Moose Coffee in Manchester is probably the best places for brunch!
A cheeky visit to Moose Coffee
Tag Archives: pictures
The University of Manchester Basking in Rare Sunshine
Weekly Photo Challenge: Nighttime (Fire Show)
Free Fire show at Boracay, Philippines.
In response to this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Nighttime
Dong Hua Men Night Market, Beijing – NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED!
If you are going to Beijing and you have a free evening, you must go to the Dong Hua Men Night Market (address: Dong Hua Men Avenue, West of Wang Fu Jing Avenue, Beijing 100005, China). The stalls open from 5pm to about 11pm. The market has about a hundred food stalls that offer everything from rice and noodles to cupcakes to deep-fried starfish, grasshoppers and snakes on sticks. Locals and toursists walk around to watch other brave people devour some of the most un-imaginable food items in this market.
I went there one evening a couple of weeks ago with my parents and sister. We were all curious to see whether this place can live up to the hype built by the media and other tourists who have been here before.
I was so excited when we arrived:
We arrived just as the owners were opening their stalls so we were among the first few people they enticed to try everything. The first few items were not so bad.
Then, as we carried on walking, the items on sale became weirder…
…and weirder…
…and weirder…
But hey, some people tried them. Here’s a picture of a man who is a lot braver than I was:
We have had an amazing night people-watching. I definitely would recommend this place to anyone who comes to Beijing. If you feel brave, try any of their food, take a picture and post it on your blog and let me know!
Despite having a rather interesting and fun night, I went back to my hotel wearing this expression on my face:
10 funniest English translations in Beijing
During my travels in Beijing, I have had a hard time with communicating with the locals. I had a very difficult time trying to find my way around the city because the signs were incredibly confusing.
They try their best to communicate with you, which is great. However, there are signs and product labels that were poorly translated to English. Here are the best ones:
10. An incredibly talented artist who can…
9. Use Google Translate, they say. It will be fine, they say…
8. The best way to tell shoppers that photography is not allowed:
7. I still don’t get this. I found this gem of a sign in the men’s toilets at Beijing Zoo:
6. Found in the men’s toilet at The Red Theatre. Not to be taken literally! The floors are slippery. But if you want to slip, do it carefully!
5. A rather confusing I Love Beijing t-shirt
4. Yet another Google Translate gem. This is a postcard, by the way.
3. The ‘No Parking Sign’ sign
2. Found in a Chinese Medical centre
1. I don’t mind if you don’t find this funny because my water bottle does!
Groundhog Week – Weather, family, fun!
Today’s Daily Prompt: If you could relive last week, would you? Would you change anything?
We had an amazing week last week, weather-wise, here in England. As I have said before, sunshine and warmth rarely grace Manchester. Therefore, I am really grateful to have experienced a full week of sunshine last week, and if I will be allowed to relive last week, I would do so mostly because of the weather. In addition to not having to take an umbrella everywhere, people are generally happier when the sun is out.
I also had the pleasure of being with my whole family last weekend. We spent some time away in Lake District, Cumbria. We swam, ran, walked and talked all weekend. We also ate together – a very pleasant and therapeutic time for all of us. It is amazing how we all cherrished the time we had together as times such as this do not often happen due to our busy schedules and geographical locations.
All in all, I do want to relive last week and I do not want to change a thing. However, if reliving last week would mean that I would lose the next seven days, I would refuse the opportunity. I would rather experience exciting things in the future, armed with the hope that there are even brighter things ahead than relive the past.
PINGBACKS:
Rihanna’s CFDA dress
Music, acting and being beautiful is not enough anymore. A lot of celebrities and wannabes either say, wear or do something controversial. It gets people talking. It doesn’t matter whether you liked what they did or not. All that matters is that you are thinking, talking and writing about them. This I believe is the reasoning behind Rihanna’s latest publicity stunt. In the CFDA’s fashion awards, Rihanna wore a bedazzled, all-revealing dress that, well, revealed almost everything. People (like me) will be talking about this dress for a very long time. Why did she wear it? WIll you say that she was brave or stupid? Was she making a statement, and if so, what was the statement? Do you like the dress? Would she lose or gain fans because of this? Would more and more females wear outfits that are similar to this?
