A star is born

This is not a Hollywood star

This is a NASA photo which shows an area of space where new stars (like our Sun) are being born. Makes me feel so small.

Toronto skyline

The CN Tower makes those skyscrapers look minute

Toronto is the most populous city in Canada, but it is not the capital (that’s Ottawa).

And it has this amazing skyline dominated by one of the world’s highest structures, the CN Tower, which is more than 600m tall.

Stonehenge

The midsummer sun rises at Stonehenge

On the longest day of the year, June 21st, the sunrise at Stonehenge occurs at about 4.30am.

If you stand in the centre of the ring of standing stones then you will see the sun rise directly over the Heelstone, which is a little outside the circle

Whether Stonehenge was an ancient clock or calendar, or even a burial ground or whatever is not known for sure, but the sunrise on the summer solstice is quite a magical moment.

New Ball for the World Cup

The old ones are best

There has been a lot of argument about the new World Cup ball.

Let’s change it and go back to the old one.

Funny story: anything OK

Me to students: “For this exercise you can use dictionaries, phones, in fact anything is OK”

Student: “Please tell me the answers”.

Me: “Eh??”

Student: “You said anything is OK”!

Me: “Oh!!??”

Skye’s Sky

Taken by my friend last week

A beautiful sky over the Isle of Skye in Scotland, a great range of colour.

Horizontal rainbow

No arc en ciel here

There are no tricks here. This is a horizontal rainbow I saw in Izu a few weeks ago.

And it was not raining, and I was facing the sun.

King Kong

This is not Matsui

A model of a giant gorilla made of ……. metal coat hangers.

Amazing azaleas

If anyone can translate what is written on the stone, please let me know.

I took this photo in Itoh in Izu. The azaleas were just past their best, but still an amazing sight.

Amazing rainbow

Upside down rainbow

Most rainbows are shaped like a bridge in the sky, but this rainbow that I saw in Izu last month is the wrong way round.

I have no idea how this rainbow was formed (it was not raining at the time).

Funny story: swim

We were looking at a few verbs today, like ‘take, took, taken’ and ‘drink, drank, drunk’, and one of my students suddenly said ‘swim, swim, swimming’! And it made me think. Why are English verbs so difficult? If my students answer was the real answer then it would be so much easier.

BTW the answer is ‘swim, swam, swum’, unfortunately.

And here's a nice picture of an octopus swimming

Volcano in Ecuador, view from above

This could happen to Mt Fuji

Recently a volcano started to erupt in Ecuador. It looks an incredible sight in this photo but it caused many people to leave their homes.