pedestrianizing torggata
I am often passing by Torggata, so I was pleased to see that they are making the street more pedestrian and bike-friendly! Sort of like what they did with New York’s Time Square, they’ve started painting the road itself–but in this case with green spots:
how Ai Weiwei got his name
well, this is according to Wikipedia, but it’s cool if true: Ai Weiwei’s father was a famous Chinese poet called Aì Qīng (艾青). But that wasn’t his real name; his original name was Jiang Zhenghan (蒋正涵), styled Jiang Haicheng (蒋海澄)–in addition to his numerous pen names. Anyway, this poet was tortured and imprisoned in 1932 for opposing the Kuomintang (KMT) party. While … Read More
exciting natural whale meat!
this weekend I passed by this tent in Aker Brygge, and the signs out front caught my eye: Okay, specifically I was intrigued by “whale wok” (wok is the term in Norwegian for stir-fry) and “whale kebab”. I went in to see if I could find the kebabs, but this is the closest I found: You can’t tell from the … Read More
hobby chocolate
break time! I needed a snack, so I thought I’d try something new–and what better than a retro-looking chocolate bar? oh the excitement… too bad it’s kinda gross. Chocolate covered fake-banana flavoured thing on a layer of marshmallow. ew…
17. mai
Norway’s national holiday… is not really a holiday. At 8:00 in the morning, I woke up hearing a band playing the national anthem?! so I looked out the window: the school across the street was full of dressed-up students and their parents (and a marching band), and they were already making their way out to the day’s main attraction–barnetoget. Basically … Read More
fake tv
latest cool thing at the gadget store: FakeTV simulates the light of a real HDTV television. From outside the house, it looks like someone is home watching TV and the burglar is encouraged to pick an easier target.
persian sweet lemons
couldn’t help but notice a large pile of “iranian sweet lemons” outside a middle eastern store today (strangely they were all individually wrapped in little plastic bags), so I bought one to try at home. unlike a lemon, there is no acidity at all (even less than in an orange)… and it’s not very sweet, but rather delicate tasting. refreshing!
ski vm, part 2
just to prove my point about two-year-old skiers, less than 10 minutes after writing my last post I found a little promotional ski area set up by telenor outside the Nobel peace centre: they even set up a little hill (to mimic a ski-jump?)–and all the kids were lining up to try it: I then spent part of the afternoon … Read More
ski vm 2011
today is the last day of what is probably the event of the year in Oslo: the Nordic World Ski Championships. the mania on the streets is only understandable once you know that most Norwegians begin cross-country skiing at the age of 2 (and I’m not exaggerating here). only because Norwegians talk about it all the time did I discover … Read More
taste of krakow
food findings from a short but sweet visit to Krakow: ok, it wasn’t *really* cake in a can, but only the filling (to my disappointment–sort of like discovering poutine in a can is actually only the sauce). this time it was definitely lard on bread. not too bad, but I should have added some salt. I later found a bottled … Read More