1st day of December

Hello everyone,

This is the first day of December, it’s 17°c~24°c (63°f~ 75°f) in Ilan city, winter time, cloudy, and wind direction is ENE (east-northeast). Visibility is 20 km (kilometer), relative humidity is 59 %, and accumulated precipitation is zero mm. In general, the weather is quite good today.

(I took the photo of my hometown sky this morning, from my office deck)

This month is my English-Learning month, that is to say, I would do my best to learn English and get more other Knowledge as a margin profit as well. Of course, my dear friends (readers, bloggers) and teachers please do not hesitate to correct my English.

Sincere wishes
James in Taiwan

Hello again !

Hello everybody,

I am very glad to join the blog once again. I am feeling very nice to talk to you all here in the virtual world of bloggers of BBC English learning programme. I would like to introduce my self as a blogger of the month of August 2008.

Though, I couldn’t be a regular commentator but I was a regular reader of the blog. Everybody is busy in this world for the survival. Today, I am in office after weekend with fresh mind and adequate rest. Another five days are here to go. My days are as usual, from home to office and office to home. As busy as I wrote in my last blog from 8:30 in the morning to the 5:30 in the evening for the office work.

My parents are here with me for these 15 days. My dad was sick so he came from my home town for treatment. Though it is 12 hours journey, for good treatment everybody has to come to Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal. Before coming here he had a severe pain around heart. The day he left home he saw some rashes in that area. Since it was around the heart we were worried about the heart problem as he is a patient of Blood pressure for last 20 years. But the case was different; it was Herpes Zoster (medical name) which is also called shingles. I am talking about this illness because anyone can have this kind of disease at any time of his or her age. Its better to know about it because when we treat on time its fine but when the time passes the pain can remain from 3 weeks to a year. Some of you might be aware of it but for some of us it's good to know about. I am telling this because when we went to see doctor, doctor said that it’s little bit late but he prescribed some medicines.

The cause of this disease is the virus which remains in a suppressed way in our body who had chicken pox or small pox in their childhood and it comes out with a greater effect if our immunity system goes downThe pain is severe and the rashes also looks very deadly which comes in only one side but it can appear in any part of our body. I wanted to put some picture but it’s very deadly so please go through internet and look at it. Just type “Herpes Zoster”.

Instead of talking about interesting things I wrote about the disease because I thought that if I had known about it we could have gone to see skin doctor earlier and my father had to suffer less.

I will come up with some interesting pictures and interesting write up in my next blog.

My Father and Mother

Thank you very much to BBC English Learning Team for giving me this opportunity.

Wish you all the very best!

Kiran

Many greetings from Slovakia!

Hello everyone! I do hope you are all doing well.

This is Anita, the former student blogger (Sep 06)

It seems to me that the year 2008 is somehow unique, as the BBC LE team gave us the opportunity to blog and catch up with each others at the beginning of the year and now, in December, the year’s last month. Thank you so much! Wow! How exiting!

Well, firstly I would like to greet everyone who is taking part in the open blog – student and teacher bloggers, commentators. I do hope that my teacher, Lewis Davies will have a little time for us because I am so curious to see his pictures of his baby boy, Oscar and to hear his news. Please, do not keep me waiting for too long, Lewis.

I cannot express how happy I am to write again. However, I am afraid I cannot manage the time to write every day. December is a very, very busy month at my work and as a mother and wife I am usually snowed under with work in December getting ready for Christmas as well. But I will try my best, promise.

I have visited England twice this year. Firstly, I was in Reading in June when my daughter graduation ceremony was and secondly a week ago in London. I would like to write you about my journeys to the UK and send a lot of pictures. As I said, I got back home just last Tuesday so I have already experienced a little of the Christmas atmosphere in England and I have a big surprise for you all but I do not want to let the cat out of the bag. I have attached a couple of photos of the Christmas lights in Regent Street, Carnaby Street in London.

Quick guide to the third photo: my daughter and me on the London Eye



OK, I will end here hoping to hear from you all soon. I want to wish you a great time reading the entries, writing posts and comments, looking at the pictures.

Take care! See you soon,

Anita

A message from Leila to you all

A big hello from Finland, this is Leila calling: I am the November 2007 student blogger. It is so nice to see, that so many familiar people continue writing week after week. Not only those of us, who have had an advantage to be student bloggers, but mainly those, whose keep on giving the necessary feed back.

Since November 2007 so many things have happened in the world, some good and some not so good. On a personal note, I am still in the same job as a year ago. I am also a year older and hopefully a little bit wiser.

Last week I was fortunate to have a short holiday, we went to Tunisia and I am pleased to share two pictures taken during our visit. The first photo was taken in the ancient Karthago. The other picture is from President Habib Bourguiba Mausoleum.

In Finland we are experiencing the darkest time of the year, the weather is dismal and the darkness just seems to enfold us in.

But how are you my global friends?

Tuesday, my on-call day of outside.

Hello everyone,

Today is my on-call day of outside; it’s a whole day long work, from morning, afternoon, evening and night, waiting the call from my office policeman. It’s a duty of on-call; every prosecutor is in turn per day. And what thing I got to deal with? In a short saying, “examine corpse”.

If there is any person who died a non-ill death, the county police have to report to Ilan Prosecutors’ office, and the Prosecutor’s office policeman immediately dials the on-call prosecutor who needs to summon a team including clerk, forensic doctor. And, a driver will drive us to the scene to examine the corpse, to invest the case, and to collect the evidence. Most of cases in Ilan County were car-accident, to commit suicide. The commit suicide cases have been rising in latest 5 years. Ilan County has 2,143 km² area and 461,010 populations.

