Smiling face in Angkor

南城門
Originally uploaded by yawwenc.

At the last few holidays of Chinese New Year,
I visited one of the most famous ruins in Cambodia, the Angkor wat.
This picture was taken at the south gate of Angkor Thom.
At the top of the gate,
there were four smiling faces.
Looking at these faces up there,
I was thinking about the same question that every tourist might ask.
That was why the king Jayavarman VII putted his own faces there.
Can any one answer this question?

Open! Dean & Deluca Taipei

At the end of year 2006, a new supermarket Dean & Deluca opened in Taipei.
In recent years, there were a lot of internatinal supermarket opened in Taipei.
The last one, Jenson's Market Place opened in the basement of the world highest building Taipei 101.
These markets are quite different with the local chain supermarkets such as Welcome or Mutsukei Market.
Customers can find lots of new and interesting foreign porducts there.
However, the price is much higher.
My wife and I went to Dean & Deluca because chocolates that were new in Taiwan.
Especially Chuao, the most famous cocoa in the world.
I bought some chocolate bars there.

The Flight That Fought Back - UA 93

Last night, my wife and I watched the film "the flight that fought back" on Discovery channel.
The story was about the one of the four planes hijacked by the terrorists in Sep. 11, 2001.
And the plane was the only one that crashed in an open field, not on a structure.
Passengers on UA93 decided to fight back rather then just sit there after they knew that there were two planes hited into World Trade Center earlier.
Their courage saved thousands of lives, althought they had to sacrifice their own.
I believe that they were alike us, just normal people.
What they decided to do was because they still wished to see their families again.
However, this courage made them become heros and heroines.

Cryptogenic cirrhosis

In this afternoon, we had a small discussion about this topic "cryptogenic cirrhosis".
Cryptogenic cirrhosis is the liver cirrhosis that the cause is not well known.
The speaker said that non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) should be taken into account.
Recently, more and more evidences showed solid relation between obesity, diabetes, and NAFLD.
Some patients with NAFLD will progress to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis which will cause the inflammation and injuries to the liver cells, then resulted in fibrosis, even more, cirrhosis.
Therefore, once you are told having "fatty liver" after a sonography, don't overlook it.
That might be a small disease that causes huge consequences.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!
It is Jan 1st, 2007 today.
Where did you go last night?
My wife and I went out with some old friends.
One of them was Jane who came back with her husband to Taiwan from Indiana, USA for Christmas holidays.
We havn't seen each other since we graduated from university.
Now she is an associate professor in University of Indiana.
Wow! She is alway the best.
That was wonderful night.

And this is the vedio of firework show of Taipei 101.
Enjoy it!

Big hit! lottery in Taiwan

Three lucky buyers of public interest lottery tickets share the record NT$1.9 billion jackpot , with each one NT$ 6 million richer yesterday!
The top prize money for each winner was the second highest on record, lower only than the NT$ 8 million won exclusively by a single person in the past.
The winning numbers were 1, 4, 7, 8, 25, 31 plus special number of 33.

"Did you buy a lottery?" That was the way people said hello in Taiwan yesterday.

"How much you winned?" That could be the most popular conversation in this morning.

Did I buy one? The anwser is NO.