Buenos Aires Chinatown :)

Hola todo el mundo! Today I met up with my friend Florencia who took me to the Chinatown in Buenos Aires. It was so hot, about 31 degrees even though we went during late afternoon. We took a bus which was an interesting experience, the more of the city I see the more like Beijing it feels. It has that "modernness" about it while being surrounded by dirt, old fallen down buildings, very poor people and humidity. It isn't an unpleasant atmosphere  it's actually exciting but also a little bit sad.

Florencia made me pose at the entrance to Chinatown for some tourist photos :D

This photo doesn't really show just how packed the bus was, especially with it being so hot. It was like being inside some of the travel documentaries I used to watch on TV of places like India. Dust and sun outside the bus and lots of hot sweaty people all in a cramped place. 

Once we got to our stop we stumbled upon a Havanna shop. Havanna make the best, most beautiful things to come from Argentina (after me of course.) In fact the best "sweets" in the entire world!!! Alfajores and havannets (conitos) Alfajores are almond shortbread sandwiches filled with dulce de leche and coated in chocolate or icing sugar. Conitos are made with a similar shortbread biscuit base covered in rich, thick dulce de leche and coated in chocolate. Here is mine bellow <3 

I've been waiting for about four years to taste this again <3

The picture below really shows what I was saying about the "Beijing" feel. The poverty, dirt and "third world" type feel. We had to cross these train tracks which had no signal or warning on them to get to Chinatown from the road we came from. It was certainly exciting though, knowing you are doing something illegal in your own country (also seat belts and sticking to lanes while driving seems to be entirely optional here)

 :D

My lovely guide Florencia and me camwhoring in the shop :)

There is a lot of graffiti in the city, most of it is ugly and done by vandals but every now and again you stumble across some that is beautiful and makes you smile. I also keep stumbling on things that are very familiar and reminds me of home and that happened in the Chinese supermarket today. POCKY those stupid not very nice biscuits we were all obsessed with as weabo 15 year olds! A little bit of my old life in my new home  (also 14.50 pesos is bloody expensive) 

We then had dinner together and celebrated valentines day <3

I ordered rice noodles and vegetables as it was the cheapest thing I could find on the menu. It was okayish for a Chinese restaurant but neither of us could finish our food as the portions were so big, next time we will share and save money. Speaking of money I took a photo of the pesos we paid with so you can all see how the money looks here :D 

Tomorrow Florencia, Carla and I are going to visit the botanical garden near Recoleta together. 

I also wanted to show you all these two videos, the first video is my favourite music video of all time! It sums up exactly how I feel most of the time and is a funny and important reminder for us all (including you mummy if you are reading this)

The second video is a song that I am listening to a lot here, its cumbian music from Colombia. It's rough and raw and hot and matches perfectly the feel of South America today. Colombia makes some great music! (Shakira) <3

Besos, Tobi x

Recoleta Cemetery and Peru BeachI

Hello everyone, yesterday was an interesting day here in Buenos Aires, I actually woke up at a respectable time due to Fatty the cat jumping on me and insisting on early morning cuddles (so last night I made sure he was shut out of my bedroom) In the morning I met up with Clément who knows my Auntie and who came to Buenos Aires at the same time as me. We went to the famous Recoleta Cemetery together in the morning.

I'm only wearing these shorts at the moment -_- I needed more clothes!

The church next to the Cemetery

Above, Clément looking at the amazing tombs. They have a saying here in Buenos Aires that it costs less to live your entire life in luxury than to be buried in Recoleta Cemetery. It's filled with Argentinian national heroes, presidents, the wealthy and former generals. Including one very special person whose grave I had to track down, Eva Perón. 

(For all my friends who were asking about her grave, this is it)

The cemetery is really interesting and beautiful but quite creepy as well. You can actually looks through ornate glass doors at peoples coffins inside. The photo below didn't even have any glass. I've been watching a lot of zombie films recently so I was quite happy when we left the cemetery.

Just outside the front of the Church in the little park there was this tree which is native to Argentina. It's the little things like this that remind you that you are in a completely different world. It's so exciting to see and discover things that are totally alien to anything you are used to.

