Hot Coke!

heard from locals that hot coke and ginger is a good flu remedy. They just boil coca cola with a slice of ginger and/or lemon. This time of the year is the typical flu season since the weather is turning cold with the coming of winter.

we were also served coke with ginger at a mongolian restaurant the we went to recently.

even as a hot drink, it is not too bad and not as strange as it sounds.

just tried it myself at home with a can of coke. poured it into a cup and zapped for 1 minute in the microwave. even without ginger, it is quite refreshing in the cold weather.

beauty of Xinjiang

before I first visited Xinjiang my preconceived notions of the western frontiers of China was deserts and rolling sand dunes. later in the artsy martial arts movie "Hero" by Zhang Yimou, I glimpsed the beautiful landscape of Kanas Lake in Xinjiang. You can see the part where Jet Li is duelling with Tony Leung flying across the lake (minus superman's cape). The place is breath-takingly beautiful with the boreal forests reflected in the crystal clear alpine lake. It is ecologically unique since it was the only spot of "taiga" boreal forest in China. A colleague just visited the spot and these are the pics.

a little piece of Singapore...

discovered a newly-opened BreadTalk outlet in a Beijing shopping mall today! Robina and I was out roaming Tian An Men this afternoon. To say that there were tons of people is a gross understatement. We enjoyed the view of kites streaming in the sky above the immense square against the backdrop of the Stalinist styled architecture of the Great Hall of the People and Mao's Mausauleum. But we quickly beat a hasty retreat with the gathering hordes.

seeking the refuge of the Wang Fu Jing shopping area, we headed for Oriental Plaza (it's like Taka in Orchard!). This is where we found the BreadTalk outlet. It is an exact clone of Singapore outlets, same layout and see-thru kitchen. We identified the Singaporean Manager/chief baker at one glance: Mr Foo. He told us that this is the first outlet in Beijing with more to come, including one in China World near our apartment (hurray!). There are oredi 7 outlets in Shanghai! Needless to say, we loaded up on buns and breads like otah bun (tears flowing down my cheek!), crouching tiger hidden bacon and ham n cheese. Robina complained to Mr Foo, how come don have Green Tea bun? hey presto, the kitchen staff scrambled to bring out one! the place was swamped with local customers with a long long queue. macham no need to pay!

P.S. I'm still getting used to this "remote" blogging since I cannot see my actual blog site.

only for tough guys

Having participated in the OSIM Triathlon (mini-version), my jaw was gaping when I saw a clip on AXN about this crazy, looney yet challenging event held in the UK: Tough Guy competition. only the barking mad Brits can think of it!

It involves running a 8 mile (13km) course then climb, crawl and swim through a series of obstacles with blood thirsty names like the Tiger, the Behemoth, Fiery Holes, Tyre Crawl, Dead Leg Swamp, Vietcong Tunnels, Paradise Climb, Water Tunnel, Berlin Wall, Jesus Bridge, The Great Wall, Dragon Pool, Bridge of Sighs, Stalag Escape, Tyre Torture, Dans Deceiver, Death Bridge over Kwai Delta. The obstacles usually involve lengthy immersions in vile ditches and crawling through mucky manure piles. Others are high obstacles that make our commando course look like children playgrounds.

There are two events a year, one in summer and one in winter. The winter event is recommended for those who find pleasures in hypothermia and frostbite. The event website even tabulates the number of casualties and injuries! even though safety personnel are stationed along the course. For the extreme masochists, there is a "Last Man Standing" competition. Meaning that you carry on running until everyone drops. Past winners have been known to last six laps! more than 2000 Brits, Europeans and Americans participate each year.

The stark raving mad event was thought up by a former British Army chap who now runs Mr Mouse Farm for Unfortunates, a 150 acre fram in Staffordshire that takes in hundreds of retired horses, care for wildlife habitats and provide jobs for unfortunate people. Proceeds from the event funds their charity work.

According to one particpant: "At one point I fell off this high rope section, bounced off a hay bale then landed face down in the blackist, stinky-ist swamp I'd ever seen. I wouldn't have minded so much but my mouth was wide open at the time..."


I am now making this one of my to-do-list. If and when I make it to studies in the UK, watching a Man U home match and completing this event will be the things that I hope to accomplish!

Big Brother

due to blocking from Big Brother, I have not been able to update my website since I cannot access or even FTP to my server. I found out that I can update my blog but cannot view that actual blog site. along the way, I discover that I cannot access most blogs or international sites on geocities and BBC from here.

well, I will just have to find some way around this "incovenience". In the mean time, I can only post pics of my trips and activities on imagestation.

for instance, u can see photos from our dinner at a Mongolian restaurant (my previous post) here in Imagestation.