Kajaking 2006

Last summer was less hot, less people, less moment of crazy laughters, shorter time to arrival point.

This summer has been very hot, lot of people, lots of laughters, new faces, and longer time to arrival point. Almost everyone has experienced the fiber glass itching on arms and legs due to lifting boats to get the water out. It was fun, but at the end everybody was pretty tired (hey, paddling 21 km is something!!).

...and some people made their perfect descent

The waterfall ;-)...

Ben Sofia Ruben

Mia and Tom

Ben, stop peeing in the boat!!!

Fox's arrival to lunch break spot

His boat almost sank because of the water, and apparently it had turned upside down. At this moment, he had only one shoe ;-)

With Sofia

The love of the year ;-)

Ruben's way of thinking ;-)

Domestic violent ;-)

...and cherry tomatoes

The zuccini

BD of uncle

Saturday lunch with sister n uncle ;-)

Rice porridge

The last time I ate rice porridge was in HK, having dimsum with Fox. Anyway, last Tuesday wanted so much to have porridge, so I made it...MMM

Cherry season

In all the fruits that are available here, I like cherry most. They are so good ;-)

Gong vegetable salad

Indian dinner ;-)

Chana masala
Chicken tandoori
Raida cucumber and mint

Served with naan (Indian breads)

In Indian cuisine, they used a lot of spices such as cumin, red chilli, tamarind, coriander seeds...etc, especially the garam masala, which is a mix of everything, and is used in most dishes, cold or hot although an excess in quantity will over-power the dishes.

BTW, they also eat a lot of onions, fresh ones...

Make sure you have a lot of gums with you to recover from bad breath afterwards ;-)

Union of south and North Belgium feast

Last Sunday in Grand Place there was a festival, where people dressed up in old tradition clothes, and they went back to history to celebrate everything related to their ancestors' life, such as culture, farming...etc. Especially, Belgium is a country that has three goverments, Flemish, Wallon, and a small German community, but the Flemish and Wallon are the strong and main community. This event helps people to show the different lifestyle in the north and south parts.

I think only with this sort of event, you at least have a small touch with the host country where you live, know how the people are..There were a lot of tourists plus the weather was superb, it was an immense success.

...The craziest thing happens to me...;-)

Just received a mail from Aunty Vinh asking me to participate an event organised by Vnese commitee in Paris, called "Miss Vietnam Global". It is Miss Vietnam 2006 in US, organised in Las Vegas, so I guess there are a lot of Vnese girls all over the world, participating. Obviously, there are none from Belgium so far, and the organizer has asked aunty Vinh to select one for them from Belgium.

One of the primary conditions is the girl has to be at least 1.63 meters tall, but has to send them a couple of pictures or something now, and the application form (which asks for their body's measurement, educations, languages...). They will pay for airplane tickets and accomodations, and here are the prizes:

"Miss Vietnam Global 2006 - $50,000 cash and gifts: Miss Vietnam Global 2006 will receive $20,000 by the end of the pageant, $15,000 six months after the pageant date, and $15,000 on the Miss Vietnam Global 2007 pageant or in August 2007 (whichever comes first.)
1st Runner Up - $10,000 cash and gifts: The 1st Runner Up of Miss Vietnam Global 2006 will receive $7,000 by the end of the pageant and $3,000 on the Miss Vietnam Global 2007 pageant or in August 2007 (whichever comes first.)
2nd Runner Up - $5000 cash and gifts: The 2nd Runner Up will receive the full prize by the end of the pageant.
3rd Runner Up - $2,000 cash and gifts: The 3rd Runner Up will receive the full prize by the end of the pageant.
Miss Congeniality - $1,000 cash and gifts: Miss Congeniality will receive the full prize by the end of the pageant.
Miss Ao Dai - $1,000 cash and gifts: Miss Ao Dai will receive the full prize by the end of the pageant.
Miss Photogenic - $1,000 cash and gifts: Miss Photogenic will receive the full prize by the end of the pageant."

Man, if only I am a bit younger ;-)

Should we be tolerant?

Recently, a big controversy about another case of two young girls who were raped and killed in Belgium. When they had not found their bodies, I still felt ok, maybe there was somewhere a hope of them stayed alive...

Last week, they found the girls's bodies. I feel so upset, how could one be able to do something like that? There is one thing is good is that at least the Belgium's government really took it serious, that is to say a human life is important here. Certainly, people here have not heard all. In VN, there are a cases of murders that sound even crazier, like a nephew killed his grandmother for a sum of money (about 10Eur) or a woman without mercy threw her husband's daughter into the river just because she is jealous (to be honest, they should punish the husband for divorcing his wife and bringing home a prostitute)...Vn is still poor, and the number of youngers who are addicted to drugs are endless, and when you are high, you probably don't know what you are doing...For me, these are tragedies in life rather than a conscious crime, that demonstrate that we can't lose our animal traits.

Raping an under-age girl in VN costs 20 years in prison, and if the girl dies, they will get a dead penalty, no discussions. But dead penalty, I doubt if it really works, does it really help to keep the level of crimes down? I was in favour of dead penalty, I think people who are capable of commiting a heartless crime should receive a highest punishment, and putting them into prison is not enough. But the pusnishment has to be effective, has to make a murderer considers twice before deciding taking other people's life, and dead penalty does not seem to work (at least in VN it does not). Raping an eight years old girl, and then killed her, it broke my heart. I can't beleive that for so long we have existed, some of us are just sick, and cruel. They deserve to die several times. I also find myself not to want to give a punishment that creates too much pain or torturing people either, it is not in our power to do so. Maybe we should just let destiny to decide the fate of human race, we don't last very long, I guess.

Two old leaders of VN have resigned to hand over their power to their younger fellows. The new PM of VN is not someone whom I hope does not stay very long. Although both of them are from South of VN, and even though they are those who are in favour of democratic economy, I think VN will go down faster in the hands of those people. He has said to fight corruption, but he has proposed to not punish the minister of transportation who spent foreign aids on bettting in football (we are talking about millions of dollars), he just asked them to resign. That pisses a lot of people off. VN is governed by police force, most of people who hold important position are originally from police, and that is a negative sign.

Anyway, my country is a never ending story...

Lebanese foods

I found this pretty cool Lebanese snack place, where they serve a lot of different Mezze dishes, cold and hot.

The restaurant is next to it, but we did not feel like sitting inside, so the snack of the restaurant was definitely a good choice. A good place to hang out eating when the weather is good, and affordable.

Snack and Restaurant: Mont Leban

And if you are interested in sisha, they do have it there, too.

Mika tired and lazy ;-)