The Tupi people, one of the main ethnic groups of Brazilian indigenous people, believe in a male supernatural being called “Curupira” that guards the forest in Tupi mythology. I crowned this BLOG with his name because I aspire the BLOG, which deals with insects as part of the nature, to play a role just like Curupira who protects the forest from the destructive habits of man.
30 Jul, 2009
On July 1, I hopped backed to Japan after 11 months absence. While I was there, I learned that many of my friends taking an interest in the Amazon had been anxiously wondering what might have happened to me since I had failed to update my blog for the past six months. I should hold myself culpable in my having given those worried friends lots of gray hairs.
When I started this blog last year, I planned to post a whole lot of still photos of animals and plants indigenous to the Amazon, but my interest had shifted to recording the fauna and flora in moving pictures ever since the beginning of this year. Then, I soon found it technically quite difficult to send out moving images from where I am, and in sorted of despair, I gave up on posting anything altogether, leaving my blog out in the cold. Yeah, I known it's not like me to do that. I am going to update my blog more frequently, but it will probably be studded with more of a feature article-type of writing with, possibly, less photos than before.
Now, it was 14 degrees centigrade in Sao Paulo when I flew in from a muggy Tokyo summer after having been up in the air for 26 hours.
I couldn't get a room with LAN access at my regular hotel in Avenida da Liberdade, Sao Paulo, which was almost fully occupied due to some event being held at a nearby Japanese society building, called BUNKYOU.
Next morning, I was awakened at 4 o'clock by the single-digit temperature and the seemingly endless iteration of a Japanese children's song, "TAKEKURABE", being sung by a boy in the next room who was presumably 10 years old or so.
So, I packed up and checked out of the hotel at 7:00AM and got a taxi to the airport. The outdoor temperature was 12 degrees centigrade. I recognized anew that cars were equipped with a heater because I had never had need of one before in my 34 years living in Brazil.
I finally got back in Manaus at 1:00PM local time, where the thermometer read 34 degrees C and the humidity was around 70%. I stood in the almost blinding blaze of the tropical sun, and looked up at white fluffy clouds in the incredibly bright blue sky. I felt myself breaking out into a sweat, and it was as if all the harmful substances in the unhealthy air of Tokyo had been being washed out of me. I was feeling soooooo good!
Penned on Jul. 25, 2009
