Cenas de uma zona de terremotos!

Devido aos ultimos eventos ocorridos em aqui em Christchurch, eu decidi fazer um reporte sobre a situação.

No dia 22 às 12:51 pm aproximadamente 5 meses após o grande terremoto de 7.1 na escala Richter, nós aqui em Christchurch fomos afetados uma vez mais por outro grande, o terremoto de 6.3 acontecido no dia 22 talvez não tenha sido tão alto na escala como o anterior, porém pelo fato da profundidade ter sido de apenas 5 km os efeitos foram devastadores.

Eu estava na minha casa quando os tremores começaram e ao abrir a porta da cozinha para sair de casa, eu podia ver o solo movendo em ondas, garrafas e outros objetos voavam da mesa, armários e geladeira, felizmente em minha casa os danos não foram maiores que algumas garrafas, pratos e potes que estilhaçaram no chão, infelizmente eu não posso dizer o mesmo de outras partes de Christchurch.

Ao sair de casa, a caminho do restaurante onde eu trabalho, eu vi a extensão dos danos causados pelos tremores, uma das principais ruas chamada Papanui, tinha varios pontos de liquefação, rachaduras e muitas casas e lojas destruídas.

Assim que cheguei no restaurante eu pude ver meus amigos e colegas de trabalho e todos estavam bem, porém as perdas dentro do restaurante eram muitas, e levariam semanas pra re-estruturar e voltar aos negócios, um pouco depois da minha chegada ao local sentimos mais uma vez um after-shock (terremotos de menor intensidade pós os de grande intensidade), a policia foi forçada a fechar o quarteirão e nos mandou ir para uma área aberta que seria de menor perigo, sem saber se houveram danos estruturais no predio nos não podemos nem mesmo determinar o que podemos fazer.

A visão geral deste desastre é a de uma cidade que passou por uma guerra, prédios caindo aos pedaços, sirenes e gritos são os sons que se escuta, as expressões de choque nos rostos das pessoas, nuvens de fumaça e poeira, helicópteros voando pra todos os lados, reportes de pessoas desaparicidas e mortas, desespero para todos os lados, a sensação e de se estar em um filme pós-apocaliptico! 

Agora 48 horas após existe um grande número de pessoas que se foram para outras partes do país porém ao mesmo tempo existem muitos por aqui que querem ajudar de alguma maneira, algo de muito bom na natureza das pessoas desse país é certamente esse senso de solidariedade, muitas pessoas abriram as portas de suas casas para outras pessoas que perderam seus lugares, outras cozinham e forneçem aguá, enquanto um grupo de estudantes iniciado em uma comunidade do site Facebook se mobiliza com instrumentos para ajudar a limpar as ruas de toda areia e água espalhada pela cidade.

With much sadness i report all of this to you, and with a sense of relieve i can say that i'm safe and sound!      .

Scenes of a quake zone!

In due course to the new events i'm posting news from Christchurch.

Today at 12:51 nearly five months later than the big quake we had here of 7.1 on the scale, we were hit yet again with another big one, the 6.3 quake that happen today might not have been as high as the previous but for the shallowness of only 5 km depth it felt much bigger.

I was at my house when it happen and as i opened the kitchen door to run out of the house, i could actually see trembling waves on the very solid ground, bottles and other objects were flying out of the benches, fridges and cupboards, fortunately there seems to be no real damages, and the only losses in the house were a few jars and bottles that smashed on the ground, unfortunately i can't say the same for other parts of Christchurch.

As i left home to go and check on the Restaurant that i work Hay's, i could see the extent of the damage caused by the shaking, one of the main roads called Papanui, had several points of liquefaction, large cracks and houses severely destroyed.

Upon arrival at hay's i could see that my colleagues and friends were fine, but the internal breakages on the restaurant are far too great to keep us open, until we get all the mess cleaned it will be a good few weeks in order to pick it back up, and with the next few aftershocks, police was forced to enclose the entire block, without knowing if there was any major structural damages on the building we cannot even start to think of what to do.