I drove 12 minutes to office this morning, waiting on-call at my office room during the work time which is from 8:00 am to 17:30 pm, I got 1.5 hour break at noon which is from 12:00- 13:30 pm.

Today’s cases till now are:
morning= 0 (safety in Ilan)
afternoon=0 (safety in Ilan)
evening&night= unknown

I got to wait even after my off-work at home, till tomorrow morning 8:00 am. I am still on-call now.

The following photo is my office room, one prosecutor got one room, There are 18 prosecutors in Ilan county. The stuff of what I have in my office room are a computer set (include printer), a TV, a fax (+ copy), 2 lines of Telephone, 2 air conditions, a fan, a shredder.

Best wishes, Blessing safety to all of you and me.
James

Hi from Buenos Aires, Argentina!

Hiya friends,

I’m so glad to have another opportunity to blog. It’s kind of an addition, you know.

For all that don’t know me, my name is Cristina. I’m Argentinean; I live in the fascinating and charming Buenos Aires. I was the student blogger of April 2008.
I’m married to my loving husband Oscar.

I’m an accountant and work in an office with another 2 colleagues (Lidia and Mabel) and 2 university students (Esteban and Alejandro).

I’m lucky to work 7 hours per day from Monday to Friday. I go to the gym twice a week. I passed the FCE exam many years ago and now I try to practise the language by reading books, browsing BBC web page, speaking and writing to many foreigner friends including all of you.

Well, my life hasn’t changed so much since April 2008, except that I’m 8 months older :- )

Last week Oscar (my husband) and I came back from our one-week-holiday in Mendoza (a province of Argentina). Mendoza is well known because there are a lot of wineries and vineyards. As a matter of fact all the best wines come from there.

But I don’t want to make this blog longer. I’ll speak about my trip in my next blog and show you some pictures.

It’s all for today………..

See you,
Cris
xxx

Mountain Flights in Nepal !

Mountain flight is very famous in Nepal. Everybody who comes to see Nepal they love to go to see mountains on flight. Here in Nepal, we have some airlines that operate mountain flights. In Nepal we have 8 highest mountains out of 10 in the world including Mount Everest.

The most recommended time period is February to April and October & November a s prime time to enjoy the mountain flights. I haven’t got opportunity to go to see them however I have seen few while travelling from Kathmandu to my hometown . Somebody said about the mountain flight which I liked very much “It’s a different feeling as one comes face to face with the world's tallest mountain standing there in all its splendid glory, beautiful and enigmatic.”

I have some pictures to share with you.

Friends after these beautiful pictures, I would like to thank you all for the comments and wish for my father. He is now feeling much better and went home this morning.

Thanks a lot!

Kiran

Wednesday, life is as usual

Hello friends,
Today, life is as usual.

Daytime’s temperature is 26°C (79°F) in Ilan city, and it is a winter sunny day. Northwest wind is a bit stronger, Beaufort scale 3. I would like to show a photo as below, you can see the wind of blowing over my body, and what costume I dressed today for a daily work life at my office.

I drove 12 minutes from home to my office, 6 km far away. Our working time is 8:00-12:00, 13:30-17:30, we have a 1.5 hours lunch break, most people have their lunch at office and take a short half hour nap at office desk, it’s a habit of Taiwanese/China/Asian, sort of a hobby of Taiwanese. However, I have changed/quitted this noon-nap habit for many years. And, I drove back home for lunch and turned back to office afterwards. Taiwan time is GMT +8.

Writing to here, I found something which is new experience to me, Life as usual is a simple thing, but, to describe it in English is not so simple to me.

Best wishes,
James

The fourth day of December, life is still the same.

Hello there,

If life is as usual, it is sort of happiness nowadays.

I would like to quote a comment which was posted by Renata from Romania.

“Hello James! I have been reading your posts with pleasure. If I had that lunch break for an hour and a half, I guess I would have listen to English podcasts on my office computer. :-) Keep writing to us, good wishes. “

Why do I quote this comment? Renata brought up a good idea, and I would like to share with you.

This morning, I detoured my way to office for taking my father to a hospital to see a cardiology doctor. And I took a shot of the hospital. The business of the hospital is blooming; the recession is out of their way

Best wishes,
James

OUR TRIP TO MENDOZA

Hi bloggers (students/teachers) and readers,

First of all I want to tell you that our trip started badly but fortunately it turned out to be good.

We were heading for Mendoza in our car, on a sunny and windy Saturday, the roads were empty and all was perfect. Mendoza is about 1.000 km from Buenos Aires. Well, after driving about 465 km (that is in the middle of our way) our car broke down. Something had happened with the automatic gear. To sum up, after 4 hours we had to be towed from there back to Buenos Aires :- (

Thank God I could convince Oscar to let the car in our garage and go to Mendoza by another means of transport. Finally we went to Mendoza by plane 3 days later.

Mendoza is situated by the Cordillera de los Andes (the Chile boarder). Thus, it’s a mountainous region. The scenery is outstanding. I took over 300 pictures but don’t panic I only posted some of them for you.







Mendoza has also a lot of parks, which are polished every day. That’s really amazing.








As I mentioned in my previous blog, this province produces the best wines. It has the perfect climate for that. We visited a winery, which makes high quality Argentine wines and of course we were offered to taste them.




a grape that will be ready to be collected in February







Needless to say, we had a good time and enjoyed our stay there. But on the other hand I missed Buenos Aires and wanted to come back.

Now I want to thank all of you for your comments.