We then went back to where I'm staying and I made tortilla for lunch and we drank Quilmes (Argentinian beer <3)

In the afternoon my uncle and his wife came over to take us outside the city to a place called Peru Beach. Which isn't really a beach but a grassy bank with a restaurant and deck chairs on the Rio de la Plata, one of the widest rivers in the world and the border between Argentina and Uruguay. 

I'm so horribly pasty! I should have brought my fake tan with me -_-

After Peru Beach my uncle decided to show me my old house where I lived when I was a baby, but in the very Argentinian way we got distracted and ended up at a family friends house in the next street. Apparently he used to live with me, my dad and my mum for a while in the same neighbourhood. He had the most amazing roof top garden and barbecue area that looked out over the whole neighbourhood. 

My house was a little pink one with a swimming pool in the back garden just behind this green one. We ended up staying for about four hours until it was dark and all the mosquitoes were out.

I also found this nice photo of Maca and me on my camera :)

I was wondering what kinds of posts people want to see from Argentina? Do you want me to do some touristy ones with information? or personal posts? I'm having such an amazing time and I've adjusted to the heat but now I wish I had a swimming pool. 

Tobi x

Day 1 in Buenos Aires!

Hello everyone! Today was my first day in Buenos Aires. It was about 30 degrees again and Maca and I went for a walk in the neighbourhood. We live in Recoleta with the famous cemetery where Eva Peron was buried. Here are my photos :)

Me in summer clothes! Shocking!

This was the church and the park next to the Cemetery  I didn't go inside to see the graves today because I want to have more time to explore and take photos. We walked through the park towards the University of Buenos Aires.

The building on the right is the Law part of the University of Buenos Aires, I think it looks just like the government building in Helsinki but bigger!

You know you are in a hot country when you see palm trees!

My Auntie Maca

We also visited two art galleries/museums :)

They have three cats here which I'm slowly getting used to, I don't know their names so I've made up some for them. There is Sargent Fluffy, Fatty and Maca's baby. I only managed to take a photo of Sargent Fluffy.

I hope all of my European and American readers are enjoying winter ;) I hear its snowing in parts of England :P haha It's so hot here I've had to turn the air-conditioning on! I'm currently saying all the English lines to The Fellowship of the Ring over the Spanish dub on TV. I'll blog again soon! xxx

Tobi xx

Journey to Argentina

Hello everyone! I finally made it after a very long journey. It's so hot here and I'm stuck on English time still it seems. Everyone else is still sleeping so I thought it would be a good time to do a quick blog post. I left home on Thursday to go stay at my Aunties in London ready for my early morning flight, here is my luggage.

It's weird thinking my entire life is in these bags for the next 6 months! That thing was bloody heavy to drag all the way to South London and check out my Alexander Mcqueen Scarf and new Sanctus Hoody <3 travelling in style. My dog didn't understand that I was leaving again so he refused to give me good bye kisses but I did get this photo <3

The only photo of me because after two days of travelling I was definitely not looking good enough for selfies. No amount of photoshop can fix a face after 18 hours on a plane.

I saw this interesting looking building in London, thought it was worth a quick snap.

I had to change in Madrid which made the journey even longer and I felt a bit sad being in Spain and not getting to go and enjoy it. I had such a big problem throughout the whole journey with language! I look Argentinian (thanks to some handy fake tan) and so the stewardesses and people at Madrid refused to acknowledge that I don't speak very good Spanish and wouldn't talk in English with me so I had one of two translation issues and ended up only being able to order "agua" during both flights. -_- 

My in-flight reading and old school Ipod nano to keep me company on the way too long journey. Also the delightful Iberia airlines forgot my vegetarian food! (not that plane food is worth eating anyway!) I got by with this pasta for lunch and then had to pick out the ham from a ham sandwich for dinner. #veggieproblems

Life saver!

 Finally this is the view from my balcony. Driving home from the airport last night I can definitely feel that I'm not in Europe any more but it's a really cool feeling! It feels wilder and more free and WAY TOO BLOODY HOT! it was 30 degrees at 10 o clock last night and my Auntie was complaining about being cold!!!!!!!! 

It looks like some kind of tropical garden and there are strange birds flying everywhere. It's so quiet and peaceful right now because everyone is having a lie in. I'm going out for my first exploration of the city today and I promise I will take my Camera. 

(p.s. enjoy your snow England while I'm sunbathing by the pool)

Tobi X