Foods from Burma

Source:

I came across this BBC news about a Burmese traditional food, Green Tea Leaf which has been contaminated with industrial chemical.

It is not new. As far as I remember food processing and storage in Burma is unhealthy in many circumstances. Contamination with harmful bacteria and chemicals is very common. Peanut oil and sunflower oil contaminated. Fish sauce contaminated. Dried chillies contaminated. Vermicelli contaminated. Seasoning powders contaminated. Dried shrimps contaminated. Many more.

In England, loose motion is treated as a serious condition, regardless of frequency. But in Burma, it is inevitable for everybody. Main cause is eating unhealthy food. Lately, a friend of mine has been enjoying ready-made fish soup which is produce of Burma and offering me to try it while saying that it is a sought-after food in England. I had to decline in polite way while saying "it's disgusting" in my mind. That is the one reason I never go to occasions held in Buddhist monastery where people are traditionally served with foods, most of them are imported from Burma. Moreover, a group of people might share a bowl of soup with a common spoon. Who knows who has oral herpes in the group?

Are you eligible or not?

If you want to work in the UK, point-based calculator is here. For UK immigration, no broker required. Click here

Updated: 21/03/2009

This is Kyaw Thura's message

kyawthura: dear all, if you are trying to get the Tier 1 (highly skilled) Visa or switching your Work Permit to Tier 1, please apply in this week as Home Office is going to change their points-based system on 31 March Full Info
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Ups and downs

Looking back in Burmese history, that part of South-East Asian peninsula has been changing from time to time. It did not exist as a long standing stable nation. Of course, even great Roman empire collapsed when time came. Again British empire had to finish after 2nd world war. In a movie, I think in Notting Hill, Britain was described as a small, shy and retiring nation. On the other hand, China has built up its power, reaching enough world's top level, already overtaking British economy in a few years ago, under one party lead without wasting too much time by debating at the parliament. Likewise, a Malay fishing village was transformed into the Republic of Singapore in 1960s and it was successfully upgraded to an affluent country, mainly under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew. Now it also serves as second home for many second and third class Burmese people as their government failed to provide an acceptable level of education, living and economic situation while claiming that Burmese economy has been growing strong. A very irregular power supply 6-8 hours a day even in Burma's big city like Yangon clearly contradicts the statement. In fact, Burma was top country in south-east Asia and Yangon University established in 1878, was popular in that region until 1962. Regrettably, these days the university is shut down at irregular intervals by the government for political reason and the courses available are only for limited number of graduates, not for undergraduates.

History of Burma (Source: wiki)

Pyu city-states (c. 100 BC–c. 840 AD)

Mon kingdoms (9th–11th, 13th–16th, 18th c.)

Bagan dynasty (849–1287, 1st Empire)

Ava (1364–1555)

Pegu (1287–1539, 1747–1757)

Mrauk U (1434–1784)

Toungoo dynasty (1486–1752, 2nd Empire)

Konbaung dynasty (1752–1885, 3rd Empire)

Wars with Britain (1824–1826, 1852, 1885)

British Arakan (1824–1852)

British Tenasserim (1824–1852)

British Lower Burma (1852–1886)

British Upper Burma (1885–1886)

British rule in Burma (1824–1942, 1945–1948)

Nationalist movement in Burma (after 1886)

Ba Maw
Aung San
Japanese occupation of Burma (1942–1945)

Democratic period (1948–1962)

U Nu and U Thant
1st military rule (1962–1989)

Ne Win
8888 Uprising (1988)

Aung San Suu Kyi
2nd military rule (1989–present)

Saffron Revolution (2007)

Cyclone Nargis (2008)

This is in the carriage for ordinary people in Burma where military government rules

The is today's Burmese way of transportation. Estate cars for both passengers and goods.Locally that kind of car is known as van. (Photo: naing naing sanay)

Thanks Usher

2004. It was a glorious time. A big change in my life. The year Usher's album Confessions came out. So whenever I heard Usher's songs, that made me feel better in these stressful days.

London Moon at Docklands night

I don't know today's full moon day or not. I just saw a big moon struggling to show itself in the hazy sky. I noticed it after coming back from motor show in Gallion Reach. I was nearly midnight. Just sharing.

Red Nose Day for Africa

Donations and charity works are nice and good things. I support it. Today, BBC has been trying to get more red nose day donations through BBC1 Friday program while showing starved and disease-stricken African children. Are there any children who need such kind of help in Asia? Will there be a ?yelllow nose day or ?brown nose days for Asian kids?

How I use the Internet

Visiting google news links, I click the interesting news on well known media like telegraph, daily mails and independent. I don't go if it is not familiar, those known to be slow (I normally close the window in its half way of great effort to open its rubbish content) , those mcafee site advisor showing not green and those with pop up windows.

BBC is the one I visit at least once a month while I check things on Amazon every week. I don't use ebay anymore although it was essential around 2005. Now gumtree has replaced eBay in most community. I go to Facebook about average fortnightly. Firefox has got Twitter extension. It is pretty useful as a twitter user.

I have been with Firefox for such a long time after experiencing IE stopped working on its mother microsoft operation system, Window XP and Vista. Sometime I suspect that what kind of thugs have been wrongly employed in Microsoft, resulting in this IE not going OK in some occasions on its own operation system, Windows. According to old Japanese tradition, responsible person normally go suicide. But weak people may quickly resign and go holiday instead :)

This is the example of my Browser.

