Japan Town, Emo Punks and Cakes

What do these three things have in common? The best of each can be found just outside Liberdade subway station in Sao Paulo.

We had read that Sao Paulo boasts the largest population of Japanese people outside of Japan, so decided that we should go to visit 'Japan Town' in the Liberdade area, just south of the city center. Having figured out the subway system on Saturday, we jumped on board a train and made our way to Liberdade in time for lunch because we had heard about the great food vendors that gathered in the area on Sundays.

We were not disappointed. The crowd was huge and the food stalls sold some great food, although by no means authentic Japanese. The cuisine has kind've morphed with the local Brazilian food to become something very different and spectacularly good, if you don't mind a bit of grease.

A couple of things we had not expected:

- The subway station seems to be a hangout for local goth / emo-kids and it was pretty entertaining coming out of the train and seeing them all sitting around looking grumpy.

- One of the best cake shops I have encountered!

More photos here.