When life gives you lemons, you make Lemonade!

 After being here in Akaroa for such a long time i really started to appreciate the country life, the beauty and silence surrounding me me as of lately has become part of who i am, yet still i'm not ready to only have this, i need the commodities of a big city to balance the stillness of the valley, and one of the things i miss the most by being here is not having a gym to work out, i've been eating so much bread and carbohydrates, which would be fine if i was working out on regular bases, but since i wasn't doing much i've just packed up on a few kgs.

The other day after dinner i was playing with Alice, Celia's (my boss) daughter, when she propose for us to move the fun to the kids playground in her school, and so we went , it took me about five minutes after playing with her to realize that i could use the same place for a few work outs.. and vous a la , this is my new Gym!

Between going for a run, riding my bike and figuring new work outs every day, i'm exercising again, feeling the joy of endorphin and adrenaline rushing through my veins, without the use of chemical stuff hehe!!!

Kia kaha

PS: kia kaha means stay strong in Maori language!

A session of pain and remembrance!

Kia ora,

   Pretty much since the next day after the quake i've been living down in Akaroa, with not much reason to stay in town plus the offer from my boss to keep working for her at the Duvauchelle store & bistro, having a bed at the flat on the back and a bed on my best friend's, Kay Maitland, house, it was only the best option, and even though i'm a city boy the country life is growing on me, at first it sort of f=drives you nuts, not having much to do, but once u let go, the commodities of the big city u start appreciating the beautiful surrounding nature or the sound of silence.

   Had the last weekend off, and i went to Kay`s for some time away from the store, between cooking Brazilian rice and beans, riding her motorbike, walking through the vineyard having a chat and a beer, watching movies and discussing arts with her son Roman i had a great time perfect for taking my mind out of things, plus on Sunday night i called her friend Simon to scheduelle for my MAORI tattoo that he would design himself!

Today i woke up, psyched for the prospect of getting my ink done, carried on with my duties up till 12:30 and left to town heading for the Simon's studio. Got there around one and having previously discussed the concepts i wanted done for my tattoo i sat down and he started drawing free handed on my arm, it took him about 40 minutes to come up with it, and then the pain started hehe!

   All together the design and the tattoo took around 4:30 hours, and it was the longest session of tattooing that I've been through, but hey it was worth it, it looks wicked and now i have a part of New Zealand culture going back home with me. Simon is an amazing artist and for the fact that he is Maori, properly told me stuff about the culture and even did some Maori gestures i feel a bit more immerse in this amazing country's history.

KIA KAHA!

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!      .

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!

It's a long way to the top if u wanna Rock'n Roll! part 1

Hi to all,

So as i previously said on my last post, i got a relocation deal on a car, tickets to the Big Day Out in Auckland, my license translated, my boss's permission to take four days off and my plane ticket back home!

This was by far one of the best experiences of my life, what a great way to see a country like New Zealand, I've always been a sucker for Road Trips and this one was an opportunity i could not miss.

Wednesday early morning i woke up, got on the rental car, picked up my friend Robin, and started the first part of the trip from Christchurch to Auckland, which by the way it was not only 600km but over a 1000km instead. From Christchurch to Picton were 344 km, which most people told me it would take me about 4 maybe even 5 hours to do so, only that i made it in less than 4, we were so ahead of scheduelle by the time we got to Blenheim, which is on the Marlborough region the most famous wine region of NZ,  that we picked one winery to stop by and do some tasting, we tasted about 12 wines, but in the actual tasting way, which means spitting the wine instead of drinking it. The Gewürztraminer we tried appeal so much to me that we bought a bottle, and Sue the lady that was serving us, made it 7 NZD$ cheaper which was a pretty good deal hehe.

From the winery to the ferry was only about half an hour. Once on board it felt a bit weird to see the familiar emergency signs, the very same which i lived by on ships for 6 years, a lot of the experience on the ferry reminded me of my "ship's life", and for that the ride was quite fun. The crossing from the south to the north island of NZ takes about 3 hours, and it sets from Picton to finish in Wellington the capital and base of operations for one of the most amazing directors of all times Peter Jackson (I'm a huge fan of Lord of the Rings)

Once we arrived in Wellington we went straight to the Weta Cave (PJ's workshop), took heaps of pics, and headed for the Backpackers we had booked. We got there dropped our bags in the room and left for a walk along the Harbor, Wellington seems a very nice place and i definitely have to stop by there with more time. After some roaming around we went to Cuba st, the main street for good and best bar and restaurants, set down at a nice place for some really good pizza and a Italian Sangiovese wine, got back to the Backpacker and went to bed.

