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.