A.Paula, hope you passed your FCE exam. How was the oral part? I was thinking of you all day.

Naheed, I deeply need to practice yoga.

Steve (Esteban my officemate) and Raúl (Esteban’s father), hope you have enjoyed the pictures.

Alessandro, Brazil is one of my favorite countries. Luckily I’ve been to Brazil many times and I have to admit that you have the best beaches.

Hania, do I have energetic and lively activities? Wow!

Carmen, I’m happy to see your comment. By the way, I’m a decent woman.

Thienloi , I’m neither an alcoholic addicted but I like the process to make wines, from a single grape to the liquid in the bottle.

Anita, I’m reading your posts, sorry I didn’t leave a comment but actually there are so many student blogs and I have not so much time….. Anyway, I’m happy for the course you won. It’s a unique and interesting experience.

James, I admire you for taking your time to blog every day. I know that Dr. James is a very busy person :- )

Kiran, your pictures are amazing.

Adri, I’m glad that you took the time to write something. Hope everything is OK and you and your lovely family will move to your new villa. You can upload some pictures.

Well, I have to sign off now.

Have a nice weekend,

Cris
Xxxo

Sunday, street sight in the evening, in Ilan city.

Hello there,

Today is Sunday; most people are taking a rest or having a fun outside. While the mantle of night is falling down, the stores on the street will close their door to have a break in the western nation area. However, in Taiwan, the store’s open time is always from 10:00 am to 22:00 pm. People could go shopping at a mall, a department, and buy much stuff in the stores in the evening till 22:00 pm. I took a photo of a night view of Ilan City Street at around December 7 2008 18:00 pm. You can see many stores were still opening, neon lights were shining everywhere. There are a pharmacy, a cell phone (mobile) store, a jewelry store, a commodity store, an electric appliance store, many foodstuffs (food products) store, and many many other kinds of stores. Those stores are often at the first floor, the owners live in the second and/or third floors. The cities in Taiwan don’t segment the house area and the business area, it means people live in the business area, and the stores are set in the house area. The situation are both convenient and inconvenient.

Incidentally, there is a night market opened till midnight (24:00) seven days a week. People can buy many food (fried chicken, etc.) and stuff over there. Click here to get more information.

(Sunday, 18:00, street sight in the evening, in Ilan city.)

May you buy stuff conveniently in the evening.

James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan.

A style of life: Three meals a day all in one.

Hello there,

Currently, people like all-in-one stuff, such as: A cellphone can have all-in-one with the functions of communication, internet-surfing, camera, and so on. Similarly to this, there is a style of life which is three meals a day all in one.

I took a day off today, and went to Taipei with my family to experience one meal a day only. Taipei is the capital of Taiwan, 60 kilometers north far from my hometown, Ilan city. An hour by car, there is a 12.9 tunnel on the way. We woke up late and eat a simple food like a piece of toast each in the morning, and drove to Taipei after early afternoon to enjoy an “afternoon tea- time buffet” at a restaurant of a grand hotel. It is an all-you-can-eat restaurant, which means you can eat whatever food they have offered. There are 5 areas of food which are salad, sushi, cooked foods, dessert and drink; more than 100 delicious dishes are provided and refilled all the time. From 14:30 to 17:30, we ate as much as we could. To us, this is a luxury and delicious meal, and the only meal we ate today as well. The “afternoon tea- time buffet” is namely our breakfast, lunch and dinner. We paid NT$ 550($13 Euro) each.

The following photo, from left to right are: Wendy, my Mom, Kelly (eldest daughter), and Kitty (younger daughter).

May you keep away from hunger.

James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan.

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS IN ARGENTINA

Hi everybody,

Today is December 8th (“Virgin Mary Day” so it’s a holiday here). As a matter of fact I’m really melting (36º C). This may sound strange for those who live in the north hemisphere. You are used to seeing Christmas trees covered with snow but...not here in Argentina. However, the hot and dull weather didn’t prevent me to put our Christmas tree up today.

We also put colourful lights (I’ll put them tomorrow because I’m a tad tired today). We light our Christmas tree every night ‘til December 31st.


We also put some decorations on our doors.



Our tradition is to put the Christmas tree up on December 8th until January 6th (when the 3 Kings- Melchor, Gaspar and Baltasar- arrive). We usually put some presents around the tree to open them on December 24th just some minutes after 12 pm. Thus, on Christmas Eve we have a family gathering. We usually eat some salads and cold chicken or pork chops. Then, we have a dessert (usually ice-cream or a fruit salad). Having done this we all prepare a special table with some champagne, turrones, panettone and some dry fruits. We shouldn’t eat the latter since it’s not so good when it’s hot but …traditions are traditions.

What do you do on these days?

Jo and Helen, I like your Christmas Decorations. It seems that our tradition is similar to yours.
Anita, your decorations are lovely too and I found your customs very interesting indeed. I love your pictures.
A.Paula, I wish you the best for your written part of the FCE. I’ll say a prayer for you my friend. Relax and be more confident and less demanding.
Naheed, thank you so much for your tips on yoga exercises. By the way, I used to practise pranayama breathing and now that you mentioned it I started practising again. You are so far and so near at the same time.
Dr. James, I like your entries. Now that you are blogging everyday we know more about your life. Send my regards to your wife and daughters.
Carmen, hope you enjoy your Concert today and that you got over your cold.
Pary, it’s very nice to see you here too. I could store hundreds of pictures on my PC without any problem. My hard disk is big. Send my love to your lovely sons.
Marianne, I was sad to hear that you were in hospital in April. Are you OK now? I’m curious about your mom’s stories connected with Argentina. Hope you can tell us more about it. By the way you can freely call me Cris.
Mahajabeen, I’m happy that you enjoyed the pictures. Hope we can talk soon.
Beatriz, I didn’t have the opportunity to cross the frontier to Chile but everybody says that Chile’s landscape is wonderful. Maybe next time…

I must leave now.