Next morning we woke finished packing and left the backpacker to find out we had a Flat tire, which cost us extra time in the city and 160 bucks for the new tire, which reminds me to inform you that always plan for more money than what u think u'll be spending.

We were on the road by noon, and decided to follow the advice from some people and take the SH 32 and go around the Tongariro national park(where Mordor from LOTR was shot) and the great lake Taupo, beautiful scenery folks NZ is an amazing country for a Road trip. 

Within 6 hours and quite a few K's of driving done, we were checking on the map to figure where was the Backpacker we had booked for Hamilton, only to find out that it would deviate us for a good few K's, so instead we decided to call the backpacker in Auckland to see if they would have a spare room for the nite before the one we had booked and fortunately they did, so we kept on the road and around 10 in the evening  of the day before the BDO we were in Auckland. 

Met up some great people there and later met up with a friend, Michael who's been living in Auckland for the past couple of months, so gave a quick nite tour around the city up till 2 am when we got back and went to bed.

Continues below......

It's a long way to the top if u wanna Rock'n Roll! part 2

Friday the Big Day Out was only a few hours away from start, so we figure out what to do, walk to downtown and took the train all the way to Mt Smart Stadium, there was n way to get lost on this folks this is one of those events that mobilizes huge crowds, all with the same objective which in this case was to Rock'n roll, we all got of the train and marched with great eager for what awaited about 300 mt away from us.

We passed the whole security check thing and the doors of a beautiful day were open, so much to do, it was hard to figure out where to go first, like kids in a toy store, we bounced on to the queue for one the Carnival rides they had, and then onto the next one, roamed around checking out the amalgam of different people going about their business, all kinds of "tribes" looking for they places in this massive area where the BIG DAY OUT was set.

We decided to follow the path that lead us to the main stages, in good time to catch the beginning of  AIRBOURNE and i gotta say i wasn't that excited about them, but those guys rocked really hard, worth mention the lead guitar and vocals climbing on the scaffold next to the stage and doing a solo from the very top of it, about 15 mt of the ground, as well the part where he would smash cans of beer with his head and throw in the crowd saying "have a beer!"

After Airbourne it was Deftones, which i like but don't know many of the songs, so i stayed back and lay down on the grass to chill and ponder upon this amazing experience i was having, u should always take the time to appreciate the beauty of living, the things u are doing and all that's surrounding u.

Around 4:30 WOLFMOTHER started and i was sitting for a bit on the benches, but couldn't keep sitting as wolfmother took the stage with a lot of power, with their Rock'n roll very much like the late 60's early 70's. That was the band i was most looking forward to, and my expectations were met with one amazing concert.

The rest of the day was filled with other great bands, like Jonh Buttler trio, Shihad, Iggy pop that had his whole stage crowded with fans that he invited up himself, Ramstein which is a Techno-metal German band with a thing for fire and explosions that makes up for a rather entertaining concert, in between them and the last band for the day me and Robin went to the so called silent disco, which consists of a "disco" where the only music u hear comes from the headsets they give u at the entrance, finally for the end of it all Tool played under very heavy rain, and i stayed up to almost the last song but thought it would be smart to leave a little before everything was finished in order to avoid the massive crowd that would be on the trains to back.

Once back in the city center Michael met us again, and we were utterly soaked, cold and famished, so he took us to a cozy Japanese restaurant where we had some Lamen and hot sake and with that in almost no time we could feel the warmth again. Nevertheless after such a day and a hot meal the only thing i could think of was my bed back at the hostel/BP.

Next morning we woke up very lazily at nine to realize that our flight was at 11 instead of 11:30 as we thought, the stress built up on us both as we where driving around to find the place for the drop off of the car, Michael once again helped us out by showing us the place to drop the car and rushing to the airport with us. When we got out of his car we ran as fast as possible to the Air New Zealand counter, and fortunately we made it on time to catch the plane only for the fact that we didn't had to check in our bags as they were small enough to fit in the over head compartment. The flight home was definitely a pleasure cuz after driving 1.085 km the only thing i wanted to do was appreciate the view and the pleasure of not being in charge hehe!

