by herself doing tacks, jibes and trimming the sail quite well.

Most of the weekend was spent relaxing on the beach, reading books, eating and playing cards. Nice way to relax.

The group this time was awesome as always... Ben Huber(swiss) and his girlfriend Adel(singapore), Didier(colombia/denmark) and Ali(Jordan) with me and Mila ... Unfortunately we did not take any group pics this time.

The place we stayed (Sea Gypsies) was not the best one. The hotel was good but the rooms had cockroaches and the service sucked unless you had an all inclusive package. Next time we are planning on staying on the Sibu Cabannas beside it.

Again it's worth mentioning Sibu does not stand close to Tioman standards in my opinion as the water is not as clean and the options are very limited to the different resorts wich makes the trip a lot more expensive.

Next trip shall be Pulau Aur scubadiving or Pulau Rawa wich is supposed to be an amazing place.

The BIG NEWS now are ..... (drums).... Milena got a job as an Industrial Psychologist at Fedex here. The job seems really cool and it's one bloc from my office... we are both very excited with the job and think it's an awesome step for her carreer.

Uncle San...

10th of April has to be one of the happiest days of my life. Maite was born ! Isn't she cute ?
Both Juli and Maite are doing great.
=D

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I have been very busy and trying to find time to post is not such an easy thing. I was working on Mila's site for a while ... check it out at http://www.milenadalmeida.com/

LINKS: Go Uncle George Go !

The new Forbes list of richest people is out.
George Lucas weighs in at $3.6 Billion at #70 richest in the US.

Why not give a raise to everyone ? =)

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/54/biz_06rich400_The-400-Richest-Americans_land.html

LINKS: Interesting posts.

I figured I will start using my blog to post some interesting links and videos too. Nothing to do with my trips and life but some links in case you have some time to kill. It also gives you another reason to visit my blog . =)

I will add the header LINK so you know it's a link or just a part of the story of my life.

Here is the first batch..

Nintendo Commercial (btw I already bought a Wii)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsoyZmtS_nA

World of Warcraft SouthPark
http://lofish1972.imeem.com/video/t2E1aadd/south_park_warcraft/

Enjoy.

The park next door

This is a park here in Singapore close to a Reservoir. The monkeys are wild and just walk around you on the trees and don't seem to be afraid of people at all.

Vietnam

What a week... We have spent 9 days traveling a bit of the country.
Our first impressions were really good. We arrived on Friday night (Daniel, Milena and Me) and met with Huber, Jaq and Pedro at the Hotel in Hanoi.



Hanoi is one of the craziest places I have EVER been to. Motorbikes are EVERYWHERE. I will post a video here so you can see. There are no trafic lights and even when they are phisically there, they do not mean anything. People drive their bikes through sidewalks, wrong way streets and intersections in such a way you can believe they are not doing anything wrong or unusual. Crossing the street is like this:
1- Stare to where you wanna go on the other side of the street
2- Walk slowly towards your target and hope not to get hit (Pedro and Daniel did get hit)
It is INSANE.

The next morning we departed to Halong Bay.








This was quite a place and experience. We rented a 6 room boat and had a BLAST cruising Halong bay for 3 days and 2 nights. The trip cost us $130 US each with food. We had quite a lot to drink in the boat too. Halong Bay is one of the most beautiful places I have been too.




Huge Cliffs surround you as you cruise on the green waters and visit the islands and caves. Here are some Pics.


Coming back from Halong Bay we headed back to Hanoi (getting tired of city by this point). We spent a day there and Pedro, Jaq and Ben left to go back to Singapore. Our plan was to get a train to Sapa but we ended up missing the train due to a fight with a vendor that sold a jacket to Daniel that was too small... We ended up fightin the stupid lady for 15 to 20 min to get the money back with mimics, wrestling and a lot of screaming. BEWARE, NEVER give your money until you are centain you want something in Vietnam... They will not return your money and will try to push something else or more expensive goods to you instead.

Well ... after missing the train we headed back to another hotel (Youth Hotel) that I do not recommend as the rooms smells like cigarretes. Rooms in hotels cost about 15US$ a night and are normally pretty clean and easy to find. BARGAIN for cheap rooms. Bargain for EVERYTHING actually.




Next day we took of to a place called TamCoc. It is a place where you ride canoes on the middle of rice fields and go through some really nice scenery. Before TamCoc we visited some temples and that was a bit boring if you have traveled around thailand and Cambodia as they are not even close to as impressive.








Coming back from TamCoc we decided to try Sapa but no trains were available anymore so after some quite problematic decision making and some tears we decided to head to Ma Chu, a minority Tai tribe on the interior about 3 hours drive from Hanoi. It was quite a cool place with rice fields and we got to sleep on the stilt houses where they live. It was a nice 2 day tour with a VERY HARD bed to sleep in but still worth it.




