Best National Geographics Pictures 2009‏

Pink eggs

Strolling on a local market in Asia you might find some strange and exotic things. One of them would be the Pink eggs.
No they don't come from pink chickens. They are specially know by Chinese who see those eggs as a delicatessen, they are more expensive then normal eggs.



Pink for an egg is of course a strange colour, but you really should buy one open it. You will be surprised that the egg is black inside!
These eggs are know as "Century eggs", "hundred-year eggs" or even "thousand-year eggs".
Before there were any fridges the Chinese developed and refined a way to preserve eggs. These eggs can be kept several weeks and even a few months, depending on the quality of the preservation process. Eggs are coated with a paste of clay, tea, quicklime, salt and wood ashes.
The eggs are then put in a jar, filled with rice chaff. 3 months are needed for the mud like coat to harden into the crust and at that time eggs are ready for consumption, mmmm tasty!\



Some say the eggs are preserved in horse urine. This is a myth but can be understood. The eggs have a strong ammonia smell, because the PH level of the eggs have slightly changed through the fermentation process. So this give them a smell similar to horse urine.

Many Chinese restaurants offer these eggs in different plate combinations. They are seen as delicatessen and Chinese just love them!
Personally it is not my favourite kind of egg, but I tried it many times. The eggs tastes like and egg but got a rather strong after taste.

Enjoy!

Congratulations China

1 October 2009 it might be remembered as a sad day in most places of Asia. Some earthquakes shook up Samoa and an extra earthquake surged next to the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Those quakes provoked some major currents and tsunamis, who hit several countries, including Vietnam.

But other Asian countries will not be that sad today.

On 1 October Japan has a special day called : Koromogae. On this day Japanese have to change their summer clothes for winter clothes. An extra layer will help to survive winter. As this year is quite warm for the time being, it just means businessman have to start to wear their tie again. More formal dresses are the trend for the winter.

Meanwhile Chinese people are proud to celebrate 60 years of People's Republic of China. I got some warm hearted messages today form Chinese friends telling me to watch television, so I can be amazed by the military parade next to Tienanmen.

Some pictures:

Shanghai crash

A 13-floor apartment building under construction collapses in Minhang district, Shanghai Saturday morning June 27, 2009, killing one worker.
The construction fever hasn't stopped in China and new buildings are built every month in most major cities. Because of the high demand top materials and top workers are not always available. So the crash of this massive building is probably caused by bad materials and construction errors.

Japanese cars

Japan is the number 1 car producer in the world. Everybody knows the big car brands like Toyota, Honda, Mazda,... These car companies have special models for Asia and specific models for Japan. As the Japanese are quite rich they also like to spend some money on their cars. That's why in Japan you can see a collection of different Japanese models and expensive foreign cars.

Do you know the ones in the pictures?

P.S. BMW and Mercedes are often associated with the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia), so normally Japanese people will not buy one.

Capsulehotel

A few nights ago I decided to spend a night in a capsulehotel. These kinds of hotels are typical for big business cities like Tokyo and Osaka. As the land prices in Japan have sky rocked out of proportions, a night in a hotel room is quite expensive. But capsulehotels are not really meant for tourist who want to look for cheap accommodations. The rooms are too small and impractical for this purpose.
Businessman in major cities in Japan have a hard and tense life, so they like to relax with colleagues after work. But when relaxing and having fun, time is sometimes forgotten. If you miss your last train, around 00.30. You might have several options. Take a taxi for about 10.000 ¥ and go sleep home or stay in a cheap accomodation, such as a capsulehotel (3000-4000¥ a night). So most capsulehotels are found near train stations in the middle of the city.

I spend the night at a caspulehotel in Shimbashi. Before getting in I had to pay for the night and found a small locker room next to the reception. In the locker room the shoes had to be taken off and slippers would replace them. Accessing the elevator brings me to the second floor, where I find a corridor with 20 capsule rooms. I open mine and sigh in relief, it is bigger than I thought. I was thinking of sleeping in a space as big as those drawers where they put the corpses in hospital. Mind you I can not stand up in the capsule, just sit and bent my head. In a side room of the corridor I find 3 toilets and 2 sinks and 1 shower. As I am the second guest, one person is already watching TV in his capsule, I can notice from the slippers in front of his capsule. So I change clothes to a pyjama, similar to a hospital's gown, provided by the hotel. Inside I have a small control panel where I can switch off the light and can control the radio and TV. I turn on the radio to find out there are 12 channels. 1 channel has English movies and 2 channels provide Japanese (block)porn. Nothing interesting so I decide to get a sleep as it is still quiet.
In the middle of the night different people get in between midnight and 2 am. The corridor fills up with an awful booze smell and my half-sleep gets totally disrupted. The air con is not working well and I don't want to open up the sliding door.
In the morning I wake up around 7.00 and decided to get up and take a shower. When I climb out of my capsule I see more than a dozen pair of slippers, all the capsules got filled up in the night. The snoring and alcohol smell fills up the room and I hurry to get take a shower, pack my stuff, take my shoes, return the key and get out.
Good experience but a terrible night, I suppose you have to be drunk to be able to sleep in a capsule hotel.

Chiang Mai Baby Panda

Exciting news from Chiang Mai, Thailand:

After the first successful artificial insemination of a panda by a Thai veterinarian team a cub has been born to Lin Hui, a 7 year old Panda, on a 10 year loan from China, in Chiang Mai Zoo, northern Thailand. The birth came as a complete surprise to zoo staff who did not know Lin Hui was pregnant. The success follows the 2nd attempt at artificial insemination.The 1st attempt in 2007 failed. Previously, zoo staff had tried everything to try to get the pandas in the right mood, even showing the two Pandas a Panda Sex Movie to try to get them feeling romantic.

There is some concern that Lin Hui may not be able to take care of the baby herself as it is her first. A team of Chinese experts has arrived today to give advice on how to raise the cub. The Chinese experts say that the baby Panda is a female. Officials say the cub is feeding from its mother’s breasts and both are doing well. The Public will be allowed to see the new baby Panda cub in about a month.