Until next blog, see you around,

Cris

A bed in my office.

Hello there,

I have got a couple of corrections of my English mistakes from friends since December 1st I blogged here. Many thanks for those friends who wanted to contribute their corrections. Hopefully, I could get more corrections in the rest of December.

I take turns of an interior on-call today, what do I have to do? 1. A victim can report a crime to Prosecutors’ office, and I have to listen and ask my clerk to record it. 2. To interrogate a criminal suspect who is caught by the County policemen. 3. To apply a warrant of monitor to a judge if the county policemen requested. 4. To sigh a warrant of arrest.

My on-call time is from morning till night. There is a bed in my office fto be used by me, in case I have to deal the above things which happen at mid-night. But, I have not use it till now since it was set a year ago.

Allow me to present you a photo of the bed in my office.

Best wishes.
James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan.

The left is U.K., and the right is U.S.

Hello there,

People always take the usual life for granted...

On the way to my office this afternoon, I drove along the right side of the road, a vision suddenly came to my mind. Many years ago, I went to Auckland, New Zealand to visit my brother-in-law, I drove two and half hours from Auckland to Rotorua, oops, the driving direction of the left side is totally different from the right side of Taiwan. All the 3 Taiwanese passengers who were in my car were all scared and carefully helped me watching the cars which would show up from the directions we were not aware.

The style of New Zealand is more like U.K., Its driving direction is the left side of the road, the same as U.K.
Taiwan, it learns from U.S. more than from U.K., we drive along the right side of the road as American do.

Therefore, if a car’s direction is along the right side of the road in a country, it is affected by U.S. Otherwise, it is a U.K. style.

The photo I took as below is the cars which drove along the right sight of the road this afternoon in Taiwan.

Best wishes & safe drive.

James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan.

Sports, in a park, and in the evening.

Hello there,
………. A park is not only a park.

Last night, I went to Ilan-City-Park to play table-tennis (It is called pin-pong in Taiwan), It is about 6 minutes driving from my home, I usually go there triple a week to play table-tennis of an hour each time. It is totally free to all people.

There are many sports facilities in the Ilan-City-Park (27 hectares), such as: swimming pool, gym, croquet and many others, Most of them are totally free, or, cheap.

The most convenience to public is its open time; people can use them in the evening with light. Table-tennis is opened till 23:00 pm; gym, basketball and tennis are closed at 21:00 pm.

A park usually means an area with few or no buildings set aside for public use for recreational. If, a park could be set a couple of facilities for sports, it would be more useful to public. A park is no more the park only.

Table-tennis, Basketball, and Tennis.

Best wishes.
James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan.

Packaging ...

Hello friends,


Here come some tropical news from here.

Christmas is just around the corner. I’m over the moon because some of my relatives are coming to my villa. I’m moving in few days. I’m just packaging up.
My son’s friend gave us two little dogs so cute: Pucca and Garu. It’s been always my son’s dream to have a dog but living in an apartment doesn’t help. Now he has two. Guess how exciting is that for him. He's marvelled at moving to there. He's got some friends and feels free like a bird riding his bike there with his friends or climbing trees. That is childhood.

Now that the villa is almost ready, I'm looking forward to put a little money by every month so that I can put up another house near the sea in a place that's been always my dream to live there. Maybe I'll show a picture of the land one day. You would love the view! But it will be part of the next new year resolutions list.

Speaking of new year resolutions and replying to Mahjabeen , Mariana, other friends and bloggers, It’s really been part of my new year resolutions list to do a course next year. As always, I do things step by step. I wasn’t allowed to do the course I wanted to start this year because we are overloaded at the company. So that I’m going to sit for a public contest in another state in Brazil where I want in order to do the course (for second time). The first one was cancelled hours before the beggining( the same saga of being unlucky in tests or something like that). The saving grace was that we made good friends there and we all ended at the shopping celebrating the frustrating day.



Changing the subject, I’m planning to give you a recipe of “pamonha” and “papa” if I have time before moving in. It’s so delicious and nutritious made of corn. Here is a picture of my snack. The purple stuff inside the cup isn’t wine but grape juice. There’s slice of melon and the other stuff is papa.



I have a picture of one of the worst places affected by the floods in my city. I bet you have never heard about this tragedy in my city because it's a poorer area. That's the reason, I've sent donations not only to Santa Catarina state but to my own city too.



Friends, any second now I'm going to work. This a lunch break.
Cheers
Adriana

Have you ever been asked: How many pieces of toilet paper do you use after poo-poo?

Hello there,

I had a poo-poo this afternoon in my office building, and I used (?) pieces of toilet paper after that.
It reminded me of one thing that my dorm-mate inquired me a weird question 32 years ago:” How many pieces of toilet paper do you use after defecation?

52 years ago, I landed in a city named Ilan from an unknown place, grew up and finished high school in the Ilan city where it was/is a small town of 96123 populations and 2940 kilometer square. After 19 years, I went to a big city to study in university, and lived in a room of the university dorm with 3 others who were from a big city. As a rustic boy like me, I used one or two pieces of toilet paper to clean my ass after poo-poo. My dorm-mates who were the city-boy who used more than 5 pieces of toilet paper to clean their asses had noticed that and they all together asked me:” James, how many pieces of toilet paper do you use?” I didn’t say a word at that moment because I had no idea of the true meaning of their question.
A month later, I could not help to ask one of them, he told me:” we were curious that you could use only one or two pieces of toilet paper to clean up your ass after a poo-poo?!!”

