Uruguay and stuff

The week after the San Telmo, I did a lot of shopping, like back to Calle Florida and the mall here, Alto Palermo. Alto Palermo is a pretty big mall, but the stuff they have isn't any cheaper than it would be back in the States. I was craving Chinese food, so I went to this place in the food court called Magic Dragon, but it was terrible. It was worse than Panda Express, cost more for less food, and it didn't even taste as good. I was pretty disappointed. But it's okay because I needed a break from steak and just tons of meat in general. I think I was the only person that ate there. No one warned me.

The next day, on Wednesday, we actually went to the Chinatown here in the Belgrano area. It's a small place but they had a bunch of stores and small restaurants. There was also a place called Comida de Taiwan, or Taiwan Food. They had bubble tea there, but it closed up right when we got there. We ate at probably the best Chinese restaurant they had, since it was packed and really busy. We had to wait about 10 minutes for a table. Before we ate, we went to the supermarket there to buy some things. I bought some pineapple bread and sarsaparilla. Some guy asked me what a good soy sauce was, probably because I was Asian. I told him Kikkoman was awesome, but just because it was the only one I recognized. 

On Thursday, we took a short 1 hour flight to Uruguay. We took Buquebus Linea Aerea from Aeroparque Jorge Newbery. We got to Uruguay pretty late, and then had to wait about an hour until a van arrived to take us into Punta del Este. We got to a bus station and then roamed around the area to find a restaurant before we checked into our hotel. There was this quiet Parilla restaurant, like a grilled barbecue place. We ordered the giant meat parilla dish to share. Also some morrones (red, green, yellow peppers), provoleta (grilled cheese), and something else I don't remember. I got an awesome beer. Then we took a taxi to the hotel and checked in. Unfortunately there was only one bed, so I slept on the floor both nights, sigh. And there was no AC so it was so hot and humid. But the people were really nice, it was like a big home.

The next day, we woke up and ate some seafood at this local place. Like paella, calamari, this weird quiche, etc. Then went around to see a couple beaches. The weather was a bit muggy, an anomaly since it's usually sunny all the time there. Bad luck I guess. We went to two beaches, first Playa Brava, and then Playa Mansa. Playa Brava was awesome and more active and they had this really cool landmark called Los Dedos, or The Fingers. They're just these giant stone fingers emerging from the sand. Jeff and I went into the ocean for like 20-30 minutes and it was freezing. There were only a few people actually in the water. And it was brown and super salty. But still, it was pretty fun, and it's been a while since I've splashy splashed in the ocean.

After that we just strolled around the hood, got some coffee, walked around some more, sat at this restaurant on Playa Mansa and got drinks and watched the sunset. It was really awesome. And I figured out the sunset setting on my camera so the pictures look good. Then, we walked around the local town and did some shopping. There were lots of people. We ate at this restaurant pretty late. We were the last ones to leave, at around 1AM or something. I had the ravioli and some beer. Delicious beer. 

That's about it for Punta del Este, we left the next morning at 6 AM. I checked us out, and talked to one of the guys that worked there. He was really cool. Sometimes I didn't really understand what he was saying, but after he repeated and said things in a simpler way, I got it. Also there was a nice dog there that looked really old, and was blind I think. He was awesome.