Casamento da Juca e Dud's

Some news

I have been stupid busy with life and had absolutely no time to write.

Let's see what's new:

My Mom is coming to visit next week. I am very excited to see her and be able to show what our life has been like this year.

Last thursday I turned 30 and had an amazing dinner with Mi on Mt Faber. I was an uneventfull birthday as we are still adapting to the new life and friends. i am pretty sure that if I was in Vancouver, the party would have been HUGE but for this time in life, I think I had the best time I could ask for.

I am operating my knee in 2 weeks on sept, 1st. Next 6 months will probably be one the longest in my life. Lots of physio to come.

2 weeks ago we went to the Night Safari on Singapore Zoo with Kyle and Leigh. It is very touristy but quite an experience where you go inside a cage full of bats and they can fly right by your head. They were HUGE too. Very creepy.




I went sailing again last weekend on foxy lady and got back doing some triming. 2 races and 2 first places. We had winds up to almost 30 knots and had a blast. Today there is a party on the dock after the ragatta and we are thinking about heading there for a beer.

This pic is from Last night on Manuels place before going out to a wine bar. These are some of my good friends here. Manuel (German) and Mimi (India), Kyle and Leigh (Canada) ... something tells me I do not need to say who is who. =)

I will try to find more time and get back to my 1 post a week thing.
Cheers....

Krabi

Yet another trip that I have a bit of a hard time deciding what pictures to post. I will try to do a full report sometime this week.

Krabi is FANTASTIC ! Company was AMAZING. It was PERFECT !

Thank you all involved.
(Mila, Ben, Joshua,Julia, Snowy, Kyle, Leigh, Gulaya, Fernando, Auntie and Ivy)

Advice...

"...Be kind to your knees ... You will miss them when they are gone .."

I have been thinking a lot about this song lately. It's actually a poem that was recorded as music and I have heard it so many times. (click here for lyrics)

Life has been a crazy this past 10 days. I did all the possible exams and found out that I have thorn my ACL , the anterior ligament of the knee and damaged my meniscus.

As usually I post a picture, here it is... My ACL !

What this means ? I am now on recovery for quite some time. No more kiting, rockclimbing, windsurfing, sailing or any crazy sports until I recover from the surgery I will have to do in about a month. I should be back into everything by next year hopefully.
:-(

Crazy to think how fragile we are. After all the abuse I put my body through all the time, I take a little fall on soccer and see my knee fall in pieces. Now I am on to 6 months of recovery and a lot of physio.

It's been a bit depressing for me getting used to this idea but it's starting to sink in that it's not THAT bad. Mila has been AMAZING with all the help and support. Maybe I will take her on a date sometime. =)

Anyways, this weekend we are heading to Krabi, Thailand with a bunch of friends from work. I will post pics and a report next week...

Cheers all and remember to take good care of your knees !

Slowing down

This week I was supposed to play on my first soccer match but destiny was against it.

On the training session on wednesday I took a big fall and hurt my right knee pretty bad. I visited a doctor next morning and after an xray I found out that either the meniscus or a ligament was thorn. So now it's lay back and relax time. No more sports for a while.

Hopefully I can get better this week as I was planning to go to Trikora again but I kindda have the feeling it will take a while to heal and I really want it to heal properly ...

Maybe that is the only way to slow me down. I already started reading a book (Deception Point by Dan Brown) and fixed my guittar. Maybe now that I will have more time I will learn how to play it.

Foxy Lady ...

This is foxy lady. A Sidney 40 I am crewing in Singapore. Last weekend I raced on her for the first time. I was also a bow men for the first time on a big boat. The last time was on Panique.. a Martin 242 (24 feet).

We went out on saturday so i could get used to the position and it was pretty frustrating as I made a LOT of mistakes. Sunday we had 3 races and we did okay (1 3 3). After 2 races I started making my own system to how to manage the lines remembering some tips Marcia gave Fabio and it all started to fall into place.

This coming weekedn we race 1 race sat and 3 sunday. Should be more interesting now that I have a better idea on what to do.

The Foxy lady team is great ... nice people... good sailors.

One FREAKY event was that sunday moraning while heading to the race we were very close to being hit by a lightning bolt. All the instruments on the boat were gone with the discharge and we could all feel the electricity on the air.