Times has changed, someday, yes, some day, for the reason of Earth-Protect, people will ask each other:” How many pieces of toilet paper do you use after defecation?”

Allow me to present you 3 photos which are:
a sitting toilet (office, with rolling style of the toilet paper);
a sitting toilet (home, with tissue style of the toilet paper);
a squat toilet (office, with rolling style of the toilet paper)

Best wishes.
James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan.

English Test : Cambridge ESOL vs TOEFL

Hello there,

At 8:20 in this morning, with my family, I drove an hour to Taipei, my elder daughter Kelly attended TOEFL. TOEFL is abbreviated from Test Of English as a Foreign Language, which is most common requirement for U.S. university admission. The test fee of TOEFL is US$150, very expensive to Taiwanese. It is equivalent to 3 day-wages of Taiwanese.

There are many kinds of English test in Taiwan, which are:
1.TOEFL: America system. Fee = US$150
2.Cambridge ESOL ( KET/PET/FCE/CAE/CPE): British system,
FCE fee=US$100 (Approximately)
3.TOEIC (Test Of English for International Communication): International use.
Fee= US$50 (Approximately)
4.GEPT: made in Taiwan. Fee = average US$50(Approximately)
5.FLPT: made in Taiwan, Fee= US$58(Approximately)

We need to go to Taipei to attend TOEFL, the test started at 9:30 am today, till 14:00 pm. there was only 10 minutes break in the middle time, the examinees had their lunch after 14:00 pm (Taiwanese usually have lunch between 12:00- 13:00).

During the TOEFL test, 9:30 am till 14:00 pm, we (my wife Wendy, my daughter Kitty, and I) had a 4.5 hours Taipei trip. Taipei is the capital of Taiwan, 271.7997 km², 2,622,933 populations. Nowadays, smoking is restricted more and more, therefore, it is very hard to find a trash can on the street which is attached with an ashtray box, I today found one on the Taipei street. Let me show you a photo of it.

( trash can + ashtray box)

Best wishes.
James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan.

Cat-Cow stretch at home on Sunday December 14th.

Hello there,

Today is a raining Sunday in Ilan City. I stayed at home to do some Cat-Cow stretch Yoga, and to have a chinwag with you, readers, commentators, teachers, BBCLE team, and blogger mates. On weekend, there are less blog entries there; perhaps, you can excuse me to write little longer words.

It’s 15:00 pm in the afternoon in Taiwan; it is 7:00 am in the morning in London as well. Some of you are sleeping; some of you are awake or working now. The most important thing I know is all of you are alive.

1. 4:00 am in Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo state, Brazil.
Ana Paula Lima, you are a diligent English learner who is treated with respect by me. May you have a nice dream.

2. 4:00 am in Capixaba, Espirito Santo state, Brazil
Adiana Helena, You have got a new nice villa and will sleep there in the near future, have a nice dream! See you around after dawn.

3. 12:00 at noon in Karachi, Pakistan.
Naheed Shoukat Ali, Thanks for your correction for my mistook of using the word “invest”,
Yu are so right that I should use “investigate cases “instead of “invest cases”. You are about going to lunch, Have a nice day.
Mahjabeen Tahir, thank you very much for your comments, I learnt a lot from you. May you have a good lunch.

4. From 9:00 am to 19:00 in Russia.
Alexander, I am glad you are interested in BBCLE blog and would like to watch closely for all blogs, thank you. Russia has 11 time zones, from GMT+2 to GMT+12. Dario (from Russia), thanks for your comment.

5. 4:00 am in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Cristina Tarzibachi, you told me:” In Argentina, people call A lawyer and an accountant as the title of Dr, and they are not getting along well because of the accountant has a law-study background which the lawyer considers it is shallow.” We don’t have such kind of problem here.

6. 7:00 am in London
Hello BBCLE team, good morning, I am glad to here that BBC Learning English had joint second at online Educa, congrats. A few days ago, the Taiwan biggest newspaper UDN (United Daily News) reported that BBCLE has provided a couple of stuff on UDN-study website for Taiwanese readers use. I read their website; there are 4 parts which are “Takes away English”, “Quizzes”. “Real English”, and “On the town”.

7. 8:00 am in Germany.
Carmen Radeck, once upon a time, there was a BBCLE student blogger who is German named Marvin, and who blogged only 5 entries of a month, and quitted in the middle of September 2008. Hello Carmen, would you like to be a BBCLE Student blogger someday?

There are no rooms for me to chat with many other commentators today, and I would like to thank you all, and hopefully you could be a student blogger to tell more about you. And I would like to thank Blogger mates and teachers as well, see you around.

For now.

Best wishes.
James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan.

FAMILY PARTY, RELATIVE RELANTIONSHIPS, AND SO ON

Last week, Oscar and I attended my aunt’s 80th Birthday. It was overwhelming. Not only was the party very well organized regarding the food and the entertainment, but it was very emotional as well.

Why? Well, I had the opportunity to meet some cousins that I hadn’t seen for almost 20 years, so to speak.
What is very amazing is that they haven’t changed at all. You know, I have a big family from my father’s side and it’s quite difficult to see each other as often as we’d like to.

However, I’m always in touch with Claudia and Celia (my 2 cousins who are more sisters than cousins to me). Actually it was Celia’s mother’s Birthday (my aunt Nelly) and I have to admit that she took care of every detail of the party. You did a great job Celia! We all enjoyed it and had a good time.

