Brasilia, Brazil

I took a day trip to Brasilia to follow Lingon on his work trip.  Brasilia is the country's capital, and was a planned city built to resemble an airplane, or hummingbird (according to Lonely Planet), or mockingjay (just kidding, I made this up since the Hunger Games is so popular now).  The divider that splits the city has what I thought would be a beautiful lush promenade to walk down to see the architectural works of the architect who designed this city, Oscar Neimeyer.  Unfortunately I was lacking a window seat, so I did not get a chance to get a bird's eye view of the city.

When we drove into the city, I felt that something was off about the town.  Everything was planned, everything looked the same - all the government buildings were carbon copies or each other, the blocks of shopping/restaurants looked exactly the same, so weird.  The promenade that I had imagined was a long grassy patch, but that's all it was - not many trees to beautify the walk or shade pedestrians.  And then there were the random quirky works of Neimeyer that were a stark contrast to the symmetry of the rest of the city.

Palácio da Alvorada where the president resides

Dragões da Independência (dragons of the independence), guarding the gates.  At first I was looking for dragon statues but when I saw the crowd of Guatemalan tourists surrounding these folks, I realised I was mistaken.

Congress

Cathedral

Bells next to the cathedral

Museum

Supreme Court with the statue of justice

I rose to international fame when these Guatemalan tourists at the presidential palace asked to take a photo with me.  Guess they have not seen many chinas in their lives.  Ha!

For lunch, I went to a churrascaria chain called Porcao, recommended by a few people.  I was told that the cut of choice is picanha, which I completely agreed with - it was tender but also had a delicious beefy flavour.  Yum.  The meal set me back R$107, after some kind of discount which I'm sure I had not deserved, with no drinks or dessert.  Oh how I love beef.

Pão de queijo (from the Minas Gerais region where Brasilia is NOT part of), picanha (belly good!), chicken hearts

Lastly, I went to Café Daniel Briand since it was highly recommended on TripAdvisor for pastries.  I ordered a 4 items, of which I ate one, the opera cake, and it was not bad.  Someone there actually spoke French, and I was glad for that since I could actually understand what I was ordering!

Brasilia is a weird city.  I'm so thankful I had a car that day to pass the time in, but there isn't much to do there really, except spend 20 mins driving down that street and taking photos of the eclectic buildings.