All Blog Posts (577)

When I get home later this month my first breakfast will include:

2 rashers unsmoked danish back  bacon, a good sized pork sausage, 2 fried eggs (easy over), button mushrooms, a half grilled tomato, 2 pieces of fried black pudding and fried bread. All washed down with a good mug of tea (with milk and sugar) - also English mustard for the sausage.

All followed with hot butterd toast and marmalade

here are some replies from the guardian on this most…

It's superb. I can do nothing but smile. I am very happy,' says person who ate some of the prized tuna bluefin tuna caught off northeastern Japan fetched a record 56.49 million yen, or about $736,000, Thursday in the first auction of the year at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market.

The price for the 593-pound tuna beat last year's record of 32.49 million yen or about $416,000. The price translates to $1,238 per pound — also a record, said Yutaka Hasegawa, a Tsukiji market…

The Changchun 2012 Ice and Snow Festival was grandly opened at Jingyuetan National Forest Park on Monday morning of January 2, 2012.

This year marks the 15th session of the Ice and Snow Festival, and the 10th anniversary for the settlement of Vasaloppet in Changchun. 

The theme of the festival is “Passionate Vasaloppet, Attractive Changchun”. In line with “tour around Changchun, have fun on weekends” and “watch the Winter Games, travel around Jilin Province…

 The 28th International Harbin Ice and Snow Festival held in Harbin, in China's northern Heilongjiang province. The annual three-month long festival will have its opening ceremony on 5 January 2012

Well worth a visit if you have never been - Go to the ice festival in the evening and the snow festival the following morning - and then find a good Russian restaurant to warm up!

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 From cbc.ca:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/01/03/f-vp-ross-language.html

The secret to learning languages

Tips from the polyglots: Find out how your brain works 

 On a trip to Costa Rica, I marvelled at how a fellow…

This first of a two-part blog about differences in the Chinese and Western educational systems and the following impacts is not about what is good and bad, for very little is indeed black and white. However, fact is that big differences in educational program, curriculum, and not least the whole concept of ’What is good education?’ brings out totally different skill-sets in young people coming out of high schools and universities in China and the West. A thing, are they not already, future…

Richard roman started me thinking with his last post, "what is the best drink in the world?" Belgium seems to be a great beer making country. But what is the best alcoholic beverage? Wine (what wine?), Beer (what beer?), Mixer (what mixer?, Shot (what shot?). 

For me: 

Beer - Yorkshire Bitter.

Wine - Californian Red

Mixer - Gin

Shot - Patron (Gold)…

THE Trappist Abbey of St Sixtus of Westvleteren has little to offer those wishing to gawp at ecclesiastical architecture. The 19th-century buildings—squat, brick and functional—sit on a quiet country lane amid flat farmland, close to Belgium’s border with France. Yet the vast visitors’ car park is a clue that some people nevertheless consider the abbey worth a trip. For beer lovers, St Sixtus is a place of pilgrimage.

The abbey and its most famous brew, Westvleteren 12—a dark, strong…

I heard from a friend who is sending his kid to study in a primary school in Changchun that they need to pay a fee of RMB68000 ( "understanding fee" which means - pay us extra to get into my school)

Now, my friend would really like to understand this better - can anyone here help?

I would ask that no one contact me for about 3 weeks. As that would be sufficient enough time for me to mourn the passing of our beloved leader and father Kim Jong Il. At present I render my garments and wail in dark corners. Champagne also seems to be helping.

How would one go about posting a blog on CCF, that is 4 pages long?

I tried to but all my text was scrambled.

These computers.

Bah!

MJ.

The iconic Cafe de Paris in Rome – the inspiration behind Federico Fellini's classic La Dolce Vita – is set to reopen after it was discovered two years it had been used as a front for money-laundering by the notorious 'Ndrangheta mafia of Calabria.

It was a legendary emblem of the "Dolce Vita" high life of Rome in the 1960s, enticing stars such as Sophia Loren, Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra.…

Great news for us internet speed to get faster starting next year. Use google chrome to translate  into English.  http://news.xwhb.com/news/system/2011/12/20/010226408.shtml

Thanks to globalization, we are seeing more and more mixed marriages that produce mixed (up) kids. We all know that a Chinese-English mix will give you a Chinglish baby, but what about:

A person from Iceland with someone from Cuba? - You're going to get an Ice-Cube

Or an Italian with a Jamaican - What else? A Pasta-Farian

An Indian with a Jew will have a Hinju

Guy from Harlam with a girl from the Filipines will have Baby…

Václav Havel, the dissident playwright who led the Czechoslovakian "velvet revolution" and was one of the fathers of the east European pro-democracy movement that led to the fall of the Berlin wall, has died aged 75.

To read more....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/18/vaclav-havel-dies

'''''and he was a writer! ... a man of dignity

Maharishi Jack is here in Changchun!

His many followers from around the world are bewitched by his down to earth stories, pithy humour which always contain the essence of a deeper more meaningful truth. Currently, only a few of his closest followers know of his existence here in Changchun but he will be revealing an important message for the sake of humanity soon.

Full details will be available when appropriate on Changchun Live - this is  just to let everyone…