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: CELIA, I AND CLAUDIA

I also have 2 godsons. One of them is Juan Pablo (the one that I brought up, you may remember him from my April Blog) and the other one is Pablo (Celia’s son).

Here is a picture of Pablo (Celia’s son) taken at the party.



There was Arabian music too and we all dance (I don’t know if you remember that I have Arabian roots).
Unfortunately, these are the only 2 pictures I have so far. If Celia sends me more I’ll upload them to you.

Friends, I love all of your comments both from the commentator side and the student blog. I don’t have time to answer to you now, sorry, but I read them all and appreciate it very much.

Hope you have a wonderful week. Mine will be a hectic one.

Much love,

Cris
xxxo

Trivia

Hello there,

Today was a cloudy day, the highest temperature in the daytime was about 18 °C.(64 °F), comparing with the 1st December of 24°C (75°F), it is colder.

December, since I learnt English, it is a code word of Christmas. During this month, the English learner has to speak almost every thing about X’mas in English, to do something for the occasion. But, it’s really hard for Taiwanese like me to learn such a Christmas thing which we don’t have them in our regular life.

Tonight, at home, I got a feeling to check the word “December”, and found an interesting thing on Wikipedia. I quoted it as below to share with you:
In Latin, decem means "ten". December was also the tenth month in the Roman calendar until a monthless winter period was divided between January and February.

Many teacher bloggers and student bloggers have talked about Christmas and posted many splendid photos of X’mas. I could read and see the Christmas scene of many places, it’s awesome. On the contrary, I can hardly remember those English vocabularies which you talked about Christmas. And teacher Jo’s homework of Sunday, 07 December 2008, I had no idea of them at all, now Jo has told us the answers which are Tinsel, Christmas stocking, votive candle, baubles, fairy lights. No matter what I has felt about Christmas, anyhow, it has brought me joy.

People are either rich or poor, they all have a life to live, and they could do something for the Christmas occasion. There is an X’mas tree which was set in front of a small supermarket in my city Ilan, it is small and rough. I shot it and post it as below to compare with your gorgeous photos of Christmas trees.

Best wishes & Merry X'mas..
James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan.

What did I learn from an X'mas e-card?

Hello there,

I received an X'mas greeting card from IAP by email. “IAP” is the abbreviation of “International Association of Prosecutors”. The IAP is the only worldwide organization of prosecutors. It was established in 1995. Their headquarters is in Hague, Netherlands. IAP hold Annual Conference every year in different city of the world. 2008 was in Singaorpore, and 2009 will be in Kiiv,Ukraine from 6 - 10 September 2009. Each member can visit different cities of the world each year by participating the Annual Conference..

Initially, I didn’t pay much attention to it because I thought it was done for X’mas occasion. However I got a second thought that it is the first time they emailed a Christmas e-card to all their members. I took a look at it again, and I found that they printed the greeting in 7 different languages which are below (They are also my greeting to you.):
……………With Best wishes for Christmas and the New Year (English)
………………Prettige Kerstdagen en Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar (Dutch)
..................Meilleurs Voeux pour la Nouvelle Année (French)
…………….. Feliz Navidad y Próspero Año Nuevo (Spanish)
…………… Frohe Weihnacheten und ein Gutes Neues Jahr. (German)
... Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva i s Novim Godom (Russian)
……………….Kung his Hsin Nien bing Chu Shen Tan. (Chinese)

I recognized 3 of 7 which are English (1st), German (5th), and Chinese (7th).The last one is not Chinese character but Chinese phonetics. The phonetics sounds strange, but I am ok with it. I also checked up which language it is, and put the answers in the brackets, please correct me if I am wrong. Thank you.

The world is dominated by the computer, and the computer is dominated by English. Therefore, the world is dominated by English. For example, I cannot show any Chinese character on the BBCLE student blog.

I would like to show you the X’mas greeting card with Chinese (phonetics). Well, ...the Chinese will somehow find a way someday.

Best wishes.
James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan.

Darkness does not mean hibernation

Alessandro, you asked what people do when it is dark. Well, we just perform as we would normally do. Naturally lack of light does have an effect, and we do miss the sun, that is for sure.

But in the other hand the darkness does make you turn some what inwards, that is to say, we do read and contemplate more than we would in the summer time. As I have lived in Finland most of the time; I am not able to explain it better. All and all we just go about with our lives as normal as possible.

Have a good kaamos!

Leila from Finland

Moving in two days...

Hello Bbs friends,

This is just to say that I'm alive and I'm moving in two days. I hope you aren't disappointed at me because I used to post more blogs in the past but my life has been a bit chaotic recently. I'm even afraid I have packaged myself. :-o

I'm looking for a way to communicate with you from the villa maybe by using 3G technology.

Please just don't forget I love you from the bottom of my heart and as soon as I settle down a bit, I'll be back with blogs and pics from de villa.

That's it for now
XXX
Cheers
Adri

A chicken leg, is it too much?

Topic:
Hello there,

Today is a cloudy and fine day, I took a day leave to do a health examine in a hospital. It lasted 4 hours form 8:00 am to 12:00 pm. It cost around $277.77 GBP (pound) that is paid by the Government.

The health-examine is now popular in Taiwan, and it has popped up to become a hot business. Do you know how hot is the health-examine in Taiwan? It could be a tour itinerary, The tourists come to Taiwan to do only one thing that is Health-Examine. There was an advertisement stated: “Healthy live is better than ill long live.” People do care their health nowadays. Nevertheless, there is another point of view:” People are more afraid of dying than ever”.