After that we headed back to Hanoi and spent a couple more days there before coming back. It was a cool trip. If I were to do it again I would book my train tickets in advance and make sure I have the trip more planned so I hit the places I wanna hit. The group could not be better.

Thanks all ... Mi, Daniel, Pedro, Huber and Jaq... you made the holidays a LOT more enjoyable.

Cheers.

Pictures now

I started using Picasa and decided to post my first album here.
"A vida eh feita de momentos" .... Good times.

Hope u enjoy it. I am thinking about backing up all my pictures online.

A vida eh feita de momentos

Sailing Weekend

2 full days racing and some very good wind and waves ...
Saturday was 1 race day going south into Indonesian waters and back. We had the line honors but got 2nd place on corrected time due to a swan 50 (I think) getting 1st .. it was a good and long day sailing.

Sunday was a good day and we got a 4th place getting line honors again but the swan got us again and a MUM30 (that sailed really well and had perfect conditions) called Panic.

Both days we had about 20 knots of breeze with big swells on saturday and some good surfing moments.

It was great to be back with the crew in action.

Next saturday we sail again. I will try posting a video (as soon as I get it) from saturday that one of the crew shot. Looks pretty cool !

Here is the video:

Almost back to LIFE

I am back. Let's see what's new...

It seems like a lot of things are getting into the right place lately and that feels good.

My sister is pregnant and I get more excited everyday about being an uncle. MAITÊ is her name. . . I cannot wait to see her and Juli as a mom. It's been very hard to get images from her pregnancy but I can only hope it will get better with time. I think I may have to break in and install some webcams in their place next time I am around.


Tomorrow I get my 3rd passport... I know .. kindda old news since I mentioned this so many times but I think the passport kindda represents the end(or beginning) of a big journey that started in 1998 with my 23rd birthday going to Vancouver... seems like yesterday and at the same time ages ago.

Tomorrow I also will finish my surgery payments wich closes another chapter, this one of not so great experiences. I will have to repeat one more thing here... TAKE GOOD (VERY GOOD) care of your knees.

This week also marked something very important to me. Milena learned to kitesurf. I cannot wait for her to be back here and we can start sailing trips together.



This saturday I finally get back to my sports.... I AM SO EXCITED. I am sailing a regatta called Horsburgh Challenge (http://www.safyc.org.sg/horsburgh/ ) onboard Foxy Lady, that Sydney 40 I posted a few times here. It will be awesome to be back in the water with the crew. It will be a very long day with a 69nm (nautical miles) race. We pretty much sail from one end to the other of Singapore passing a mark in international waters so we have to do immigration before racing at 5:45 am (ouch !). If the wind holds up to what's been doing the past weeks, we should get about 30 knots... and it will be a blast !

Countdown starts to our Vietnam trip... the group is set and the boat is rented, but that story will be for another day.

PARABENS !!!!

Pinao, PARABENS !! Todos os dias eu paro pra pensar na sorte que temos de ter uma familia maravilhosa como a nossa. Eu nao poderia desejar ter como meu irmao uma pessoa mais maravilhosa que voce. Voce eh o melhor amigo que qualquer pessoa pode ter.

Te admiro muito e te amo demais !

That was a message for my big brother that turns 32 today.

After a long time, I will start blogging again. I will try my old once a week post but cannot garantee anything.

Soo ... where do i start ? We headed to Vancouver on the new year's ... it was a lot of fun to see all the friends. We really REALLY miss you all a lot. Actually it's the thing we miss the most about Vancouver. . . the people.

We spent most of the time in Vancouver ... went for Xtmas with Marinho's family and after headed to Jaci's place where a bunch of other friends were.

New year's in Whistler was cool except for the fact that I could not board. The snow looked awesome and the day we left they had 70 cm of snow. CRAZY! Never saw that much snow even when I lived there for almost 9 years.

Now I am back and Mila has gone to Brazil to visit her family ... lucky one. Since someone's gotta work, here I am... Tomorrow she starts kitesurfing lessons and hopefully by end of february we will be ripping waves together .. =)

It was strange to see what the weather was like in Van. I guess we get used to anything in life.

Happy 2007

After a long long wait, it's finally here, My certificate of citizenship. Full report on new years Vancouver trip coming soon...

Vancouver, Here I Go.

Sorry for the long time with no posts... life has been CRAZY. Working LOTS and having no time to get on a computer once I am home.

The news are that Mila is now finished school and on vacation and I bought 2 remote control helicopters to play with last weekend. They are just the toy ones not the real miniatures but fun to fly(specially inside the house). Not too sure if my plants are so happy about it as they have been clipped a few times.

My citizenship ceremony will be on Dec 20th close to the stadium at the immigration office. Email me if you are interested in attending ! The ceremony will be followed by a few pitchers at some closeby restaurant... I was thinking of Dix since they have great Nachos and Beer. Suggestions are welcome...

