Would you bite it?

It is amazing what people can do nowadays.
From now on maybe we can say almost everything is possible!
A farmer in China's northeastern Hebei province spent six years perfecting the process of growing Buddha-shaped pears.
He grows them inside moulds and sells them for approximately $7 (€4.80).

From: Reuters in Der Spiegel

A bit of statistics...

I found some statistics here in the Tagesanzeiger newspapers about curious statistics regarding the city of Zurich. Just for the fun of sharing, I paste here a part of it:

- the average zuricher eats 33 grams of chocolate per day – 12,3 kilos a year.
- the most common names are «Peter » and « Maria ». According to statistics, Peter and Maria cannot stand more than 10,5 years of marriage, after what they head to the attourney’s cabinet for a divorce (the swiss average is 14,5 years).
- the average zuricher lives in a 3-room flat, uses 285 liters of water and produces 267 kilos of trash a year. Most of them do not possess a car, and when they do, it is most likely to be either gray (26%) or black (20%).
- and last but not least: the Mayor’s Department reveals that Zurich snorts 39,000 rails of cocaine per day. For those who wonder, the habit can be revealed simply by analyzing the water from the city’s sewage system.

As the person who translated (Marina from glocals) this bit, I also wonder what would these statistics be for Geneva. Probably more chocolate eating and more cocaine, or not, because this city is a bit smaller than Zurich?...that is the question.

Source: http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/zuerich/stadt/Jeder-Zuercher-isst-123-Kilogramm-Schokolade-pro-Jahr/story/30684657

little trip to Italy in the weekend...

Life in Italy, read fast:

wake up but not so early, healthy and delicious breakfast, capuccino, go to work with scooter (the little motorcycle), horn, overtake a car on the right side, be horned, ciao bela!, horn to the girl on the street, stop to talk to the person on the scooter besides you and don't mind the kilometric car queue forming behind, get a slap on the face in front of everybody, speak loud, drink another capuccino in the bar with a 70-80 year-old who smokes without stop and discusses about the Milan football match, scooter, go home to have lunch with tree plates (small salty sticks with bread, bruscheta or salad or macaroni, rice and steak, tiramisu), a espresso per favore (just foreigners drink capuccino after lunch time), siesta, all shops closed including restaurants, nap, scooter, beep beep, all shops open, speak gesticulating a lot, ma que cosa!, another espresso, end of work time, small jam to get home or happy hour, sit on the bar with friends, speak loud, talk about the boss, lots of people walking and talking about the "bastardo and poor Mike Bongiorno" on the streets of their towns while eating an ice cream, kids running and explaining about their days, go home, dinner with a chianti or a grapa, maybe a espresso?, sleep to restart all again tomorrow with the bless of God.

This is how fast, happy and full of life is the life in Italy, it is amazing, just who has been there understands it...

bruscheta?
need explanation?

And this one?Already hungry?

capuccino or...

Espresso? small but so strong....

Geneva x Havana x cigar x cigarette x no smoker

While the smoke is malign for us and that Geneva will vote on September 27th on the banning of smoking in public places, an association is organizing the 1st World Cigar Night, right before the eve of the election. Daniel Ceszkowski, president of Geneva Cigars, however, claims: "We do not celebrate the end of the world, but early recognition. Recognition of Geneva as the capital of the cigar. Because it is not known - fairly or not - is that besides banks, watchmakers, the ICRC or the UN, Geneva is also the world capital of the cigar, after Havana. It is indeed the most important place of international trading in this sector. "

This association wants commercial recognition, but not only. For Charly Schwarz, secretary of the Geneva Association of Cigars "they also wish to establish Geneva as a city of epicurean pleasure.They also wish to send a strong signal to the authorities who do not know how to improve the image of Geneva, I don't really understand how....

Smoke for pleasure, "The cigar is also linked to the sustainable development of the personality," dares Daniel Ceszkowski. "Smoking is the stress and the cult of performance, all of which belong to a modern old-fashioned. The cigar, it is an element involved in sustainable development. Because it takes time. You do not smoke a cigar at the foot of your office building during the break between 10 am and 10:05. Instead, you expect to have time for you and time for others. "

For the president of Geneva Cigars in effect, "the cigar provokes discussion and enriching friendship by what he creates. Taste, shapes, brands, personal preferences and changing current smoking permit, when sharing, to better understand each other, become more intimate, without being aggressive. "

The association claims that "unlike cigarettes, cigars do not constitute a public health problem because it remains the realm of complete pleasure, without the manic side-compulsive who knocks on cigarette smoking." They also say that it creates social ties in a society desperate to find. In addition, we are here in the land in the craft and not in the industry. Another value that is dear to us because it is endangered. "

What about luxury?
I always associate cigar with luxury, in the interview the secretary of the association says that "The cigar is a pleasure eminently democratic, contrary to what one might think at first." He explains : "Look. It is the only luxury item that you can buy the part with your money daily. Try to do the same with a Ferrari, a Vuitton bag, a yacht or an apartment overlooking the water jet. It is also the only luxury product that is produced entirely in the Third World. "

Even after resuming this interview I still don't like any kind of smoke, all of them are harmful for our beautiful lungs.