I started playing some soccer in the office and this week we have our first soccer game on this coming friday. Will post more if we win. =)

Ko Phi Phi Finally

Last weekend we went to Phuket to meet with Flavio and Roberta. We are long time friends from Vancouver and now they live in San Francisco... It was great to see them again and it could not be a better scenario. Ko Phi Phi - Thailand. I have been dreaming of visiting this island since I first came to Asia in 2005. It raised a lot of expectations and they were all met.

Phi Phi is sure one of the most amazing places I have ever been to. For this reason I could not post less pictures. I also figured most people come to my blog to see them anyway so why not post a few since I am having such a hard time trying to decide what to post.



We flew to Phuket where we hung out at Kata Beach, known as one of the most beautiful in the Island. I went surfing while we waited for Flavio and Roberta. The next day we took a ferry from Rassada pier and arrived in Phi Phi. The ferry ride was cool and Phi Phi Don (the main island) is beautifull but a bit dirty. Lots of garbage on the beach and some rubble still there we assume from the tsunami. That night we organized a boat trip for the next morning for PhiPhi Ley, and that is the one to see and where "the beach" was filmed...





what an incredible place. We took the boat at 7:30am and all the group tours leave at 9am. This was the best thing we could have done. We arrived at the island and we were the only people there. It was one of those moments of joy in life where you feel fortunate and lucky to be someone that can enjoy this. It is very hard to describe it and I wish I could put into words better.




Today I feel very happy that life has presented itself to me in the way it did... I was awarded with everything I need... family, love and friends... =)

Unfortunatelly we did not have more than a day in Phi Phi but for sure we are going back. Rock climbing looked fantastic and Pri and Tate have to come visit to see. It's unbelievable the rock formations above the blue waters.



On the way back we stayed in Kata one more night and me and Flavio went surfing... fun stuff.

On the to visit list we still have to go to James Bond Island ... well next time ! Who is coming next ?

Now to some more pics...

Trikora - Indonesia ...

Kitesurfer's paradise just an hour away...

We spent the weekend in Indonesia ... will elaborate more on it tomorrow...

Home sweet Home Episode II

Canada was great. It was awesome to be able to se most of the friends and spend a little time with them. Sorry for all the new home owners (Paty, Ricardo, Pri, Tate, Fred and Fe) that I had no time to go visit anyone. I promiss next time I will ... and it should be very shortly.

Lately we have been spending a lot of time in the apartment trying to give it a bit of the home feeling.

This is what the apartment is looking like now...

Cheers,
Me

World Cup time ... and Going to Canada

Hi all ... Here we are again at world cup finals. A VERY EXCITING TIME !
Yesterday Brazil played an okay game to defeat Croatia on a 1x0 score. Let's hope Brazil shows up on the next game playing the soccer we all know they have.




I went with Mila yesterday and we bought a projector to watch all the games. It was really cool to watch the game in the BIG SCREEN even though it was 3am when it started.

This weekend I will be flying to Vancouver on Sunday for a quick visit. I will be getting in this Sunday, June 18th and will be going straight to Jericho Sailing Club upstairs at the bar for beers around 5pm. I do not have many emails and will not have a number while in Van so please come by if you read the blog. I will only be in town for 3 days and 2 nights and would LOVE to see everyone there. Please tell anyone that does not know already.

This coming friday we will be having a house warming party so the apartment should be ready before that. Expect pics very soon !

Cheers.

Mi and Me

Milena has arrived and we have been working in the apartment a LOT to try to convert it into our place. My boxes have arrived and I don't think I would ever be able to fit evrything I had in that apartment on Beach Ave back into an apartment of the same size. Not sure what happened but I think my stuff has grown on the move.

We have been unpacking for close to 2 weeks now and have not been able to go through it all.

It's been very cool to live this together. Sometimes we sit at the couch late at night and look at the achievements of the day, being a sculpture we put somewhere we really like or a wire we managed to hide and we just stare at it for a few moments and we realize we are actually enjoying this a lot. I never thought of me enjoying staying in on a sunny saturday to work on the house. I hope this feeling goes away soon and we can go play outside again. =)

Last weekend we took sunday off and we headed to Bintan, Indonesia for the day. It was a great adventure. We arrived there and rented a 16 feet catamaran and went sailing. The wind was pretty strong and after 10 minutes, the jib halliard gave way and the mast came down.