A public servant or someone says a public officer, has a yearly welfare to do a health-examine that the Government offers, the amount of money is at least $69.289 GBP (pound) that it depends on the ranking. It is welfare though, to my colleague, two-thirds escaped from Health examine. In my opinion, people are often timid to face their bodily collapse.

There was nutritional course in today’s program; a nutritionist asked me about what did I usually eat for 3 meals daily? I told her all the details, including what in it that a lunch box I ate is? She said: “Mr. Wu, it’s too many of you to eat such a big chicken leg for a lunch? Too much meat, three small slices of meat could be enough”. Wow..... what can I say that?

Let me show you a photo of the chicken leg which I ate for lunch.

Best wishes, and healthy live.
James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan.

A theater in Taiwan.

Hello there,

I went to a theater with my family in the evening; the name of the move is “The day the earth stood still”. It is an English speaking movie along with Chinese subtitle. A ticket of one adult is $ 5.05 GBP (pound). It took me 5 minutes from home by car.

The movie industry in Taiwan has recessed a lot in the past decade; almost no movie which is Taiwanese or Chinese speaking movie has been produced. We have no choice to see English speaking movie. And there are no other languages except English that we could choose.
Speaking of Chinese speaking movie, it always has a Chinese subtitle with it; we used to watch a Chinese speaking move along with a Chinese subtitle. For the sake of it, once I tried to see an English speaking movie which is usually without subtitle, I totally lost and got no idea about what the story of the movie is?

Regarding the subtitle, All Taiwan TV show except a live one has a Chinese subtitle with it. I used to watch TV with subtitle since I was little, consequently, I couldn’t understand a little bit of it while I watched English speaking TV show at the first beginning. Even now, the progress is still limited.

The following photo is the inside of the theater that I had been this evening. The theater located in the 7th floor of a medium department in Ilan city, and it has 4 different cells for 4 different movies. Its open time is from 1:30 pm (1st) to 9:30 pm (last one) on weekday, if you watch the one that begins from 9:30 pm, 2 hours movie for example, you’ll leave there at 11:30 pm. On weekend, it opens from 9:30 am to 11:30 pm (go home at midnight).

Best wishes, and healthy live.
James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan

What is your image of a police?

Hello there,
It is a sunny day, the temperature in the daytime was 20 °c(68°f), perfect time to be out.

I went to a police station to investigate a burglar case in the afternoon. There were at least two policemen on duty at the station as usual; a armed one was sitting at the front desk to secure the station and to take care of every things that come to the station, s/he have to stay in the station , and another uniformed unarmed policeman was sitting at his desk waiting an abrupt assignment. They take turns for 8 hours, 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week.

Ilan County doesn’t have many policewomen, if a police is a female; she in Taiwan is a treasure. There will be a report on local news in a couple of months that it stated:” A beautiful policewoman is in an X police station on duty…….” As I have observed the policewomen in Taiwan are all very beautiful, that is according to the report by the press.

Taiwan people have a lukewarm relationship with the police. They want them sometime and hate them somewhile. For example, people like the police to secure the society while they hate to get a traffic fine from a police.

There are around 100 staffs in Ilan prosecutors’ office, including 18 prosecutors, 5 drivers and 8 Government cars. The prosecutor could apply to use a Government car for business, that was the way I went to the police station this afternoon.

The photo below is the government car which I took today that parked in front of a small police station.

Best wishes, and be good.
James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan

Weekend

Hello there,

Today is weekend; I spent most of time to read lots of the BBCLE stuff and to write my entry. Generally speaking, it took me 2 hours to write an entry every day, excluding reading and searching and thinking. As a saying:” No pain, no gain.” I got a lot.

Weekend is the end of the week, especially the period from Friday evening through Sunday evening, or, Saturday and Sunday for short. Taiwanese culture, we don’t have such thing to combine Saturday and Sunday as a word “weekend”, and we reckon that Saturday is the 6th day of a week, and Sunday is the rest day of a week, that these two days in which most paid workers do not work.

Oppositely, the workweek varies from nation to nation; Taiwan is from Monday to Friday. As I surfed on the internet, the legal workweek in Muslim-majority is either Saturday through Wednesday, Saturday through Thursday, or Sunday through Thursday. That is to say, Friday would be a rest day. For Israelis, the workweek begins on Sunday and ends on Thursday or Friday at noon.

To an unemployed person, the definition of the workweek is every day.

Anita (Slovakia) asked me:”How much the minimum wage per month is in Taiwan?” It is $900EUR. Incidentally, the exchange rate has been up and down lately,
2008/9/1: $1 EUR =& 46.12 NT (new Taiwan dollar)
2008/11/20: $1 EUR =& 41.57 NT (new Taiwan dollar)
2008/12/20: $1 EUR =& 46.20 NT (new Taiwan dollar)

Toni (Spain) has commented a lot, including Student Bloggers and Teacher bloggers, I am very impressed. He found me through BBCLE Facebook group and told me he had applied a BBCLE student blogger on September or October, and failed to it. He said he will try it again, that is a good new to hear, Go! Go! Toni.

In addition, I would like to thanks Alexander (Russia), Bia(Algeria),Daria(Russia),Hyoshil(from UK),Marianna(Slovakia),Pary(Iran),Alvaro(Spain),Renata(Romania),Paco(Spain), Mahjabeen(Pakistan),Thienloi(Vietnam),Fillippo(Italy), Antonio Kayamba(Congo), Hania Ahwazi(Iran), Anaatasia(from London),Anwar(Morocco), Tanya(Russia),Beatriz(Uruguay), Beatriz(Uruguay), Lizeth(Argentina) , who commented on my entries.

