We met a Brazilian super star, Robinho !!

Obbligato! Hello this is Ken.
Obbligato is "Thank you." in Portuguese.

One of my Japanese Brazilian friends Fabio took me to his futsal team.

The team is the mixture of Japanese Brazilian, 

Chinese Brazilian, Western Brazilian.

I don't speak Portuguese but I can speak Chinese.
So, I could be able to communicate with Chinese Brazilian well !
(Ken had been working in China about 2 years.)

The guy wearing the white T shirt in the middle of the picture is Ugo.
He is second generation of Japanese Brazilian.
He is the best player in this team.

Actually, he is doing rehabilitation coach for “São Caetano” which is a professional soccer team in Sao Paulo.

I thought that “São Caetano” is just sounds like…. “Sankaiten” which means triple axel jumps in Japanese.


Oh ! by the way, I wanna cheer on Mao Asada who is a Japanese figure skater. She is fantastic & HOT right now during 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. 

I wish, she will be able to win for gold medal. 

(In reality, She got a silver medal)

Oops! Get back to the report.

So, next day Ugo took us to the home stadium of “São Caetano”.

Sao Caetano's stadium is Estádio Anacleto Campanella, 

built in 1955, with a maximum capacity of 22,738 people.

São Caetano belongs to Sao Paulo state league. 

They were pretty strong team before. But now is pretty weak. 

Also, not popular at all. Unless opposition team is big team, audience is few hundred people usually.

Mr. Ugo took me to field side.

Guess what! Just recently there was a Sao Paulo state title match going on.
And then São Caetano beaten THE Palmeiras 4-1.

The Coach of Palmeiras has been fired.
Which reminds me, there was something similar happen in somewhere. Where was it???

      I got a permission to enter the press conference room.

Ugo is in charge of player’s nutritional management and rehabilitation guidance. 

He is working at gym to the side of this stadium.

The past few days, I have been suffering from a stomachache. And then it got around to my back now. My back is killin' me. That’s why I got a massage from Ugo.

    His area of specialty is on the back. How lucky.

In a meantime, when we were chatting at the side of club house, I saw São Caetano team players came and they were gathering where we were.

You know what Fabio was also there!　He used to play in J League Div2.

Fabio used to play for 3 teams of J League

(Mito HollyHock, Shonan Bellmare,Tokushima Vortis)

I am so thankful for São Caetano’s hospitality. Thank you very much!
Now we gonna visit Santos FC to see our idol Robinho!

Ugo told me that he has a friend who used to work for São Caetano.

Sounds like this guys has a connection with Santos Futebol Clube. I’m so thankful for all the people helping us.

Treasure every encounter, for it will never recur.

      We are heading into the city Santos, State of Sao Paulo Brazil.

Santos has the biggest seaport in Latin America. It is also know as the immigrant gateway.

Back in 1908, first Japanese emigrant ship arrived to Santos. The first 781 Japanese immigrants traveled to Brazil to work on the coffee plantations around Sao Paulo.

It has large industrial complexes and shipping centers, which handle a large portion of the world's coffee exports still.

We didn’t pay attention to city side. We just be headed to training field ofSantos Futebol Clube.

This is the main entrance of the training field.

          "The King Pelé" (O Rei Pelé)

I met with Mr. UEHARA who used to work for São Caetano. He is also a Japanese Brazilian. 

His ancestors came from Okinawa, Japan. 

He used to be a cleaning crew. But, because of his great personality, he got a promotion.

Now he became the executive manager of Santos Futebol Clube. 

It’s like American dream. Oops, I mean “Brazilian dream”!

Left is Mr. Uehara,Ken, Ugo,And then right is Mr. Aberino.

Mr. Aberino is a rehabilitation coach of Santos . Also, he used to work for Japanese clubs, Tokyo Verdy and Urawa Red Diamonds.

So, Mr. Aberino speaks Japanese little bit. For example, when he opened door, he says “Douzo” which means “Please come in” in Japanese.

I took a ceremonial photograph in front of Santos training field.