The real celebration will happen on friday night (Dec 22) and the place is still uncertain but the fact is ... THERE WILL BE A CELEBRATION ... keep your night open to it and please suggest places to celebrate. I thought of maybe urban Well at Kits but not too sure it's big enough. Me and Leo will be getting our citizenship together.

I will have quite a bit of time and ABSIOLUTELY nothing to do while there. Milena is coming with me too and we will be staying in Van from this sunday Dec 17th till Jan 5th. I miss the rainy cold weather ! =P

Please email your contacts if you did not get an email with all this info. I may have missed some people as I did not collect all emails before leaving town. Everyone is invited. =)

Please also email me your number if you changed it on the past year.

Cheers,
Sandro

Vancouver New Year's

I finally received the letter calling me to take the oath of citizenship on dec 20.

This means a few things:

1. I will be in Vancouver from Dec 17th to Jan 5th. Looking forward to seeing everyone there. Milena is still investigating the possibility of going with me or traveling to Brasil(I have to spell like we do there). Please let me know of your plans in Vancouver close to new years as I really want to see everyone and I know a few of you will not be in town. My plan so far is to try to hit whistler for new year's eve. Unfortunatelly I will no be boarding this year because of the knee.. (maybe I will have a chat with my doctor and will take it really easy).

2. No trip to Vietnam this year. We are trying to rebook the tickets to sometime in february. Maybe chinese new year's.

3. I will be finally CANADIAN. I am very happy about that and will be a very proud canadian. i have learned a lot with the people there and it's actually quite amazing to be able to be a part of it. Canadians have a quality that I admire a lot and have not been able to find anywhere in the world as much as there: people are fair and honest.

Cheers...

Welcome to the family

This weeks BIG NEWS is the addition of a new family member: Sajupi IV.
My dad just got a new boat. She is a Farr 40 and it will live in Ilhabela.



This weekend my family will be going to the beach to sail on her for the first time being the proud owners. Have a beer for me. I will be thinking of you.

The plan is maybe to take the boat next year to Recife and race the Recife Noronha regatta.

Circle of life

Yesterday was born Gustavo, Fabio and Fefe second kid. I CANNOT wait to go and see him.
He was born with 4.23 kg and it's bigger than Fefe =) . Fortunately it's got the looks of the mother.
;-)

Yesterday I also lost a good friend. It's weird to have two complete opposite feelings on the same day.

It makes me think even more every day on how much we have to enjoy life and the people you love.
How short / long our stay here will be nobody knows.

I so wish we were in Vancouver right now.... miss you all.... wanted to be there for you !

I am back ... Dolphins ...

Today we went to Batam, Indonesia to go swiming with doplhins.
The experience was FANTASTIC. I highly recommend to anyone who's got the chance to go and try it out.



Here are some PICs... I missed posting fun stuff on the blog. This last 2 months were soooo slow to go by.

Happy Life

Today is a happy day as 2 of our good friends in Vancouver are getting married. HAPPY life to the new couple Fred and Fe. Actually they are getting married right now as I type this. Too bad we were not able to attend but our minds are there with you.

Milena is in Rome this week with gal and Edgar I SOOOO wanted to go but I think it's a good thing that she got this break from my recovery and school. It's been really tough for her. When she gets back I will post one of her pictures here.

It's strange for me to see days go by without my usual sports. I have been learning a lot with the experience. Learning patience and studying some 3d which I had not done in a while.

Post Op

If I had only one word to describe it would be " PAIN ". The operation went well except for one of my muscles that may have been stiched with the meniscus. The result of that was a LOT of pain. Nothing like I ever imagined feeling. It was so much at times that I could not control my body and I would go into shock shaking. It was a tough one for the first 3 or 4 days.

Now I am feeling a lot less... I do not feel so much pain and I do not feel a part of my leg but time will bring it back hopefully.

Today my big victory was that I was able to walk again... I mean .. you cannot call that a walk but for me it was AMAZING to be able to not use crutches for those 4 or 5 meters. Every day I will improve a bit and in a couple of weeks I will be limp/walking again ...

My mom being here to help has been amazing and her and Milena have been a blessing for me as I still need help for virtually everything. Gladly my rehab is going almost according to the plan and I am very optimistic of a normal life again in a couple of weeks.

I know my blog normally is a lot more upbeat but I guess we all go though ups and downs in life and even though we are very positive about what's to come, this phase is not joyfull. It's something to get through and we will do that with the head up.

I had some bad news this week of a friend that is very sick and this has been a lot bigger for me than my own pains and disconforts. I hope he can find the right path to his life from now on and spend a lot of time with his family and friends.

I will write again as soon as I have news... life's been slow inside an apartment for 9 days.