Let me show you a photo that people in Taiwan take Kong-Fu as a morning exercise.

Best wishes, and be healthy.
James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan

The shortest day

When writing my blog this morning, the sun has not risen yet. Today is the shortest day of the year as far as the day light goes. It is 10.20 am at the moment and the light outside is grey blue, which means that the day will open in any minute.

Today here in Oulu the lightness starts at 10.30 and a Polar night will close in again about 2 pm. Talking about Polar night, James in Taiwan seems to be very knowledgeable about very many issues, he untangled the word kaamos (Polar night). During the kaamos time it is difficult to tell is it daybreak or dusk James.

Toni through global weather changes the winter temperatures vary a lot now days. The winters have become warmer than they used to be. It used to be very common to have temperatures –20 – 35 minus Celsius, but for example now it is only +1 C. Rapid changes are murder as far as driving a car, one minute the roads are wet and the next they are frozen. Snow on the roads in no problems, but black ice is. We Finns needed you warm hug from Spain Toni.

And Alessandro I do envy your weather as I love the sun and warmth. This is one reason why we go as often as possibly abroad. I am learning Greek at the moment as we are planning to take our holiday this spring in Greece, where the light in my opinion is so gorgeous. I will include a photo that was taken in Grete last time we went there. The man in the photo is my husband Pekka.

Filippo you are exactly right saying that when we go out during kaamos it is dark and when we return from work it is dark, so we do not see the sun at all. It can be depressing.

Nice to meet you Karoun from Iran, yes my name is Arabic one, but it is also used here in Finland. About the darkness; as the title in my blog says, today is the shortest day. That comforts us Finns a lot, as the days are now getting longer. Already in early February we will notice a big difference, yes it is over a month away.

Ana Paula I was not surprised that many people had been laid off work in your country, the turbulence in the global economy is affecting us all.

And lastly, it is possible that this is my last blog now, I am very busy at work, I still have some Christmas preperations to do and also I must continue with my Greek studies in earnest. So farewell all my global friends, above mentioned and Naheed, Chris, Anita, Marianne and others...

P.S. The sun did not show up, instead it started snowing and it is very overcast.

Joy and good cheer for Christmas from your mate Leila in Finland

P.P.S. Best to Beatriz, Adriana and Hyoshil and BBC LE and who ever might be reading this, peace to everyone!

Reading the local newspaper.

Hello there,

Today is Sunday, December 21, 2008, the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. I stayed at home to read.

While I read a piece of news on the Taiwan local newspaper that said:” There are 3 undersea cables broken at December 19 2008, GMT 8:00 am .According BBC news ….. “, I surfed on the internet immediately to find out what the English speaking press said. And I found a BBC news report , quoted it a little bit as the following:
1. Internet and phone communications between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia have been seriously disrupted after submarine cables were severed.
2. For this to happen twice in one year, on the same cable, is a serious cause for concern.

It’s weird, because my internet connection has not been affected at all. Then, I reread my local newspaper, and found that there was a map on the newspaper which indicated that Taiwan is a spot of the pacific submarine cable connection. It reminded me that the spot of the submarine cable in Taiwan is in Ilan County in which is my hometown. Carry on it, I found an old piece of news which is a notable event of the submarine cable broken:”The 2006 Hengchun earthquake on December 26, 2006 rendered numerous cables near Taiwan inoperable. “

After the above procedure, I started to write the blog entry of this one. That is one of my ways to write. As you can tell that I read a lot before writing, and I also gained a lot by reading, that is for sure.

It is winter solstice today; Taiwanese families traditionally eat pink and white Tanyuan, symbolizing family unity and perfection. The following photo is the Tanyuan that I ate today after dinner in the evening.

Best wishes, and be healthy.

James Wu (Wu Zhih Cheng), Taiwan

PS: What I meant above the words”undersea cable / submarine cable”, its official term is “optical submarine telecommunications cable.

THE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Hi everybody,

How are you all? I’ve just had a very nice talk with A.Paula, Naheed and Carmen on Skype.
It’s amazing to think that I’m more in contact with all of you than my friends who live next to me.

I want to thank you for all of your comments; it’s always very rewarding to receive them.

Well, today is Sunday and it’s raining in Buenos Aires. Yesterday it was very hot (33º C) and there was not a single cloud in the sky. Thank God we have many sunny days in Buenos Aires and the weather is predictable most of the time.

Yesterday Oscar and I went to do the Christmas shopping. The shopping malls were full of people and we tried to buy all very quickly. Both of us hate crowds.

I took some pictures for you. This is a shopping mall not very far from my flat.

Then we went to Belgrano neighbourhood. Since it was very hot we had a big ice cream while we walked along the streets. The shops windows were all decorated with Christmas items.
I especially love a street called “Sucre St”. They put a red carpet on the pavement and assembled a tree at the corner of the street.





Here is a picture of a shop where my mum used to buy all the decorations for our tree when I was a child. It’s located in a Gallery. Yesterday I went there and remembered those nostalgic times.



By the way, where are you going on Christmas Eve, my friends?

Oscar and I will go to my mum’s house along with my mother in law and my sister. On New Year’s Eve they will all come to my house. I’ll take some pictures at my mum’s so that you can see all of them.

Before finishing this blog I want to say MERRY CHRISTMAS to the BBC staff, all the teachers, all my blog mates and all the commentators.

Hope you have a wonderful time. May Peace and love be with all of you.

Hugs and kisses to you.

Much love,
Cris