Life in United Kingdom

Do you want to wrap your Christmas gift in an eco-friendly way? Furoshiki is a Japanese traditional wrapping cloth which is used in a creative and stylish way to wrap gifts and things. Watch how you can wrap your Christmas gifts Japanese-style.

The wrapping cloth can be reused or can be part of the gift too. You can use a Furoshiki cloth or any suitable scarf, tablecloth or used fabric. 

The UK government’s waste agency has put the video on its website and hopes people will use for Christmas gift wrapping in order to cut down on wrapping paper.

Brenda says:
'A baby so small can do nothing at all.
But, I can do everything!"

Time has wings, it flies as quickly as an arrow, days and months seem like shuttle. This is the second dumpling party with Peggy and her daughter, and Jun.

Isabella looks taller than last time when I saw her. Lots of screaming, and running around.

I made the dough, too much water, Jun cut it, Peggy rolled out the dumpling skin. The dumpling skins are too soft and thin, many dumplings were broken. Still nice!

A large portion of dough left over without stuffing, I made noodle in the left-over dumpling soup.

"Wages were paid in pounds (£), shillings (s) and pence (d). A typical working man in the 1840s might earn about 15 shillings (75p in today's money) a week. He would spend about 3 shillings and sixpence (17p) each week on bread and about 2 shillings and sixpence (12p) on rent."
Here we still use pound symbol, and it should be easy to understand that the symbol 's' for shilling, but why symbol 'd' for pence?  'd' is short for 'denarius', that was a roman silver coin.
I often hear people say 'quid', that means one pound. But in Victorian time one pound coin is called sovereign while a paper pound was often called 'quid'. 
It seems very difficult to convert Victorian money to today's, I will leave it for later. ^_^

The primary school encourage its children to bring a bottle of plain water to school each morning.

Research has proved that drinking water throughout the day aids our memory and helps our eyes.

If you bring a bottle of plain water to school, the water bottle should not have been placed in the freezer overnight, because bottles are kept on tables in the classroom, and once the ice defrosts, the puddle of water can wet and ruin children's work.

School should have water fountain or water cooler near classroom, but if it's not well maintained and in bad condition, such as in this public school, a pupil feel thirsty and refused by teacher to buy plain water from canteen, the reason he didn't drink from water fountain is the water from the cooler tastes weird and seems very dirty.

When my wife read through the "Rules for Responsible Internet Use" before signed on the consent form.

She just couldn't help laughing, and said: "So many rules, what can you do with the computer and Internet?"

I said, "They are children, what if they click accidentally on a link to an adult site or hooked by a pedophile? If you think again, Chinese government treat 1.3 billion people as school pupil, look at these rules, you can easily substitute the word 'teacher' or 'school' with 'CCP(Chinese Communist Party)' all these rules will apply in China, and even more if you deliberately break these rules, not only could you be stopped from using the Internet, but also be jailed! This is law instead of a primary school rules."

I will ask permission before entering any web site, unless my teacher (CCP) has already approve the site.
I will only email people I know, or my teacher (CCP) has approved.
I know that the school (CCP) may check m…

I joined Youtube on 24th June, 2006, and two years later, I started upload videos.

We didn't own a TV till last Christmas (2007), because we kept moving around, and I didn't want to pay TV license fees, but my daughter liked to watch, so I turned to Youtube for some cartoons, this opened a world for me and my daughter, and I have been "growing up" (I mean improving my English and accumulating knowledge of the world) with her by watching Disney's and all kinds of stuff.

Now my second daughter is 3 months old, and she can laugh aloud, It's fun to take video and upload to youtube to share with other people around the world.

Unfortunately, my family can't watch youtube in China, because Chinese government blocked it again after Olympic 2008, the websites blocked by Chinese government include BBC and VOA.

I would like to share with you my Youtube Channel, there are only four my own videos, though.

My daughter was singing a nursery song before went to bed, "five little man in a flying saucer". It was a bit dark because of the energy saving light bulb.

Well, It seems that I couldn't get a better one, she was on a mood to sing and consented to dance before the camera.

My daughter's school asks for help by donating no-perishable food items for the Christmas raffle which will be held during a Christmas party.
They are looking for 'Christmas' type good to make up luxury hampers containing items such as:
Boxed mince pies Xmas pudding Mincemeat Shortbread Stollen/small Christmas cake Cranberry Jelly Tin of ham Pickled onions Chocolates After dinner mints Wine, Sherry etc Tin of salmon Christmas crackers
And other no-perishable item we can think of that we would usually find in a luxury Christmas hamper.
I have never heard of Christmas Hampers!  And I have no idea of some 'Christmas type' goods listed above, such as 'shortbread', 'stollen'. I haven't even eaten a Christmas pudding, and asked my wife if she knew.  She said, 'yes, I have bought one after Christmas one year for a reduced price. But it tastes awful.' I said, 'They seems pour some liquid on it and ignite a big fire on the Christmas dinner table.'  My w…

Of all great myths and legends, same story in different retelling has different moral meanings, but the love, betrayal and revenge theme seems never changed.

The story of the Minotaur begins with betrayal and revenge. Because Minos wanted the throne of Crete, he asked for the sea god Poseidon's help, promising to sacrifice a magnificent white bull. Once crowned, however, Minos found the bull to be so beautiful that he gave the sea god another bull instead. Angered, Poseidon caused Minos' wife to fall in love with the white bull, and she give birth to a half-man, half-bull creature: the Minotaur. This creature was kept in a labyrinth (maze) and fed with human sacrifices paid in tribute by the city of Athens.


Then, the story turned to the point that Theseus betrayed Ariadne who had helped him escape death in the Labyrinth of the Minataur.

Theseus, one of these youths doomed to sacrifice, is determined to enter the labyrinth and slay the Minotaur, rescuing Athens from the Minotaur&#…

I grow up without cheese, even hardly with milk. But I started to love cheese, especially that melted on toast or chips.

I like Cheddar cheese, and think it's ideal and quality enough for making cheese toast. You may use any cheese, but preferably, it should be full fat cheese, as half-fat cheese does not bubble and melt and go deliciously golden brown under the grill as much as the real stuff.

When we make toast, we use the toaster, but a toaster is most definitely not practical for cheese on toast, as the cheese will all drip down to the bottom of the toaster, we use grill instead.

First, get the ingredients ready, sliced bread, Sliced or grated cheddar cheese. You may want to add chopped tomatoes, or chopped onions, sliced ham etc., get ready as well.

Once the grill has heated up sufficiently, place the bread in the middle of the baking tray and place directly under the grill, the closer the better, although obviously not too close. The bread will be brown on one side.

Remove th…