My only concern was Mila and the fact that she had no idea of what's going on or the dangers involved. For my luck the Jib held the mast for a few more moments and gave way a bit slowly which gave me time to make sure we were safe. Then the jib ripped and the rig came down. We got rescued and headed back out with another cat for a couple hours. It was an AWESOME first experience for us sailing a catamaran. It was blowing about 15 to 20 knots and we had only one hull at the water multiple times. . .



This week we had an unexpected visit from Ricardo (Vancouver / Bahia ) that showed up and we had an awesome time with him for the 3 days he was here. He was supposed to go to India but did not have the Visa so he ended up stuck here with us.

Well .. that's all for now ... hopefully now that I have computers and internet at home I will keep my blog updated more often.

No wind !! Let's Wakeboard

This has been my main sport since getting to Singapore. This was the day Mila first went with me. Yesterday we went again and she tried kneeboarding. Starting to get the need to go to a remote island again.

I posted some PICS on my last post of the Paris trip. Did not get any pics from the wedding yet.

On the 17th or 18th of June I will be traveling to Vancouver to do my citizenship tests. I will be staying there till tuesday night (20th) when I fly back here. I cannot wait to see everyone and I hope to see as many of you as possible. I will be staying at Fabio and Fefe's. I will try to see if I can organize something for sunday, the 18th.

I will keep you posted . . . Cheers

Another week goes by ...

I know, I know. I have not posted anything for a while... THings have been crazy busy here at work and I never have time to do it. After I am done work normally it's way too late for me to want to sit in front of the computer and type anything. And YES I do work even though my blog makes it look like I am always traveling ... ;-)

Well last weekend was uneventfull... involved a lot of drinking and going out to clubs and some shopping and preparing the apartment for the big arrival of the week. Mila is finally getting to Singapore so I decided to decorate a bit. By "decorating" I mean I finally bought a bed, bedside tables and a plant (now that someone will remember to give it some water) and I hired a cleaning lady!

Now I am wondering if I will actually have time or space in my fridge for any food. Right now it's full of booze. Funnny thing is that I never drink home so I end up with my fridge full of booze all the time... I guess it's not such a bad thing.

Some more GREAT news are:

Jason and Callie had a baby girl: "... Carmen Jade is doing well as are both Callie and I. We are now almost 1 month in and apart from a lack of sleep everything is going well so far...."

Roberta and Flavio are arranging the last details to come visit in July and we are planning a little weekend trip to Thailand to meet them... probably Ko Phi Phi.

Marcia and Tobin are moving to Australia ... one more place I can go visit. NICE !

Mi arrives this week ... =D yeah I know I mentioned before.


I still have to download the rest of my Paris Pics and post some wedding ones but I do not have any of them yet.... will get to it sometime soon ! Hopefully I will not forget !

Hope everyone is well ... Miss you all !

Me








BTW. Julia is way to lazy to update her own blog and asked me to say hi to her family (specially mom) and friends since they started to follow my blog instead. =)

Cest la vie !!!

Here I am again, back in Singapore and writing about my past week. It's been a great week and Brazil was awesome. I got to go to Juli (my sister) and Edu's wedding and rest a lot. I got to see the family and introduce them to Mi... Needless to say that they loved her and every 2 minutes I had someone telling me never to let her go. I was not planning on doing that anyways.

On my way to Brazil I got to see Paris for the first time ever. The Pics here are all from my first day there. For those who have been there, you can notice the thing I did the most was WALK. I walked a LOT. I started the day by going to "Sacre Coeur" and walking and having breakfast at Montremarte. After breakfast I went for a walk on "Le Marais". After that I took the subway to "Le Arc de Triomphe" and walked to the top. From there I walked the all the Champs Elysee to the "jandin des Tuileries and the Louvre where I took a sit for a bit and imagined my parents on their French days sitting at this place for days and just looking at the scenery around them. Paris is an AMAZING place... wherever you look you see history, you see great looking old buildings and dressed up people.

From the Louvre I figured I havd not walked enough so I decided to see Notre Dame, the last stop of my first day in Paris. On my way back to Paris, I only did the Eifel tower and walked some more on Champs Elisee. It was a shorter stop. The pics from that are still on my camera and I will try to post them soon. PICS from the wedding will also be posted as I get them from the photographer in Brazil.

Thanks to Sophie for all the directions on Paris !!!

Louvre
Notre Dame
Arc de Triomphe
Notre Dame
Sacre Coeur
Sacre Coeur