WWF-France, in celebration of its 35th anniversary, is running a campaign to raise awareness for natural environment preservation by parading 1,600 paper made panda models across the country.
The parade started in July 2008 at Paris City Hall; followed by a few other locations across France; the most recent exhibition was at Paris’ Trocadero Esplanade on October 15… while the next stop would be at Grenoble on October 25.
The panda (giant panda to be precise) is the symbol of the World Wildlife Fund; it’s estimated that there’s 1,600 pandas in the wild according to a 2004 statistic.
The panda parade at Paris’ Trocadero Esplanade (Image from
WWF-France)
The Chinese folks in Dongguan city, Guangdong province, were trying to emulate the famous Spanish La Tomatina festival by creating a tomato festival of their own.
The festival was organised by Dongguan Tourism Bureau. An estimated 10,000 crowd took part in the food fight at Dongguan’s South China Mall on Sunday (Oct 19), with 15 tonnes of softened fresh tomatoes being used for the ‘war’.
The tomato battle has drawn quite some criticism online though; lots of Chinese netizens are critical about the food wastage, while some are questioning the logic to mimic a western festival when their own culture is not being fully promoted.
Chinese La Tomatina in Dongguan (Image from
Xinhuanet)
Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Yuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit
The above phrase is the full name of Krung Thep, Thai’s capital city which is more commonly known as Bangkok among foreigners. For this, Bangkok is recognised by Guinness World of Records as the capital city with the longest name.
The translation… “The city of angels, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impregnable city of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukam.” [via Wikipedia]
It took about 12 seconds to pronounce the name (as per this video)… amazed?
Japan’s Wakayama Electric Railway was in financial trouble a couple years ago, but their decision to make a cat named Tama the official station-master of Kishi Station in Kinokawa has drawn in thousands of visitors across Japan and saved the company.
The company isn’t the only one benefiting financially from Tama’s charm; one expert claims that the mascot’s popularity has boosted the local economy by ¥1.1 billion (~USD10 million) via the extra train passengers, Tama’s merchandises and other tourists’ activities [more on Japanprobe]
How you wish your cat can do the same thing for you ain’t so? Too bad lol…
Got this from a friend who knows I am a fan of the real KFC. It’s said to be a restaurant in China that imitates the famous franchise, but it’s very likely that this is a doctored photo… and that the restaurant didn’t exist.
I’ve found lot of discussions about this pic in various Chinese forums, a few of them claimed that the restaurant does exist, but nobody could really pinpoint the exact location of the copycat restaurant(s).
One of the most bizarre things that I’ve seen during my Hanoi visit in July 2008 was the complexity of the wires and cables which hang around at every corner of the streets; which actually looks kinda cool…
Took a flight from Penang to Kuala Lumpur last Wednesday (Sept 24); almost made a costly hoo-hah… as I somehow managed to mistaken the arrival time in KL as the departure time from Penang. Luckily it’s a short (50 mins) domestic flight, thus still managed to check in just 10 minutes before the check-in counter was closed.
Life is colourful with these silly moments once in a while… hope that these stupidity won’t occur too often though lol.
Todd from Taiwan took this photo at the Dengshan Trail in Jhongsing Village. Got to be the cutest bug that I’ve ever seen, bizarrely reminded me of a milk-cow…