So this concludes my great adventure road trip to rock in Auckland with a few thousand of people on sucha celebrated festival as the Big Day Out, and i'm am truly glad to have done it, for it is now one the most remarkable experiences of my life!

Take a shot at doing something alike as i know none can regret this!

Cheers fellas!

Taste, everybody's got their own!

                                                                                drawing by Felipe Barros


What's up folks,


On Devinatart as now i'm a premium member, i can suggest for other artists that are viewing my art to make a critique about it, and i got a comment on one of my drawings today (the one above) where the person spoke about the fact that he would like to make one, but he thinks that for one to make a critique he should have the same or higher skill level to do such.


now now, my reply to it was to not belittle himself, taste is taste, besides there are so many critics out there that understand of the good stuff, but don't necessary know how to physically apply the concept in order to achieve the same result, got it!

There are food critics that know so much about the subject and yet they rarely walk into a kitchen to cook something, there are art critics that know the entire life of Leo Da Vinci by head, and yet wouldn't even know how to hold a brush.

So the message on this is, if you have an opinion of something and you want to share, then go right ahead, as my grandma says taste is like ass, everybody's got theirs!!!hehe!



Cheerio!

It ain't easy being away!

                                           Bambino and I
Well folks I'm very excited to say that from now on i'm a Premium member on the amazing DeviantART community hehe!

Fact is I've been a free user of so many websites, and have always wanted to be able to do things i couldn't for not getting a subscription, and DA has been the website, that i payed the most attention to and sometimes in life u gotta do something to cheer you up right!!

At the moment i'm living in New Zealand and it sure has been hard to be an immigrant, as though  as I've been travelling over the past six years, this is the first time that i am actually living somewhere outside of my country, and it has been a quite stressful experience for me, it's hard to manage your money between having control over the household expenses, social life aspects and saving some for things u want to buy, and that puts me in a rather uncomfortable place in terms of sitting down on my free time to just sit and draw or work on photos i shoot, I've been having tons of ideas of things i want to draw, but for all the worries I've got on my mind, sitting down to do anything takes me to a place in my mind where all of this thoughts invade even my inspiration, therefore making me lose my time with more brainless activities!

Well at least now with a premium upgrade on DA i'll feel a bit more compelled to sit my but down and do the things i really like doing to be able to share with ya!!!

Also recently i moved out from my friend's place (Kamilla) due to some differences we had, all cool cuz my NEW place is reaaally nice, and my new flat mates are awesome people, as far as i noticed, plus the internet connection is great and BAMBINO the amazing joyful dog that i use to spend a lot of my time playing with has stayed back (as he was Kamilla's dog) : ( , i'll miss him dearly, so i'll have to find things to do on my free time!

Cheers

A bio of who writes to thee!

I’m a person very related to arts in general, since early days I love to draw, in my teenage years I developed an interest for photography and music, my family has always had passion for food and kitchen in a non-professional way, therefore when I came up to the decision of joining a culinary arts school, I was more than supported by almost everyone and the ones that found mine an odd choice where convinced not long after I started my journey in the cuisine.

   Once I had my finished my studies I knew that I wanted to travel around searching and experimenting different gastronomical backgrounds. As a Chef throughout my travels I've been able to do that on all 34 countries I passed by, which has opened my mind regarding cooking. To me cooking is more than a job, being a Chef goes beyond the "glamour", the success for me lies on experimenting different flavors, aromas, textures, combining  beautiful dishes such to come up with a one of a kind experience to the ones that are there to try, them being friends, family or clients .

   During my experience with Carnival I wanted to learn more about mixology and wines, for I think the compliment of a drink/beverage on a dish makes up for a complete  gastronomical experience, that is much more to constitute something memorable on one’s life.

That would be a succinct Bio of who writes to thee !

 Haven't been drawing lately For I've been a bit nervous with all the wait on my work visa, I really CAN'T wait to start to work back again, the thing is working sucks when u have to do it everyday, but it also sucks doing nothing everyday huh?!

cheers brothers & sisters!