Rihanna is a huge celebrity and fashion icon. People of all ages and sexual orientations adore her all over the world. No doubt that this wardrobe choice will have reached the four corners of the world before I even publish this article. I am very curious as to how this would affect the wardrobe choices of females around the world.
Does it matter if women wear this sort of clothing?
More importantly (for me), to what extent will this change the way boys and men think about women?
Would parents and teachers educate boys better, i.e. make sure that they do not objectify women and treat them as mere sexual objects?
Or would parents and teachers be far more stricter to girls by enforcing hard rules on wardrobe choices because they fear that males (and most of society) will not respect them if they appear ‘slutty’?
Rome and Singapore: A Tale of Two Cities (Daily Post)
If I could split my time between two cities and two cities only, I choose…
1. ROME- Because of the food:
and the breath-taking historic sights:
and…
2. Singapore– for its beauty:
and because I want to buy everything at Bugis Street:
I have been to both Singapore and Rome before. I loved the people, the sights, food, travelling within both cities and the different atmosphere they both have.
What would I do if I can spend my time equally between these cities? A lot!
The diversity of the residents in Singapore fascinated me. I’d love to spend more time to observe them and explore the ways in which the migrants’ different cultures affects the country as a whole. In Rome, I would spend my time learning the language, eating the food and exploring the ways in which they have kept their tradition (from cuisine to language and the whole customs).
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.
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In response to Daily Prompt: Tale of Two CIties
Here are other Tales of Two Cities:
Manchester Science Festival 2013 photo gallery
BRAINS: Mind as Matter:
Gigantic Graphene model:
Ice Lab:
Eye & I:
Brian Bits:
PIg’s brain Dissection:
Brain Bits: Research, Demonstrations and Dissection
In another one of my exploits at Manchester’s Museum of Science and Insdustry last week, I stumbled upon the ‘Brain Bits’ event. This is another great event brought about by the fabulous organisers of this year’s Science Festival, which drew to a close yesterday. In ‘Brain Bits’, various researchers set up stalls at the top floor of the museum to talk about their research and/ or products to the public. As seen on the pictures below, these people talked about topics such as Alzheimer’s disease, vision, motor skills and coordination, seizures, and more. They explained, based on current research findings, which mostly were their own, how diseases spread, develop and can be slowed down. One group of researchers actually invited the public to take part in their experiment which looked at motor skills in flies (the actual names of which escapes me!). Some also presented fascinating equipments used in brain surgery.
As a psychology graduate and a neuroscience enthusiast, I have been impressed at how these researchers and volunteeers have been able to explain their topics in ways that were accessible to everyone. As it was a free public event, the audience were of mixed ages, gender and educational background. To be able to get most of them engaged and excited is not an easy feat, but the presenters managed just fine. Here are some pictures:
Equipment to aid brain surgeons during surgery that uses MRI and CT Scan techniques:
Demonstration of how to drill holes in the skull (using a model, of course!):
Explaining the similarities and differences of brains across species:
(From the left) Brains of a pig a rat and a mouse:
Evidence of my participation in an experiment investigating motor skills :
Researcher entering my data:
Here are the other presentations and interactive activities:
For me, the most exciting part of the afternoon was when I got the chance to dissect an actual pig’s brain. Guided by Professor Stuart Allan of the University of Manchester, fellow attendees and I sliced and examined pigs’ brains in the laboratory. While we were doing so, Stuart explained to us the significance of each part of the brain was. What was also amazing is that pigs’ brains are structurally mostly the same as ours. Both human and pigs’ brains have two hemispheres (left and right), corpus callosums (the part that connects both hemispheres), brain stem and cerebellum. They differ, amongst other things, is the size of the frontal cortex (with ours being signifficantly bigger). Stuart also welcomed questions from the participants, who asked him interesting questions such as ‘whether there is a sense for gravity?’ The whole experience was educational, fascinating, unique and fun. Not only did it shed a better light in understanding the brain, but by bringing the science out to the public, it offered more chances of inspiring people (both young and old) to get into science.
Understanding and Embracing Diversity 