This month there will be a voting for a law against smoking on public places. People against the law says that it is a type of dictature, and that this is the type of law that separates the people into two. Also, they claim that it is very bad for the sick people in the hospital because they won't be allowed anymore to smoke in their room, forcing them to leave the hospital in wheelchairs or with their infusions in order to smoke. Why can't the build a smoking room like the ones in some of the train stations or airports? If it is already difficult to convince people that smoking is harmful for everybody but I also don't want to keep being a passive smoker everywhere in this city.

So, my dear reader, if you are a smoker, sorry, but this is my opinion.

How money can be useful...

Lots of people know that Switzerland is a country where lots of very rich people live. They spend their money in the best ways like 100 000CHF watches, VERY expensive cars, flats, dressing items.

But this video shows something I haven't seen yet.
The Alinghi 5 yacht is transported from its home port of Geneva, Switzerland to Geno (I know it as Genova), Italy for sea trials in preparation for the 2009 America's Cup race. The helicopter, Russian Mi-26, flew a distance of 300 kilometers (186 miles), where the 90 foot, two tonne catamaran was carried, crossing the Alps in the process. Of course, this is about sports, and when it is about it, no money can be spared since there is a lot of marketing involved not to mention that it is healthy!

I so much wish I could had been wrapped or attached somehow to the boat just to enjoy the view!

Pumpkin soup!

Maybe I start to think about this because it is near lunch time. But picture this: a velvet pumpkin soup warm and salty (some people just can think about pumpkin as a sweet food, not Brazilians), add to the top of it some freshly broken pepper and some pieces of roquefort cheese which will melt and add a fantastic taste to the soup

This is what I would think about all the time when visiting this exhibition in Ludwigsburg, South Germany, the world's biggest pumpkin exhibition. In its eighth year, the show features 500,000 pumpkins, spanning 450 different varieties. The fruits are modelled into famous fairytale scenes.

Meanwhile, a pumpkin restaurant lures visitors to indulge in culinary delights ranging from pumpkin and pecan pie to pumpkin wine and pumpkin soup. For sure the last place mentioned is where you would find me.

Finally in Switzerland!

But what a pity that so far from Geneva.

From November 11th the controversial exhibition showing the amazing job of Gunther von Hagens will be exposed in Zürich (if it doens't find any impairment until there!). Called " the world of bodies and the cycles of life", these exhibits, first showed in Tokyo in 1995, always raise all types of moral and ethical questions.

It is a fact that his lookout is already impressing. His lack of tanning and the constant presence of his black hat induces us to think about something cadaverous. When he was still a young boy and living in the rough times of East Germany, he received the diagnostic of a rare blood disease which didn't allow him to play like other kids and made him spend lots of time inside hospitals. In his teenager years he passed his free time dissecting cow hearts in his relative farm.

Dr. von Hagens and his art, I really admire him!

After he grew up, Dr. Von Hagens has been doubly condemned for exploiting the dead and for sourcing cadavers and body parts from Russia and China, with members of Falun Gong alleging he uses the remains of executed political prisoners. Dr. Von Hagens, who was jailed by the former East German regime for political dissent, appears to have at best a cavalier attitude to the ethics of body-part procurement.

Still, the controversy has been great for business. His travelling exhibition of "plastinated" cadavers and organs has attracted almost 10 million paying customers in Japan, Germany, Austria, England and Hungary.

He invented this technique on the late 70s, he uses real human bodies that have been preserved
so they do not decay. First preserved according to standard mortuary science, the specimen is then dissected to show whatever it is that someone wants to display. Once dissected, the specimen is immersed in acetone, which eliminates all body water. It is then placed in a large bath of silicone, or polymer, and sealed in a vacuum chamber. Under vacuum, acetone leaves the body in the form of gas and the polymer replaces it, entering each cell and body tissue.
A catalyst is then applied to the specimen, hardening it and completing the process.
This method of preservation creates a specimen that will not rot.

This offers thousands of unique teaching possibilities for educators at all levels, including medical professionals, archeologists and other scientists.

Using lasers and a meat carver, he has gone on to perfectly cross-section his plastinated people. One of the 'dolls' presented in the exhibition is an entire cross-sectioned human body, from head to toe. It is just beautiful to see how we are inside. One part of the exhibition has a note before its door warning people it might be rude for some and this is also the reason why many times the exhibition was canceled: human fetuses in different stages of development are presented form the first days of life till close to birth and a baby yet in the mother's womb.

In Paris, the exhibition was interdicted with the critics that "the organs these bodies contain should have been used to save a life" or that is body commercialization without permission. Generally they use bodies from prisoners condemned to death in China. If you pay attention to the eyes of the pieces when visiting, you can see their Asiatic origin.

A big piece, a horse and its rider.

Do you smoke? In dark you can see the color of your lungs. A normal one has very light color and is very healthy.

Personally, I really enjoyed the exhibition in Budapest and I think it makes you think about ourselves, the person close to you, about our life and what is gonna be after it is over. Also I heard it makes people think that when someone makes an animal suffer it is the same as making a person suffer because we are not so much different after all.

It is really worth seeing it, if you have the nerves and the money of course (I think it will cost about 25-40 francs)!

source: http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/
www.bodyworlds.com