Rob Cheng’s Blog

Here’s a trick that I figured out to speak Portuguese with less of a foreign accent. It goes back all the way back to elementary school. Do you remember when you were learning your vowels, and we learned that there are 5 vowels and each vowel has two sounds, long and short?

Well in Portuguese (and also in Spanish), each vowel only has one sound. So therefore, rather than 10 vowel sounds in English, Portuguese and Spanish only have 5. The trick if you are an English speaker is to throw out the other vowel sounds because they do not exist in Portuguese. See the table below. More »

November 6th, 2008 | Category: Brazil | Comments (2)

As I already documented earlier, Teddy’s christening had a cloud over it because the Father at our church would not allow Augusto to be the Godfather. He did allow Augusto to attend the Christening, and we took some photos of the big event. Solange was really excited for the event and bought Teddy a special outfit just for the occasion. More »

June 1st, 2008 | Category: Brazil, Religion, Slide Show, Teddy | Leave a comment

I might as well make it official. My favorite restaurant in the whole world is Terzetto. Here are the reason’s that I love Terzetto. They have a huge menu. I go often, and often like to try out different things. Each time I try something new, it turns out just as good as many of my old time favorites. They are very accommodating. Any change to a dish, and they will make it special order. Solange when she was pregnant, would invent special dishes while we drove there. Then she would describe it and they would cook it. It is simply fantastic. More »

May 27th, 2008 | Category: Brazil, Slide Show | Comments (1)

I have always wanted to find a program to make cartoons, and now I found a great one - ToonDoo. ToonDoo really makes it easy to import objects, characters and text into your cartoon. It’s done with the latest in Web 2.0 technologies enabling ToonDoo to run in any browser.

The story below actually happened to me. Move your mouse over the cartoon to see the rest. More »

May 25th, 2008 | Category: Brazil, Cartoons | Comments (2)

My apartment is on the fourth floor of a ten story building. When I first purchased my apartment in 2003, a good friend of mine Jamie from Philadelphia made a very prescient comment. As we were looking out over the beautiful views from my apartment, he said “Wonder what you’ll do when those trees grow a little?” More »

May 18th, 2008 | Category: Brazil, Photos | Leave a comment

I thought of this video we made last year, as we approach the Christmas season. Every year, they put a large 100 foot, 10 story Christmas tree on the lake where I live in Rio de Janeiro. Each year they decorate the tree with a different and unique Christmas theme with literally millions of blinking lights. People come from all over Rio to view the tree, literally flooding the area with spectators and street vendors. On the last night, they have a spectacular fireworks around the tree. Solange took this video from our bedroom window in January 2007. More »

October 25th, 2007 | Category: Brazil, Videos | Leave a comment

I love Brazil in so many ways. It is an amazing country with an over abundance of natural resources. They have it all. Abundant forests, amazing fruits and vegetables. Plenty of rain. On top of all of this, Brazil has no natural disasters. No hurricanes, earthquakes or tornados. It covers a huge area in South America. 8.5 million square kms to be exact. In comparison, the United States marks the map at 9.6 millions square kms. Put it another way. Pull out Alaska, and Brazil is actually larger than the United States.

Then on top of all of this, Brazil has the best energy strategy. I just bought a new car in Brazil and it has a flex engine, which burns both alcohol and normal gas. On top of this, alcohol is dispensed at all gas stations in Rio de Janeiro. More »

October 7th, 2007 | Category: Brazil, Politics | Leave a comment

When I made my video of our helicopter ride to the top of Corcovado, Solange took a bunch of photos. I combined these awesome photos with a new technology that I found on the web called Lytebox. It enables me to make a nice slide show with written comments on each picture. Making this slide show makes me remember all of the things that I love about Rio de Janeiro. More »

September 15th, 2007 | Category: Brazil, Photos, Slide Show | Leave a comment

Me, two guys and three very beautiful girls decided to trek up to the top of Corcovado mountain in mid 2002. It was such a fun time, and I was just starting to experiment with my video camera. I felt like my life was coming together. Great weather, great scenery, and lots of girls. Just thinking back puts a smile on my face. Later, I bought a condominium in Lagoa, and I can see the Christo statue from every room of my apartment. More »

August 31st, 2007 | Category: Brazil, Videos | Comments (1)