Back in UK!

We are going to stay in UK for the next few months :)

Police

Written by SP

We were at Cologne 2 weeks ago and we came by these posters at the airport. They ain't anything interesting about it at the first glance but then as you walk along the hallway, things are getting more fascinating, and ideas start to came into your mind. Which of the following police you want to see when you in trouble...?

 

Russian and Dutch?

Polish or English? You start wondering if she a model or an actual cop, coz I never seen one so elegant and slim on Oxford Street!

Indonesian? You better have some "minum coffee" $$$ at hand!

Egyptian? or Belgian?

American? you better not run if you have a beard, you'll just get shot at the back! or Spanish? Is he really a cop? I never been to Spain but I don't want to meet one of this...

Italian? Time to make an offer that he can't refuse ! or Czechian?

Canadian? or Swiss?

Swedish? Yeah, they only good at giving out parking tickets coz there are no crimes in Sweden.

Danish? or German?

Irish? Now I got your attention....definitely a traffic stopper!

Another English? That show how grumby English people are in this sad city...

Dutch? hmmm....you got some weed?

So what are your choice?

A Christmas Carol

No, I haven't read the book. This post is about real carol singing.

Today, I've joined a small group of people to sing at Liverpool Street station to raise money for 'Help the Hospice'.

A bit about Liverpool Street station, it is one of the busiest train station in UK, with around 125 million vistors each year. So there we were, 6 of us, standing near one of the entrance, singing X'mas Carols for St Joseph's Hospice.

'Help the Hospice' is a charity organisation which helps fund and provide palliative care. As some of you may know, I don't sing and I don't really enjoy performing. But it is for a worthwhile cause. 

Singing in a train station is especially difficult because our group is small and we have a big space to cover. I overcame my shyness and put a lot of effort into project my voice. As we warmed up, we were getting a good flow of donations. Nobody threw eggs at us. So it was a pleasant experience afterall. :)

Japan Trip, Oct 2006 - Travelling on train, Japanese style!

Train traveling in Japan is relatively easy. Although I was told by my UK collegue that they had great difficulty in matching up the station names to their guideboook, I have the advantage of being able to read kanji (Chinese characters). It has made my life much easier. When I make a booking, I just write down the name of the destination and tell the assistants what time we want to travel. Then they would issue the tickets for us. It also helps that we had a train travel pass, so we don't have to worry about paying the wrong fare.

The most difficult part is finding the right platform. But people are generally helpful and if you show them your tickets, they would offer directions to the platform. And if you have missed your train, there is always the next one. The trains between the larger cities and town are quite frequent.

When traveling longer distance, it is common to bring your own 'take-away meal' (bento). We saw a family sharing a few bentos on one train trip and subsequently decided we should follow suit in the future.

So, on the following trip, we bought an eel bento to share between us. It's only small because we travelling to another city for lunch. But still, it was an authentic 'Japanese experience'! hahaha

Japan Trip, Oct 2006 - Bumping into a fellow Australian in Kyoto

Around the temple area, there are some well-preserved Meiji period streets.

We wander around, and suddenly, a couple of girls wearing kimono caught our sight. That day was a national holiday in Japan and it is not uncommon for Japanese to wear their kimino to the temple during special occasion or holidays.

What caught our eye was that the two girls were trying to communicate in broken English.

It turns out that one of the girl is an exchange student from Brisbane, Australia. Her host family has got her all dressed up for the national holiday, and was showing her around East Kyoto.



I thought she looked good in the kimono so I asked her to take a picture with me.

Ms YI told me later that if I really wanted, I can take a couple of hours out of my trip to get dressed in a proper kimono and get myself painted in white as well. But the prospect of having this powdery stuff all over me is just too scary. I gave it a pass.

Japan Trip, Oct 2006 - Ohagi (御萩) and matcha (抹茶)

We took a walk around the temple area in Kyoto, and took the advice from Lonely Planet to stop by a local tea house to have afternoon tea the Japanese way. We picked a small shop and walked in. The owner doesn't speak English and she doesn't understand my Japanese, so we were 'forced' to order two sets of ohagi (御萩) and matcha (抹茶):

 
Ohagi with proper matcha

Ohagi (御萩) are steamed and pounded balls of glutinous rice wrapped in sweet red bean paste (so the reverse of Daifuku). Traditionally, they are made during the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes. According to one page on the Internet, the term 'ohagi' derives from the autumn flower hagi (bush clover).

I am personally not a fan of red bean, so I didn't enjoy it so much. It was even too sweet for SP!

The frothy green tea (抹茶) was nice though. It was a thick version of the whipped green tea (濃茶) so it was stronger in taste. The sweetness of the ohagi is supposed to match perfectly with the bitterness of the green tea. 

I prefer the green tea on its own.

Tornado in London

Limescale

When we first moved into our flat, we found that there are white chalky deposits in the shower and sink. We subsequently found the same thing in kettle and cooking utensils as well! Later, we were told that this annoying white stuff is called limescale, and it still haunts us til today.

So, why are there white deposit all over the place?

It has to do with the quality of water. In Melbourne and Sydney, I never had this problem. It also wasn't a problem when I was in Hong Kong, where the tap water is not drinkable. 

The white chalky stuff is from the hard water, which contains calcium carbonate and other similar salts. The salts are in the water because it has been pumped from or filtered through natural underground reservoirs called aquifers. These salts come from the rocks underground.

Calcium carbonate is rather unusual, in that it becomes less solution when the water is heated up. As a result, there are white deposits in places where hot water has ran by.

The built-up can eventually block pipes, as shown in this photo from http://www.tamhil.com:



Scary stuff.

The hard water would also combine with soap to form scum on almost all surfaces. It is often rock solid and is almost impossible to remove.

Worse of all, using soap on the body in hard water can also cause scum to be formed on the skin. This stuff remains on the skin even after rinsing, thus clogging pores and coating body hair. It also encourages growth of bacteria!

So, what're the solutions?

(1) You can scrub off the limescale with the help of chemical limescale cleaner.

(2) You can use an ion exchange water softener, which effectively replaces all the calcium in the water with sodium. It is rather expensive to run and the water may not be suitable for drinking as the level of sodium has increased dramatically.

(3) There is also a third solution, which is not exactly confirmed yet. This involves the use of electronic or magnetic water descaler, which is wrapped around the incoming water pipe to pass a magnetic field through the water. As the water passes through, the salts molecules lose their attraction to one another and are prevented from combining into larger structures to become limescale. The molecules are held in suspension. The water treated in this way will eventually return to its original structure (the limescale forming salt), but the treated water should be used and washed away before this happens.

Right now, to make ourselves feel better about the water we drink, we are using Brita. If you know of any other solutions which works, please let me know.

England 551-6 dec & 129 vs Australia 513 & 168-4

(Source: Sydney Morning Herald.  http://www.smh.com.au/)

Australia in 2-0 up in the Ashes series! This is such exciting news to wake up to!

Nine wickets gone for only 70 runs. Rumours have it that some morning newspaper in London actually said it was a draw. I guess they were sent to the print too early! :)

Good on Collie for staying until the end, while his partners were constantly 'on-the-go'.

It would have been exciting watching Warne bowling on Day 5 of any Test match, but 4-49! Gotta watch the highlights on BBC Two tonight!


Warney sovenirs a stump!
(Source: News.com.  http://www.news.com.au/)