The overall look of this disaster is of a city that has been through war, buildings crumbled down, sirens and screams are the sounds u hear, shock on people's faces, dust clouds, choppers flying, reports of people missing and dead, despair everywhere, much like a post apocalyptic scenario.

With much sadness i report all of this to you, and with a sense of relieve i can say that i'm safe and sound!      .

Challenge set, challenge done!!! Part 1

Kia ora everyone,

   Pretty much since the first time i came down to Akaroa, I've been wanting to take a bike trip from Christchurch to here, it's this most amazing scenery all the way, and it's the proper "road trip" on a bike that I've been wanting to do for a while now, pretty much since me and my best friend Yuri  started "biking around", the road is great, there's trails, rest stops, refreshing wind, pure mountain air and even though some people might say that New Zealanders are bad drivers, in comparison to Brazilians they are pretty respectful to cyclists.

   If u are ever in New Zealand and enjoy biking in the outdoors then I advise u to take a road trip somewhere here, it's truly worth it, I promise that u will enjoy!

   The trip from Christchurch to Akaroa is a little less than 85 km, but together with the way out of my house to the outskirts of the city i rounded up to 90 k's, it's quite a hard trip to do, not so much for the length but more so for the headwind that builds up to 80 km/h during the crossing of Taitapu, Motukarara, Ataahua and Birdlings flat, these are all flat areas, with very far and low mountains around, that creates the perfect "desert like" winds, making it that much harder to pedal  all the way to Little river, which was the place i had in mind to do a good lunch break, and by the time i got there which makes up for 2/3 of the way i was very tired and already sore from top to bottom.

   I considered that a good strategy though, cuz there's a few cafes and a couple of stores, to pick up some extra goods and refill the water supply, plus the Little River old train station, is a beautiful historic place worth to stop by. After having my lunch, i got in one of the stores to get me some powerade,  i was craving an ice cold isotonic drink, and asked the guy from the store how long did i had to go, even though i had a good idea, i wanted to know in km, he replied:

"it's 28 k's but so far you've done the easy part, from here it's uphill"

   Man he was not kidding, as i said i knew what was coming having done the road by car before, but it is totally different to do it on a bike right?! After leaving the store it took me about 15 min to reach the beginning of the hill, the first feeling of excitement had vanished from me within the first 3-4 k's as the steep hill was revealed ahead of me, the sun in New Zealand is very strong for the whole in the Ozone Layer above this country, and is no lesser of an adversity, you'll need a lot of liquid to boost your way to the top.

Challenge set, challenge done!!!

 As I pedaled up and up, i felt like it was an endless hill leading up to one of the highest places on earth, the summit is only about 476 mt, but it goes all around the mountain range, and it creates the illusion of an abrupt end, when u look up and you see no more way up, but actually it turns to yet another side with more and more incline planes.

   Finally after what it felt like hours and much road up, i had reached the summit, and the prospect of stopping for a drink at the Hilltop restaurant remained only an idea, i did stop for a couple of pictures for the view was too precious to not be appreciated specially after the effort done, but after five minutes there before I could think of anything else I felt a surge of energy towards the BEST part of the whole thing... Downhill !

   Ohhhh bless gravity with it's law for the way down was a rush of positive feelings that reanimated my damp spirit after the though way up, in terms of energy i was pretty good the worst when it comes to long distances is the mental state, and my strategy is to think of "rewards", such as ; "if i make to that part i'll stop for a drink" or "after going up, i'm going down!!!", but more than anything the feeling of accomplishment after setting yourself a challenge like this.

It was a 4 and a half hours trip, i'm thoroughly sore, got sunburns that makes me look like i'm dressed when i'm naked, but i made it!

C ya folks

Traditional or not make your own SUSHI!

