Labelle

[LaBelle]

Originally Posted by The exploding boy

Hey labelle, did you chose this name because you think you're pretty uh? uh?
Around here Labelle is a very common last name.

Lol, not quite. I chose my username because of a bunch of different reasons.
Around the time I registered I was getting into listening to Patti LaBelle (r&b and soul singer) and one of my favorite songs was Ma Belle, and my name starts with La.

So I thought it would make a decent username.

[LaBelle]

Originally Posted by ilikeplanets

but ya don't like anime?

I don't... except for Saint Seiya, the Miyazaki films, Akira and Youkai Watch (it's pretty childish, but it's so damn cute).

[ilikeplanets]

I have only seen Akira out of that list. I'm not a huge anime nerd but my childhood friend sure was so I've seen a ton halfheartedly. I most like the extremely disturbing or atmospheric ones, dunno. I've picked up a fair amount of words and phrases just from that, between her and my old roommate who was equally obsessed. helps with pronunciation for sure.

[LaBelle]

Yeah, i've had a few friends growing up who tried to get me into anime.
But for some reason I always preferred movies to animation.

I watch a lot of japanese films, play videogames and listen to some music in japanese. It's good to catch a few words and learn a little more of the language.

But the real challenge is learning the Kanji which is an alphabet which originates in chinese language that consists of roughly 2000 different characters that have 2 different readings each.

[pavementtune]

do you play shogi?

[LaBelle]

No, I never played shogi

[pavementtune]

took me over a year to learn it, now I love it, fantastic game (I mean the actual game, not the video games.)

forgot the name of the city we visited, Japan shogi world tournament, they had shogi stones and tables everywhere - always, not just for the tournament.

[Rairun]

Porto Alegre is about as far from Manaus as Miami is from Portland, OR. :P With a huge rainforest somewhere in between too (I don't think you can safely drive all the way there; you need a ferry). My home town is a little closer - more like Cleveland to Portland - but I've never been there either.

[Trotskilicious]

yeah much was made of the transportation to manaus issues during the world cup

why does vix think manaus is interesying beyond the river thing, most ppl say it has all the charm of a shopping mall in cleveland

[Trotskilicious]

and then theres the whole destruction of the rain forest being its raison d etre

[LaBelle]

People are fairly more positive on their assessment of Manaus over here.
Then again, Ouro Preto and Salvador are higher on my to-go list.

[LaBelle]

Originally Posted by pavementtune

took me over a year to learn it, now I love it, fantastic game (I mean the actual game, not the video games.)

forgot the name of the city we visited, Japan shogi world tournament, they had shogi stones and tables everywhere - always, not just for the tournament.

Cool, I don't know anything about it other than it's supposed to be a chess-style game but mad japanese.

[Rairun]

Yeah, I don't actually know a lot about the city itself - I've seen pictures of the Opera House, and also of the docks area - so I wouldn't know if it looks interesting. But the region has its own cultural expressions and peculiarities, so I wouldn't say it has the charm of a shopping mall. That's an unfair assessment.

[LaBelle]

It's better than Porto Alegre for sure.
There is pretty much nothing to see or do here, it's terrible.

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by Rairun

Yeah, I don't actually know a lot about the city itself - I've seen pictures of the Opera House, and also of the docks area - so I wouldn't know if it looks interesting. But the region has its own cultural expressions and peculiarities, so I wouldn't say it has the charm of a shopping mall. That's an unfair assessment.

what abt the other part i posted

[bignothing]

Originally Posted by vixnix

Do you learn about it in school, about the two waters meeting and stuff like that? It just seems like such a fascinating place.

Just adding here that I definitely did learn about this distinctively. Might be because my state also has a spot where different waters meet.

But yeah, never been to Manaus either. It's kinda shameful how I know other countries more extensively than my own. Traveling in Brazil is still fairly expensive and oftentimes it is cheaper to go abroad, and going abroad seems like a bigger deal.

[Rairun]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

what abt the other part i posted

The destruction of the rainforest? As far as I'm aware, Manaus is pretty inconsequential when it comes to that. It's a large industrial city, but it's only a tiny little spot in the middle of the forest. If you want a culprit, you'd have to look at illegal logging activity and the agribusiness sector.

[LaBelle]

Manaus was built in 1848, people weren't interested in maintaining the forest back then, they just wanted to get all the rubber they could out of there.
Nowadays there's all kinds of initiatives to try and stop deforestation to happen at such a fast pace.

[vixnix]

The wildlife is incredible - they have monkeys, ocelots, sloths, all coming into the city, and river dolphins and manatees swimming in their waters. Plus it was known as the Paris of the tropics, how cool is that? I think it sounds amazing. All that transplanted European architecture. Plus I want to see the two waters meeting.

[LaBelle]

Porto Alegre's main feature is this big body of water that is called a river but is technically a lake, so there's this ages old debate whether it is really a river or a lake.

Amazing stuff.

[Rairun]

Belo Horizonte isn't touristy either. Most people use it as a base to visit all the little baroque towns nearby. I'm flying there tomorrow morning, actually. I shall post some pictures.

[LaBelle]

Oh nice! please do.
A lot of people say that Belo Horizonte is a very charming city.

[bignothing]

you guys, i swear to god. you don't know the struggle that was growing up in pantanal state

[LaBelle]

Mato Grosso?
I know practically nothing about it.

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by Rairun

The destruction of the rainforest? As far as I'm aware, Manaus is pretty inconsequential when it comes to that. It's a large industrial city, but it's only a tiny little spot in the middle of the forest. If you want a culprit, you'd have to look at illegal logging activity and the agribusiness sector.

Originally Posted by LaBelle

Manaus was built in 1848, people weren't interested in maintaining the forest back then, they just wanted to get all the rubber they could out of there.
Nowadays there's all kinds of initiatives to try and stop deforestation to happen at such a fast pace.

raison d etre means reason for existance, even its establishment was abt the rubber industry. its literally not a large spot but it has grown go a million plus because of logging and agribusiness, hasnt it?

labelle initiatives to slow the pace are feel good political smoke screen. theyre still logging and besides its not like brazil is known for uncorruptible officials

and before you think im doing that ol imperial american city on the hill kinda shit i consider our govt to be horrendously corrupt but they have better PR and marketing depts

[Trotskilicious]

Originally Posted by LaBelle

Porto Alegre's main feature is this big body of water that is called a river but is technically a lake, so there's this ages old debate whether it is really a river or a lake.

Amazing stuff.

whats with the confusion over bodies of water down there. racist rivers that refuse to allow mixing of black and brown, rios where there are no rivers even in january, lakes called rivers. cman already

[bignothing]

Excuse you, Mato Grosso do Sul.

Labelle, help me out here. I'm kinda side-eyeing you right now, "nothing to do" in POA? Please explain. I mean, I'm not from there so I might be completely off, but I had many a friend ~dream~ about moving there lol

My favorite Brazilian city is Curitiba, and I have a weird fascination with ugly Brasília.

[bignothing]

Even I find this fascinating.

[Trotskilicious]

racism in action

[LaBelle]

Originally Posted by Trotskilicious

whats with the confusion over bodies of water down there. racist rivers that refuse to allow mixing of black and brown, rios where there are no rivers even in january, lakes called rivers. cman already

The debate happens because Rio Guaíba (official title) is this huge body of water that is the confluence of 4 different rivers, it's not running water but it's water eventually goes to a smaller lake (Lagoa dos Patos), so people argue that it's a lake because it's water is mostly still (due to it's size) or that it's a river because eventually the water goes somewhere else.

The fact that it's official name is "river" only adds to the confusion.