Time line after application for naturalisation

This is just a quick post, sharing time line for British citizenship application. If you are interested in UK permanent residency (Indefinite Leave to remain in the UK) and other immigration matters, you may ask in this forum.

Here are some examples of time line.

NCS or Postal : NCS Sandwell, West Midlands
Date of submission or posting : 9th October 2008
CRITERIA : 5 yr stay (4 + 1 yr ILR)
Date of receipt of acknowledgment :
Date of Debit (via credit card ) : 20th October 2008
Date of receipt of approval : Arrived 15/01/2009 (Dated : 08/01/2009)
Date of Ceremony : Booked for 18/02/2009
Date of appln. for passport :
Method used :
Date of Interview :
Date of Receipt :

NCS or Postal: NCS Bracknell
Date of submission or posting: 31 Dec 2008
CRITERIA: 3 years (British Citizen's Spouse)
Date of receipt of App @ HO: 3 Jan 2009
Date of debit of debit/credit card: 31 Dec 2008 (paid by credit card at NCS office)
Date of receipt of acknowledgement: 9 Jan 2009
Date of receipt of approval: 10 Feb 2009 (letter dated 4 Feb 2009
Invitation Letter: Called Council for Private Ceremony w/c 16 Feb 2009
Date of Ceremony: w/c 16 Feb 2009
Date of appln. for passport: N/A
Method used: N/A

NCS or Postal : NCS @ Lanark, Scotland
Date of submission or posting : 2nd October 2008
CRITERIA : 5 yr stay (with 1 yr ILR)
Date of receipt of acknowledgment : Dated 16th October 2008
Date of Debit (via credit card ): Around 15th October 2008
Date of receipt of approval : 10th January 2009 (dated 29th December 2008)
Date of Ceremony : 28 January 2009
Date of appln. for passport : 28 January 2009
Method used: Check and Send (Post Office)
Documents returned: 5 February 2009
Interview request letter: 5 February 2009
Interview date: 6 February 2009
Date of Receipt of passport: 13 February 2009

Source:

If you don't understand above, you may drop a message. I will be happy to explain.

Came back from Rome

Lately, I went holiday in Rome. It was just over 2 hours flight from London Stansted to Rome's small airport, Ciampino. (Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport is the largest one). And then, I took the shuttle bus from airport to Termini station, which is situated at the centre of Rome. I booked hotel near it.


Roma Termini, main rail station in Rome


Fiume Tevere (River Tiber)


Colosseo


Vatican square, next to Vatacan city


Pizza € 11, Red wine € 18 : Tourist area price

During my stay, I did site-seeing, shopping and enjoyed Italian foods. People are friendly. Not like in Paris, they answered in English, which is nice for me.But I think they smoke too much. Everywhere outside the buildings, they were smoking. Some people smoked inside public places like Termini station and at airport toilet. I know Londoners also smoke, but too much in Rome.


My new cap bought from Ferrari shop in Rome (€ 30)



A view from a famous church

One strange thing is graffiti works are everywhere across the city, which is tasteless to me. In London, we may see it along the suburb rail line. I suspect they officially allow to do so, but not sure.


Lovely flowering plants and ugly graffiti, which are normal for buildings in Rome


Graffiti place in Main rail station for public


A municipal police (For different types of police, see here)


A tram

I noticed that many orientals are running fashion and jewellery shops in Rome while they are mainly doing Chinese take-away shops in London. I saw a small number of Indians and Afro-Caribbean origin people.

Basically Rome is much less crowded and much less traffic congestion than London. Many people are using scooters like Honda Supercub popular in Burma. But here much bigger and more powerful, I think.

I can say the overall trip was nice and smooth except in last hours. The flight time was 22:30. So we tried to leave Termini station at 19:00 for airport, giving an extra one hour for shuttle bus which run a direct route between Termini staion and airport. But it did not appear until 25 minute past time-table time. So I had to run and get the rail ticket for the Ciampino airport's nearest rail station, from which a bus took me 20 minutes to get to airport. I was pleased as time was quite young.

But I leant that there would be 1 hour delayed flight. I did not care. Fine for me. Just need to sleep when I arrived in London.

One hour later, it was announced that flight "cancelled". All passengers ran to rebook ticket again. The next available flight was 10:30AM next morning.Time had been early hours of morning. So I decided to stay at airport. I slept on the floor like other passengers.

The plane landed East Midland airport at mid day. I had to go to Derby by bus, from where I took train to London Stansted airport. It took 3 and half hours, costing me £42 (my budget flight return ticket to Rome was only £40) . Finally I arrived in London Stansted at 6PM , where I left my car at long stay parking.

Added 18/2/09: Travel insurance would be a partial remedy. Better to buy one when we go holiday.


Here is the full set of photos:

• in thumbnails
• in slide show

........

European clouds

A few weeks ago, Ma KOM published some cloud photos. So I just try to follow her way. Well, today I came back from Roma which is a fantastic place. The following photos are what I took during my Rome holiday. Later I will share more photos.

Until end of November 2008, my plan for this holiday was to go to east. But I had to change for some reason. Anyway I had a good time in Italy.


Cloud over Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II


Cloud over Fiume Tevere (River Tiber) in Roma


I was just over the cloud in Italy


Mediterranean cloud


France cloud (above Paris)


British cloud (above London)


Icy Alps mountains


Part of Alps and Mediterranean