Think twice (for my students, past and present)

Karori Wildlife Sanctuary

July 18, 2008 · 2 Comments

The Karori Wildlife Sanctuary was mentioned in class today. This is a wonderful wild park in the city of Wellington, which is the capital of New Zealand.

It is famous for its birdlife but you can also find the rare tuatara which you can see below.

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Rideau Canal

July 16, 2008 · 2 Comments

In class today the Rideau Canal in Ottawa was mentioned, and here is a photo. Ottawa is the capital city of Canada and is in the province of Ontario.

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Not squid, but ….

July 13, 2008 · 3 Comments

… octopus!

This is octopus salad. The octopus was boiled and then mixed into a salad with carrot, tomato, spinach and olives, for an extremely low fat and nutritious dish.

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More squid ink

July 11, 2008 · 3 Comments

And now I’ve found squid ink ice-cream. Would you buy it?

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Squid ink pizza

July 9, 2008 · 5 Comments

In a comment on strawberry pizza, which you can see below, dragonlife mentioned that there is also a squid ink pizza.

After a little surfing I found a picture.

The squid ink replaces the tomato paste, and the topping is small prawns. Looks good?

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Strawberry pizza

July 7, 2008 · 3 Comments

Yes, it does exist.

Recently strawberry pizza appeared in one of my classes, and most students thought that it would taste really awful. But there are some people who really enjoy it!

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Jordan

July 5, 2008 · 5 Comments

During class recently the country of Jordan was mentioned.

Here is a photo of one of its most popular tourist sites, Petra, a little south of the capital city, Amman.

There is a long, naural, twisting tunnel in the rocks leading to the ruins at Petra. When I visited this place I was lucky enough to ride a horse through this tunnel which made me feel like I had travelled back in time.

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Why is Kaldi called Kaldi?

July 3, 2008 · 3 Comments

I guess you all know the chain of shops known as ‘Kaldi’; there is one in Shizuoka station Asty, one in the basement of the Shin Shizuoka Center, and one in Dream Plaza (is it still there?).

While I was researching the origin of the word coffee I also found the name of the first person to discover the effects of caffeine from the coffee bean.

More than a thousand years ago a young man, called Kaldi, from Ethiopia was looking after his goats, and he noticed that they became very excited and lively after eating some berries. He tried some berries himself and enjoyed them so much that he made them into a drink. Of course the berries were coffee beans from the coffee bush, and Kaldi’s drink was the first cup of coffee.

I reckon that the Kaldi chain took its name from this Ethiopian man.

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Why is coffee called coffee?

July 1, 2008 · 4 Comments

One of the first products made from the coffee bean was a coffee wine.

This coffee wine was given the name ‘qahwah’, which is an Arabic word meaning to ‘delay’, because this wine had the power to delay such things as sleep, and need for food. And from this word comes the word coffee.

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Paradise island

June 28, 2008 · 5 Comments

Have you ever wondered what paradise looks like? Well, this is it!

It is called Paradise Island and it is one of thousands of islands in the Maldives. The only problem is that in about 50 years this island will not exist.

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Olympic logo

June 26, 2008 · 4 Comments

What do you think of this Olympic logo, for the 2012 games in London?

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Why men only?

June 24, 2008 · 4 Comments

Why is CoolBiz for men only?

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