Oh my goodness! I didn’t expect to see Marcel who used to play in Vissel Kobe.

Vissel Kobe is a Japanese professional soccer club, currently playing in the J League Div1.

      Marcel left Vissel last year.

When I tried to speak to Marcel, Marcel said “ニホンゴワカラナイ～ (I can’t understand Japanese in Japanese.) “ and run away from me.

Hey! If you wanna become successful soccer player in Japan, you must try to learn Japanese!

By the way, it was very unusual to see the soccer players who used to play for Japanese soccer teams in Brazil. I think …here is in Brazil which has deep relationship with Japan since long time ago by Japanese immigration. And still Japanese culture and Japanese Brazilians influence each other.

That’s why I could see so many soccer players in this club.

Have I kept you waiting long for main dish? Here is Robinho who is a super star !

When Robinho saw us, he could recognize that I am a Japanese and then Robinho suddenly said “ Arigato!(Thank you in Japanese)” to me.

Holy cow! That is awesome!

Can you tell how much this country Brazil is using our Japanese culture normally?

That is very crazy things for me to feel. I got a culture shock!

After a little while, I caught “sweaty Robinho” and asked to take a picture.

Of course, our super star “sweaty Robinho” said 

“YES” to take picture with me!!!

And also I asked Robinho’s autograph.“YES!!!”

Holy cow! This is so cute! (・∀・)

This is one of the best I have ever received it!

We had been really excited about visiting to Santos Futebol Clube training field in San Paulo. Ugo was more excited than me and he was talking what’s happen was today over and over and over : )

Basically, Ugo used me like a tool to meet with famous players. (No, I’m just kidding. Hahaha.)

Anyway, we could help each other. That’s excellent!
We went to a sport bar to calm our excitement.

The TV was reporting about Vancouver Olympics.

Of course, Vancouver Olympics news was very short time because Brazil is “The soccer country” in the world! 

And then soon, TV began to show a soccer game on the air after that.

Wow, I came to the soccer country Brazil.

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We rushed into the Iguassu Falls in Brazil.

Com esta? This is Ken.

We went to the Iguassu Falls in Brazil.

This waterfall is located on the border of the Brazilian state of Parana and the Argentine province of Misiones.

The first day, we wanna see it from Argentine side.

We could see the falls from the hotel we stayed.

But as we got closer to it, we were absolutely amazed by the landscape !!

Some of the individual falls are up to 82 meters (269 ft) in height !!

Admittion fee of a National Park is 85 peso (=about $ 20 USD)

The Argentine access is facilitated by the Rain forest Ecological train, which brings visitors to different walkways. The Paseo Garganta del Diablo is a one-kilometer-long trail that brings the visitor directly over the falls of the Devil's Throat. Other walkways allow access to the elongated stretch of falls on the Argentine side and to the ferry that connects to San Martin island.

A rainbow appeared some times. How beautiful!

I think that you are wondering who this pretty Japanese lady is.

Her nickname is “Punyomi” . She holds second position of a round the world trip in blog ranking which is one of the biggest ranking in Japan.

So, she joined us. But guess what?

We are the first position of blog ranking. We are the champions! Oh yeah! Bring it on Punyomi!

Another day in Twitter, we declared our annual event which means “Libero- Jump”in front of the Iguazu Fall. And then we did it. Here is evidence photo.

Does Ken have a fear of height ? He seems like ….frighten!

We found a boat going directly under the waterfall.

So, we took a boat and visited to one of the world's third largest waterfall.

Then, we rushed into the Iguazu Falls the world heritage!

This is the boat that we took.

Today is such a nice day! We still had enough strength and smile in reserve with composure.

But our condition had taken a sudden turn for the worse！Σ(゜д゜;)

The boat was sinking like “Titanic”

We couldn't open eyes.

Some how Atsushi was very happy…I don’t know why.

If you wish, you are welcome to see our Youtube Clip which we filmed by waterproof camera. If you are great kid, please don’t use regular camera to the water. You ganna break it : )

Anyway, please enjoy our Youtube Clip.

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