It's time for the Post of the week folks, and as last week i did say i was going to post a recipe but didn't, here we go for a recipe on the basics for SUSHI, or Makimono to be more precise. As some of you may know, and for those who don't, Sushi comes from an ancient grammatical form that translates to "it's sour", which is due to the seasoning with rice vinegar, but also Sushi is basically all forms of Japanese Rice and raw seafood in general, Makimonos are the ones that you roll up, ramifying to Hossomaki (the thin ones), Futomaki(the large ones), Nigirizushi are the ones with a rice oval shape on the bottom and seafood on top, and so on!!!

Anyway folks, doing sushi it's really not that hard, i had my first try today and was very pleased with the result, and for that reason i come to thee in order to show you how simple it can be.

First and foremost the rice, make sure you have SUSHI rice and no other, with about 1 Kg you can feed well around 10 people, and as for the filling it can be anything u want, the traditional ones are compulsory if you are trying to become a great sushi men, but if u are not Japanese than u have failed the quest already(haha), Japanese people are ultimately traditional and therefore there isn't much space for recognition as a sushi man when u are not from or related to the country, so if u feel like making beef sushi by all means go ahead!

Traditional or not make your own SUSHI! part 2

The Ratio to cook the Rice is 1/1, which means equal parts of water and rice, previously washed with running water, using a lid on simmering fire, make sure to look every now and then, you don't want to burn the rice right?!

For the seasoning you'll need:
-90 ml rice vinegar
-75 gr sugar
-25 gr salt

Dissolve all the elements with low degree of heat (microwave or fire). Now that the rice is cooked get all of it into a big/large bowl and slowly add the "sauce/seasoning" to it, you should fold the rice gently in order to keep the grains whole as oppose to mash them, and while you do it get something to fan it together (either you or someone else), the rice should be lowered to around 38 C degrees, to prevent it from cooking more.


Great, with all of that done now u just have to roll them right?! Well rolling them is really not that hard with the right tools, you will need a bamboo mat (makisu), and nori, which is the seaweed sheet.

Wet your hands to make it easier to manipulate the rice and Spread a layer on top of the nori, leaving around 2cm on the top of the nori, rice free. Start rolling the mat forward keeping a tight grip on the food inside (filling),  after half way through it bring the whole thing near the bottom edge of the mat and finish to roll all the way!

It's kinda hard to actually explain this with photos, check out Youtube for videos on how to Roll sushi, there's loads of it and you'll get the hang of it.

That's all for now, i hope this will help ya with making this delicious treat, and if u are having any trouble with the rolling then make a rice "ball" put some protein or vegie on top and eat it, it might not look as good as if u were rolling but it will still taste as good!

P.S.: the first pic is a sketch on a Japanese looking-like village, and the other ones r my sushi from today!

Ciao

Pondering about life! ...as usual!

Lately i've been working for my current employer in two of her business, one is the Restaurant Hay's which is in Christchurch and i'm doing 3 to 4 days, and the other is the Duvauchelle store and cafe, down near Akaroa which i also do 3-4 days a week.

Akaroa is a very charming country place, small little town, a couple hundreds of people, if that much, and i was thinking being a city kind of guy, how funny is that i'm all the way across the world working on a country town, and how that makes me feel a bit like i'm part of "Smallville" the tv show, haha it's so funny that i've always thought of living in big cities around the globe, and never in the past i actually thought of New Zealand, what's to say about the country side of a 4 million people country?!

The city of Rio by itself has 10.000.000 people, and i've always been raised surrounded by skyscrapers, people in suits, traffic jams of kilometers when u don't get to go past 2nd gear, malls everywhere, movie theaters for 150 people in places that the hot movies would be displayed in 4-6 rooms, so u'll always find a session that agrees with your scheduelle, bars, restaurants, night clubs, public transportation 24 hours, the list of commodities in a big city like Rio is seriously immense, hence me finding funny being on a small place like Akaroa!

But u know i find that for the simple fact that i've seen myself in various scenarios like this, i can sort of grasp how amazing the world is, and that's why i love travelling so much!

Anyways that's about it for now, later this week i come back with a recipe or something!

cheers!